AUGUST 6, 2000

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LIONs GATE PROogECE UPDATE

‘To pres ime bodavy ne bridee closures had been
announced. Weeknight lane closures continue 10
pem. to @aam For further updates on badye con:
struction call 473° 1500.

NEWS photo Paul McGrath

IAN Newby recently purchased the ship’s crest of the Cape Breton. The retired major and
Horseshoe Bay resident says the ship could pay for itself as a film industry prop.

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FREE

HMCS Cape Breton last of it kind

Marcie Good
Contributing Writer

IF Horseshoe Bay resident fan .tewby could have his
way, he’d turn the HMCS Cape Breton into a screen
Star.

Instead, the last of Canada’s Park class ships — representing the innovation
of the wartime shipbuilding industry and Canada’s contribution to the war effort
— is being readied for duty as an artificial reef dive site by the Artificial Reef

wiety of British Columbia.

On a tour of bis Muscum of the Armed Forces in Aldergrove, Newby points
outa jeep which Sylvester Stallone drove in Rasdba: First Blood, another that fea-
tured in the , and a hearse in the film Rosco Must I

The $18,000 coffin inside, he jokes, will be hi

But the president of International Movie Services — he supplies the movie
industry with all kinds of military vehicles, equipment, uniforms, and with advice
on how to show it accurately, — insists that he has plenty to do before he sees
the inside of it.

Since he finished a career with the Canadian military — he retired in 1987, a
major in the Royal Canadian Artillery — Newby has used show business to
indulge his passion tor Canadian history. He has saved from the scrap heap
approsimat 100 truck, jeeps and tanks. Some of them are care examples of

{a°s contribution to various wars, But what really gets him worked up right
now is the fite of the Cape Breton, presently docked on the North Vancouver
waterfront. “Pin at the point that Pm going to do a Greenpeace and chain
myself to the anchor,” he said.

Several proposals for the ship had fallen through before the Artificial Reef
Society of B.C. bought the ship from the Defence Department. In 1996, a
group of merchant marine veterans looked to an American Liberty ship, the
Jeremiah O’Brien, as an example of what could be done with the Cape Breton,
The U.S. ship, which has an identical engine and a similar design, was restored
by volunteers in 1979 and now

Ata 1997 conference of the Organi ums of Canada, a
group to which Newby belongs, members voted to make an effort to try and
preserve the Cape Bretow, At the time, the Canadian and Commonwealth
Shipping Heritage Association had applied to buy the ship and sail it around the
world, training people in developing countries to use the machine shop on
buard. While the idea was a noble one, it would have required federal money.

Newby points to the John Brown, another American Liberty ship currently
being used in the Toronto filming of the CBS mini-series Haven. He is supply-
ing 336 uniforms for Second World War American and German soldiers. [f
Vancouver had a similar ships, it could attract “millions and millions” of dollars
to the local film industry.

“Look what the Americans do with their ships,” he said. “They have three,
(including the Lane Victory) and we caiv't even save one.”

By the next time he inquired about the Cape Breton, it bad been sold to the
Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia for $20,000. The group plans to sink
the ship next year for divers to explore.

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