Last night I watched a movie called The Shipping News. Ok, aside from the wierdness of the movie, I was kind of amazed at how that house was held in place. They used steal cables on all four exterior corners much like one would tie-down a circus tent. Is this a common example of how they held down coastal buildings where the wind blew strongly and continuously?
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Sometimes they use steel chains instead of cables. Check out the buildings atop Mount Washington.
Nuke,
I really enjoyed that film.
My mother's former next-door neighbour (he's been dead for a few years) spent his summers as a child in a house held down by wires on the coast of Labrador. When the wind was up, they also had to install diagonal bracing logs inside the house, across a couple of the rooms.
Wasn't the paint job inside the house set simply amazing?
The city scenes were largely filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Much of the rest was filmed in Newfoundland.
Ron
This is for real.
There are houses along the Maine coast held down by cables or chains.
Really not much in the way of other alternatives. Houses were often set on solid ledge, so they were built on posts.
Once concrete came along, you could blast out to pour a real foundation, and anchor the house to that, but of course this was still more expensive.
I liked that wierd movie. The whole thing with the ashes still cracks me up.
My favorite line from the movie: "This is a picture of your grandfather. He was lost at sea when he was twelve."
great movie and great book and so is Brokeback mountian based on a short story she wrote in a book of short stories about Wyoming...called Close Range...She's a strong, bold writer.;
gutsy. check her out. Labrador is the mainland part of the province of NewFoundland.
I've been there 3 times on complete wilderness canoe trips and it is, wild.. New Foundland is the size of New England with a population of 30,000 and they all live in 3 towns, more of less./ I"m going up for another trip this summer... interested, let me know. hard to get people to go. anyway... cool book, cool place. cool cables.
Poet,
Labrador is my home, though I now live in Nova Scotia.
Where have you travelled in the country?
I've done some cruising inland myself. Maybe our paths have crossed.
Ron
Ron,
I three times I've taken the train from Sept-Isles (Seven Islands, Quebec, North shore) to about 15 miles south of Schefferville where I get off the train with the canoes and head off west into the chains of ponds and rivers.... it's fantastic... no evidence anyone has ever been there....once you leave the rail line at the dam at Menihek. the hills are above tree line... tundra... and wow... going again this August probably and looking for companions... 2 weeks of canoeing,,, up from Menihek and down the McPhaden River to the train...
Poet with Hammer
I have always wanted to get into that part of the country.
Even more, there's an area (in Quebec) just north of Labrador City which looks like a gridwork of water on the map. It goes for miles and miles and parts of it extend nearly to the headwaters of the McPhadden river. Part of the gridwork area drains down the Pekans R, which crosses the road near Fermont.
I have travelled a bit around Labrador City, but I have spent more time further east. I have been aching to get back to the Cache River. It crosses the road to HV-GB about a third of the way from Churchill falls. From the bridge, you see half a mile of rock garden, but from about three miles up, the watershed is completely beautiful.
Ron
Novia Scotia seems like kind of paridisial.
Saw Sir Paul and his annoying wife grilling the Premier of Newfoundland last nite about the seal hunt. Once dated a girl from Goose Bay/Happy Valley.
TGNY,
Who?
I have had family living near there for going on 200 years and, because one of my grandfathers was one of 22 children, I have a lot of relations.
Ron
Last name was Fralic. Her father was in the Air Force so she may not have been born there, in fact now I'm thinking they might have been from Nova Scotia. Anyways it was 25 years ago.
http://www.newfoundlandandlabradortourism.com/general_info.zap
. New Foundland is the size of New England with a population of 30,000 and they all live in 3 towns, more of less./ . New Foundland is the size of New England with a population of 30,000 and they all live in 3 towns, more of less./
Sorry Poet...You are a little off on your numbers:
Population of Newfoundland and Labrador:The population of Labrador is 27,105.The population of the whole province is 515,591.
St. John's is the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador. The City's population is 99,182, while the metro area population is about 182,485. It is more like a quarter of a million now...and growing growing growing.........More pubs per capita tren anywhere in the world...
I lived 12 miles from St John's for 7 years. worked there 3 yrs ago.Best people anywhere.........
View Image
Other towns:
Corner Brook: 20,103Labrador City: 7,744Grand Falls-Windsor: 13,340Stephenville: 7,109Gander: 9,651Mount Pearl: 24,964Happy Valley-Goose Bay: 7,969Conception Bay South: 19,772Bay Roberts: 5,237Carbonear: 4,759Channel-Port aux Basques: 4,637Deer Lake: 4,769Marystown: 5,908Paradise: 9,598Placentia: 4,426Portugal Cove-St. Phillps: 5,866Torbay: 5,474
Peace
Edited 3/5/2006 7:23 am by Newf
My wife and I have a summer home just a few miles away from where most of The Shipping News was filmed in Newfoundland. In fact, our 1880 era home looks a lot like the house in the movie. Sorry, but I've never seen steel cables used to hold down a house in Nfld as portrayed in the film. I won't say it never happened but it's certainly not common.
ChipTam
Funny thing about my house..Its quite the opposite. Has steel cables wrapped around the whole house in four sections to keep the house together. No wonder no one ever bought it and it stayed vacant for two years till I came along.
If Blodgett says Tipi Tipi Tipi, it must be so!
An interesting sidenote on that house is that it was actually built in a warehouse in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and then dissassembled and sent to Newfoundland in three semitrailers.
I was just talking to my head carp who was a lead on the project about this thread about the cables and he had a great laugh about them not being very common.
On a hill by the harbour