Thursday 2 February 2012

NOVA COLUMBIA

THE LITTLE CAR THAT DIDN'T.

This vehicle set out from Nova Scotia in an attempt to cross Canada.

The mystery remains where it got to after passing Port Arthur - Fort William.

Nipigon photographer E.C. Everett took photos when it arrived in Nipigon.. This is one taken in 1931.

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Car shows the hubs of front and back wheels
 equiped to wind up the cable and lift the car up and forward
 from swampy ground. Photo is a fire survivor.
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McMannus is on the far side. Chas. Nelson is at back.
Another damaged photo.
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In 2002 a gentleman stopped by where our girls were inventorying the Nipigon Museum artefacts that had survived the fire of 1990. He had seen historic photos in the Husky Station on Highway 11/17 just outside town.  There on the wall was a photo of the Nova Columbia and he tracked us down.  He had been researching it and he sent us a letter later...

..."A gentleman in Nakina found some plaques in an old railway dump which were stamped:

MCLAUGHLAN ALL CANADA TRAIL
Blazed By
McLaughlan-Buick 1930

"I have newspaper clippings of the car making its way from Cochrane, Hearst, Nakina, Lake Nipigon, arriving in Nipigon May 15, 1931...arrived in Port Arthur on May 16, 1931...this is ll the information that we have been able to acquire on this event."


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