6.3.12b

c1906-1908 or 1918 -- Gravel Operation on Sechelt's Trail Bay Beach

Champion and White tugs and gravel crews removed gravel from the beach in front of Bert Whitaker's DL 303. This firm operated the tugs S.S. Hilda, S.S. Alice etc. at Sechelt. Note Holy Joe's rock at Selma Park in the background.

1. In November 1906 Whitaker's Books carried accounts with both Sechelt Gravel Gang and Champion and White.

2. In September 1908 the Sechelt Trading Company billed Champion and White for water and wharfage for Captain Balkwell of S.S. Hilda. The Sechelt Hotel bar rendered charges for bottle and drinks and lime juice to the Gravel Gang, while the store charged them for meat, bread, rolled oats, eggs, soap, comb etc.

3. Norman Burley said that during WW1 in 1918 Bert Whitaker sold gravel from the beach in front of his house. During the war gravel was also taken from Bingham's Beach and Sechelt Reserve #2 Beach. So much gravel was removed from in front Whitaker's `Beach House' that the water pipes in front of the house were left hanging and Bert Whitaker had to get busy and bulwark in front of his house. The workers were said to be Chinese .

4. Ada Dawe remembered the last time she saw gravel removed from the beach because she knew and spoke to the Master of the tug `Candian' who was doing the work. The late Norman Burley said he sat all day long one summer and watched the gravel with some sand removed from Bert Whitaker's beach on Trail Bay. This was during WW1 probably between 1917 and 1919. Norman said he worked for Whitaker in both 1918 and 1919 and that Whitaker would never have allowed him to spend hours watching the Chinese remove the gravel.

Some men worked at filling wheelbarrows while another gang did the wheeling. There were two planks from the beach to the scow. The men wheeled the barrows up one plank and down the other. When the Chinese crews grew tired they changed jobs i.e. barrow fillers took a turn wheeling barrows'. Helen Dawe's notes

Photographer unknown