By Adam Frisk Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
For longtime Haliburton cottager Andrew Dunsmore, making a pitstop on a lengthy road trip is a part of the journey. But when he decided to take a break and stretch his legs during a trip out west, it turned into a mind-bending brush with home.
While on an RV trip from Calgary to Vancouver with his friend Robert Barnes in May, the pair decided to take a break at Three Valley Gap Lake Chateau and Ghost Town, just outside of Revelstoke, B.C. The guys were just finishing up their walking tour of the historic, open-air museum when they came across a small collection of vintage vehicles, including fire trucks.
Dunsmore told The Highlander that he had walked right past the first truck on display without taking a second look. But Barnes, who had visited Dunsmore’s family cottage many times, noticed a familiar word on the faded paint.
“Dysart,” Dunsmore recalled his friend saying. “Isn’t Dysart where Haliburton is?”
The Toronto resident turned back to the truck and went in for a closer look.
“I looked at it, and I was just dumbfounded,” Dunsmore said with a chuckle. “I was like, ‘yes, absolutely. There can only be one Dysart.’ And we went around and looked at the front of the truck, and there we could see the words Haliburton, which confirmed it. It absolutely blew my mind. You just don’t expect to see anything to do with Haliburton in the middle of B.C.”
Dunsmore said the discovery brought a wave of nostalgia over him and explained that while his family has lived all over Canada, Haliburton has always been their anchor. It’s a place his mother still calls home.
“It didn’t matter if we lived in Toronto or Montreal or wherever, we would always come back to the cottage for the summer. So it is sort of a second home for me,” he said. “I know lots of local people just from having had summer jobs at the Pinestone and different places over the years.”
While the truck’s existence out west might surprise many ex-pats; its history is no secret to former Haliburton fire chief Miles Maughan, as he was the one who decommissioned the vehicle.
Purchased by Dysart et al in 1972, the truck served as a front-line pumper for about two decades before being retired in 1992. Maughan, who drove and operated the engine for 15 years, explained what happened to the truck after retiring it from calls.
“It was still operating, so a fellow in the County bought it because he thought he was going to set up a mobile washing centre with it,” Maughan explained. “But he got a full-time job and didn’t have time, so it kind of sat around for a couple of years there.”
From there, the man sold the vehicle to a collector out west who operated a tow truck company. The B.C. collector brought a truck across the country to Ontario, picked up the retired Dysart pumper, and towed it all the way back to the province, Maughan explained.
Then, museum owner George Bell acquired the truck through some good old-fashioned bartering.
“I had a buddy back east, who got it out here,” Bell told The Highlander. “I had some storage, he stored some stuff here, and then he threw the fire truck at me.”
The 1972 pumper represented a specific era of firefighting technology with one feature that modern trucks no longer use, such as the quick-attack hose reel.
“In the picture you can see, they had a hose reel on them at that time,” Maughan noted. “You could grab one of them hose reels, pull it out, and spray a fire down within minutes.”
Today, the climate and natural elements have taken a toll on the old truck.
“The footwell, like where you would put your foot to hoist yourself up into the truck, it was nothing but rust,” Dunsmore said.
Bell echoed Dunsmore’s observations, noting that the mountain moisture has had its way with the former workhorse.
“Especially out here, we’re in quite a moist area, so things deteriorate,” Bell noted. The truck still features the original hoses it retired with.
“It’s so good to get it right from the fire department because you get all the goodies,” he said.
As for Dunsmore, he said that he was just thrilled to share the somewhat bizarre discovery with the County and to sort of surprise his mother when she opens the newspaper.
