Wakefield spring history

Well it took a while, but I had fun putting this together and thanks to Phil and Alise, I rose to the occasion to finish it in time for inclusion with the Low Down's running of the final SOS campaign to try to ... wake up people people who rely, and love the spring. We need to work together to stop the kind of environmental onslaught on our village and especially our spring - which continues to this moment. The Couillard bastards have now bought the quarry from my slippery friend Albert, and continue to dig down til rock bottom, or until the aquifer for the spring is proven and destroyed at the same time. Apart from ex-Senator Lavigne, I haven't seen such a blatant disregard for the environment as this. This same company who was reported in the news recently to have dumped over 500 litres of hazardous liquid wastes into a river, is deciding the fate of Wakefield's water supply. I find this unbelievable! Phil says the price of living in Wakefield is eternal vigilence, he may be right!On a lighter note...
  

The History of the Wakefield Spring

The present day Wakefield spring was originally part of the Jack Brown Farm that was sold in 1925 to James Marshall Brown (P. Cohen). No one really knows when people started drinking the spring water, but Irma McGarry Nesbitt remembers “cattle regularly coming down from the McClinton farm to drink from water bubbling out from the hill” (1920s).

In the early 1940’s this bubbling water was embedded into a simple wooden box that served to water Marshall Brown’s cattle.  When Marshall began working at the Farm Point Alcan plant after the war, he met George Walsh who was the Mechanical Superintendent at the “Wakefield Works” plant. Seems the workers were not happy with the chlorinated taste of the drinking water and staged a protest when someone discovered a dead animal in the grates of the water intake line to the plant.

Marshall and George hatched a brilliant plan to use the Wakefield spring for the plant.  According to his son, Bob Walsh, George had plant employees install a 40 foot long Galvanised 3 inch diameter pipe with a steel brace at the end. The pipes were welded and initialed by Lyle Doherty and the wooden bucket was upgraded to a hose for easier filling.

George was assigned to collect water for its 70+ employees and an Alcan truck would often be seen stopped at the spring collecting water.  When Hans Geggie’s popular hand crank well became in-door plumbing, the community came to rely more on the Marshall Brown “spring-in-a-box”. Wakefield Councillor Ray Daly and Jack McGarry even proposed that the spring be piped to nearby houses but were promptly turned down by Council.

Some said it was lucky the spring was not covered up and diverted by the first improvement of the narrow “Side street” dirt trail in 1944 or when it was paved between 1945 and 1952. According to his wife Shirley Shoudice, “Lorne raised proper hell” when he discovered that the paving of Valley Drive in 1986 would result in the loss of the Wakefield Spring. “There is no way we are going to let this happen,” she remembers Lorne saying.  

Highway workers were supplied with materials needed to divert the water and install the pipes at the spring’s current location. The water flow even became stronger afterwards.

When Anita Rutledge suggested a plaque be erected to honour Lorne in 2004, an extensive renovation of the site was championed by Bill Gonzales. On September 9, 2005, a plaque was placed at the spring in Lorne’s honour and promptly stolen and appropriately, replaced soon after.  This echoes the resolve of Lorne that for any threat to the Wakefield spring “There is no way we are going to let this happen”.