26 A Bricks and Mortar Business 1892

Today when you walk on Brickyard Beach on Gabriola Island in British Columbia, you stand on bricks that are more than 125 years old. They are all broken. The fact that any bricks are still there after all this time shows what good brick makers the Chinese were.

In 1892, people were building homes on Gabriola Island. This is a small island near Nanaimo, British Columbia. It is only 20 minutes by ferry from Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. It is about 110 kilometres west of Vancouver city. Many Canadians who were building homes at that time liked the look of bricks. When one company started a brick making business on Gabriola Island, Chinese people went to work there.

The Chinese started using bricks more than 5,000 years ago. They became experts. They taught people how to make bricks. A guide called Yingzao Fashi was printed in 1103 at the time of the Song dynasty. It told how to make good bricks. People in many countries followed these instructions to make strong bricks.

Bricks are made from clay and sand. Shale is clay that has become hard like a rock. Shale can also be used to make bricks. Gabriola Island had a lot of shale and because it is an island, it also had much sand. To make the bricks, shale and sand were dug out of the ground. Later, when the Chinese came to work there, TNT made from gunpowder was used to get the shale out of the ground faster. The shale and clay were then mixed together. Before the mixture could be made into bricks, all the rocks and shells had to be taken out. Next, the mixture was made into a powder.

This powder was mixed with water. It was put into a box made from wood called a mould. The sand in the powder mixture stopped the clay from sticking to the wood sides. Before they started making bricks on Gabriola, the clay was put into the mould by hand. The person who did this was called a moulder. A moulder would stand for 12—14 hours every day making bricks. A good moulder could make up to 5,000 bricks in one day. On Gabriola, the moulds were not made by hand. They were made using a machine.

CHINESE WORKERS HELPED MAKE UP TO 5,000 BRICKS EVERY DAY

When the moulds were full of clay, they were put in an oven to dry for two days. The hard, dry clay blocks were then moved into a bigger oven, called a kiln. The kiln heated the bricks until they were very hard and difficult to break. There was no electricity on Gabriola Island at that time, so the fire in the kiln had to be kept hot with coal. They burned coal that came from Nanaimo. When the bricks were very hot, water was put on the bricks to finish them and to make them cold enough to carry.

Each of these steps needed someone skilled to make sure it was completed correctly. The Chinese knew better than others how to do each of these things. They knew how to use gunpowder to get the clay out of the ground safely. They knew how to mix the clay and sand so it was wet enough, but not too wet. They knew how hot to make the kiln and when to pour water on the hot bricks.

Even so, the Chinese men who worked on Gabriola Island did not do the skilled jobs. They did the most physically difficult ones. They dug the clay. They used the TNT. They carried the coal to the kilns to keep the fires going. These Chinese men lived in very small wooden houses called shacks. They lived near Brickyard Beach. The Chinese men had their own cook who lived there. They also had a manager who could speak both the English and Chinese languages.

Once the bricks were made, men took them to the beach to be carried by boat to Nanaimo. The boats that carried the coal to Gabriola Island took the bricks back to Nanaimo. The heavy bricks were mostly put onto these boats by hand. Any bricks that broke were left on the beach. That is why there are many broken ones on Brickyard Beach today.

In 1920, there were very many people who wanted to buy bricks from Gabriola Island. Everyone said these bricks were made very strong. Some people would only use the red bricks from Gabriola Island to build with. They would not use any others because Gabriola Island bricks were best. The business was successful. It sold 3,578,600 bricks that year.

During the depression(see 1929),people did not have any money to build.The brick company lost a lot of business. The coal that was used to build fires in the kilns was almost all gone in Nanaimo. Chinese workers moved on to other places where they could find work or start their own businesses.

In the 1940s, people began to use cement instead of bricks to build with. Although Gabriola Island tried to continue to make bricks, the business was never very successful after that. In 1952, the brickyard completely stopped making bricks. It was cleared away from the beach in the 1960s. For a few years before that, people came to carry away the bricks they found on the beach to build things for free. Finally, only the broken bricks were left there.

The Chinese all left Gabriola Island, but not before the millions of bricks they made had helped to build homes all over Canada. Many Canadian fireplaces or the floors of outdoor rooms are also made from the bricks the Chinese helped to make. Today, some of Gabriola's homes are built from these beautiful, red bricks.