If you stand on Brickyard Beach on Gabriola Island and look straight ahead you can see Mudge Island or if you look down you can see the remains of millions of old bricks. Did someone dismantle an old brick house? How did so many bricks wind up on this beach?
Gabriola Island Museum is featuring an exhibit called More Than Just Clay and Mortar: The story of the Gabriola Brickyard which opens on May 19, 2012.
Blue and brown shale suitable for bricks were dug from the hillside just above Brickyard Beach. The quarry itself was about 125 feet long and 35 feet high. The shale was crushed and ground to a fine powder, then water was added before being passed through a chute to a hand operated press. After the bricks were formed they were dried in a drying kiln before being loaded into a firing kiln. There was no electricity on Gabriola Island, so all the machinery was hand operated and the kilns were coal fired.
Brick making was a labour intensive process and it was the main industry on Gabriola from 1900 to 1950.
Source of information: Gabriola’s Industrial Past: The Brickyard by Jenni Gehlbach
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