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The Tunnel

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The entrance to the Tunnel
18 July 2007
Brigus, Newfoundland

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This is the place which has attracted thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of visitors over the past 147 years of its existence. It is approximately 80 feet long, 8 feet wide, an average of 8 feet in height and was in use until about 1910.

The hill above the Tunnel and the area immediately to the left of the Tunnel entrance are properties that were purchased from the Percey estate by the Bartletts about 1859. Abram Bartlett, realizing that his original beach property, known locally as "Oil Beach" at Riverhead, was too small and inconvenient, with water too shallow to handle his ships, sought room to expand at another site. The only place available in the then crowded harbour was property that had a twenty-foot high rocky ridge running along the water's edge. There they built their wharf. But to load and unload their vessels it was necessary to use hand-barrows or wheel-barrows to move the cargo over the ridge to the storehouse they had erected close by the other side. This was a back-breaking and time-consuming process, and to eliminate this problem Captain Bartlett engaged a Cornish miner named Josh Hoskins, who had earlier come out from England for work at the Tilt Cove mines, to undertake the then colossal task of blasting a tunnel.

Since the holes into which the blasting charges were placed had to be drilled by hand, a special forge was constructed near the site for keeping the drills sharpened. The only explosive used was black gunpowder and, after four months of strenuous labor, the job was completed. All this Hoskins accomplished in the summer of 1860 while the Bartletts were at Labrador. Now, horses and carts had access clear through the hill and on to the wharf beyond.

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The Famous Brigus Tunnel
1860
Brigus, Newfoundland

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The story of the tunnel
20 September 2004
Brigus, Newfoundland

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At the end of the Tunnel
18 July 2007
Brigus, Newfoundland

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''There's Molly's Island!''
18 July 2007
Brigus, Newfoundland

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From the outer end of the Tunnel we get a close-up view of Molly's Island, earlier called Admiral's Island which, like the tunnel hill and other large portions of land nearby, was Percey property at one time. Claimed by Admiral Percey in 1801 "in consequence to lying void", it was described at the time as being "100 yards east to west, 150 yards north to south, and bounded on all sides by the sea". In a time when waterfront space was at a premium, the Perceys made use of the island as part of their fishing operations. This they continued to do in varying degrees for close to 70 years.

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Molly's (Admiral's) Island
20 July 2007
Brigus, Newfoundland