Residents of one Guysborough Co. community have taken up the unexpected fight to save a beloved rusty boiler half-submerged off their shore.
Rachel Langley of Drum Head says it’s all that’s left of the wreck of the SS Scotia, which caught fire and drifted until it ran aground on a small island just off the community 100 years ago.
Langley tells the Hawk it’s a piece of the area’s history.
“It’s not an abandoned boat, it’s not a derelict vessel- it’s a historical object, and I think it should be classified as one,” she says. “To us, it just seems like a whole bunch a waste of government money really- it’s not in any shipping lane, it’s not bothering anyone.”
Langley says the boiler is set to be hauled away as salvage after August; officials with the provincial government announced 14 abandoned vessels would be cleaned up through Transport Canada’s Abandoned Boats Program in February.
She says they don’t want that to happen, which is why she created a petition- and accompanying Facebook group- called “Save the Drum Head Boiler.”
“Every family in the community, there has been as least five generations that have been to that boiler that have played on the boiler, that have dove[sic] around the boiler, that camped on the island,” she says. “It’s a community treasure, really.”
Langley says the community has only 37 residents, but her petition has more than 330 signatures so far.
