Leif Birkedal

Interviewer: Marilyn Clayton (for the Britannia Heritage Shipyard Project)

Recorded at Queensborough Shipyard, 23740 Duke Rd., Richmond, B.C., October 3, 1991

(Project) Tape No. 116:1

FULL TRANSCRIPTION OF TAPE - NO RESTRICTIONS

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Short description of machinery transfer from Britannia Machine Shop 1979.

MC: Leif's telling me about the closing down of the shipyard and you're saying that you helped remove all the machinery.

LB: We took all the machinery and all the parts, packed the parts down in a tote box. John Robertson and myself and we had 6 guys from Paramount, and we packed everything down and took all the tools and shipped it up to Paramount, B.C. Packers place up there, and it was stored in a warehouse. But I don't know if it's there now. I know the steam box is in Namu, that went up to Namu. So, where the parts are now, where the parts, of course went into the parts department at Paramount but where the tools are. Yeah, I know where the lathe is, that's in the machine shop in Paramount.

MC: Is it?

LB: Yeah.

MC: Okay.

LB: And where the rest of the parts went I don't know.

MC: No.

LB: All the tools or anything like that, they was taken to Paramount and from there, I mean its hard to say where it is.

MC: Where it went. Okay, when you shipped, you say you shipped it out, did you ship it out by water?

LB: Yeah. We loaded it onto a barge. We had a big flat deck barge, you know, and used the crane that you see on the big deck and loaded everything onto the barge and then towed it up to Paramount and unloaded it up there.

MC: Did you operate that crane?

LB: Yeah. I didn't operate the crane when we are working there, there was, there was Harold Grahn that operated it but everybody was laid off and I was the only one left so I operated the crane, taking all the parts and tools out of there.

MC: Okay. So at the very end, Doris was still there?

LB: No, nobody was there.

MC: Oh, you were the very last person.

LB: Yeah, the only one that was left there was John Robertson and me and we took everything out. John took all the parts from the parts department and the stockroom and I took all the tools out and shipped them out.

MC: Okay. So do you know what date that would be approximately?

LB: Oh that was... I don't know when Harold died, I could find that out and I have to talk to Doris Grahn then, to find that out. But can you remember the date when BC Packers took over the Britannia? (Speaking to Rod Nelson) I think we were one year.

RN: Oh Jesus. How long you been here? You only worked one year then...

LB: '78 I think.

RN: You were working at Namu for one year weren't you?

LB: We come underneath Britannia, or the BC Packer, in 1978. So we worked in Britannia, under BC Packer, from '78 on. And in 1980 I think it was closed down but I don't know the date.

RN: Britannia?

LB: Yeah.

RN: Oh, I could find that out. I don't know what date it was either.

LB: So then I went down to Samson, I was in Samson two years, and then I came here.

RN: Oh were you?

LB: Yeah.

RN: Before you came here? I thought you were....

LB: Yeah, I was part, I was part in Samson and the last year in Namu. In 1980 I went in Samson and then they stopped the Samson in '81 and they took ten of us to Namu. Then it was Samson out again in '82, that was the last year. And then I come here. (to Queensborough Shipyard)

END OF INTERVIEW