Clarke Brothers Pulp Mill

The pulp mill was built at Bear River in 1919 by Wallace Clarke and Willis Clarke, two brothers whose firm ran large-scale sawmill, logging and shipping operations in the Bear River watershed.(1) Their pulp mill was built on both sides of the DAR mainline at the east end of the Bear River Bridge. The mill opened in May 1921 but proved a financial disaster when it went into receivership in 1923 and closed in 1924, losing over a million dollars of local investment.(2) The tallest building in the mill complex was adapted for other uses and survived as a prominent ruin beside the bridge until the late 1980s.(2)

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  Artist's rendering of Clarke Brothers Pulp Mill beside the Bear River Bridge, circa 1919.

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  Bridge in 1960s showing ruins of Clarke Brothers Pulp Mill.

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  Swing bridge over the Bear River at Bear River, NS August 5, 1973 with ruins of Clarke Brothers Pulp Mill.

References

(1) "History of Bear River", Welcome to Bear River

(2) Mike Parker, Buried in the Woods: Sawmill Ghost Towns of Nova Scotia, Pottersfield Press (2010), pages 78-81.

(3) David Othen's July 6, 1987 photo of the Bear River Bridge is the last known published photo of the Clarke Brothers Mill, indicating that it was demolished soon after. David Othen, Dominion Atlantic Railway The Final 25 Years, page 38.