We Rise Again: My Favourite Chapter in the History of the Old Post Office

"It is a huge task that is being undertaken but the end of the story promises to be an asset for Baddeck and a treasure for the province."

                              - editorial from the Chronicle Herald Newspaper, May 22, 1996

·        June 1996 - The clockworks are re-installed. 

·        July 8, 1996 -The Old Post Office Fundraising campaign is officially launched.

·        August 12, 1996 - Stonemason John Urich and his crew arrive.

The back wall of the Old Post Office, January 2026. (Author photo)

The spring and summer of 1996 had suddenly become very busy.

The Library Society had taken back the property in May following the collapse in April. The Ad Hoc Committee met (at least) once a week. The Library Board must have been meeting twice as much. We were as busy as bees, hard at work, hyper-focused on our individual tasks at hand. A new fundraising committee was gearing up and finalizing the plans to raise $60,000 to restore the exterior.  At least another $90,000 would be required to restore the interior.

Saving the old post office was actually thousands of small tasks, that at first was managed by dozens of people. But very quickly more and more people offered to help, creating a beautiful spiral of community spirit.

To kick off the month of June, The Yellow Cello, a restaurant located across the street from the landmark building, announces it will donate all its coffee sales for the month of June to the Old Post Office fund.

Also in June, the old clock inspires us.

A snippet from the Victoria Standard newspaper. (courtesy Donald Pare)

From my journal:

I was on my way to the Library for an OPO meeting at 2 o’clock. The doctor told me walking was good exercise when in the third trimester. Easy for him to say. Town was busy, more like a day in late July. I took my customary look down the street to the Old Post Office to quietly say “Hello! Good to see you!” But something stopped me in my tracks. The hands of the clock were no longer stuck at six-thirty as they had been for the last decade. Instead, the hands sat at ten and two. I looked at my watch. It was ten to two. There was a new spring in my step.

When the building was condemned in the late 1980’s, local businessman and carpenter James MacDonald removed the clockworks for safekeeping. With the efforts to restore it in full swing, he cleaned the parts, reconnected the cogs and gears and reinstalled it in the tiny clock room nestled into the western eave. From there, you could look into the attic to see huge hand-hewn rafters held together by wooden pegs.

A photo of the late James MacDonald, caretaker of the Old Post Office clock. From the Victoria Standard newspaper, 1998. (Courtesy Donald Pare)

The clock gears were connected to weights that ran from the top floor of the old post office to the basement, three and half stories below. With a click and a snap, the weight dropped a few inches and the minute hand moved. James kept the gears finely tuned and well-oiled for years, setting the clock every day, making sure its two hands accurately reflected the passage of time. Later, he would painstakingly recreate a new clock face, as the old one had a deep crack that made it unstable.  Some of the old Roman numerals were saved and sold at the antiques auction, surprising many when each of the pieces were sold for hundreds of dollars apiece.

By early July, the Old Post Office restoration fundraising campaign officially got underway at a ceremony at the Yacht Club. Already, more than $22,000 had been raised from local donors in the two months since the Library Society received the deed.

Isabel MacFarlane, a life member of the Baddeck Library Society, addressed the crowd. "The clock is the heartbeat of the Old Post Office. Let's rebuild the Old Post Office around the clock," she said.

In August a retired Fortress of Louisbourg stone mason arrived on site.

Looking over the rubble, John Urich smiled. He loved the traditional methods of stone craft. He had learned his trade rebuilding cities in Europe after World War II. And he loved a challenge, so he joyfully came out of retirement to rebuild Baddeck’s Old Post Office. We were absolutely delighted.

"It was a big puzzle," he said to me during an interview later that year.

"When the Old Post Office was first built, the stones weren't numbered,” he said. “The raw material was delivered and cut at the site," he said. He had just recently retired as supervising instructor in charge of reproductions at Fortress Louisbourg when he heard of the collapsed walls of the Old Post Office.

What we saw as a jumble of two and a half stories of stone, Urich instead saw parts of the whole. He studied the rubble, searching for and finding clues that determined where each stone should be placed in the rebuilt wall.

"The cornerstones had a certain shape, and the chimney stones were black with soot," he said.  He rebuilt the walls using traditional methods, slowly relaying the heavy stones up the side of the building.  The mortar he used to keep the stones adhered to each other was styled to match the old, but used modern components, making the walls stronger.

The wall and chimney of the Old Post Office, January 2026. (Author photo)

While Urich and his crew worked reconstructing the walls stone by stone, a dynamic fundraising campaign was underway.  The Old Post Office became a cultural icon, its face embossed on pewter key chains, cotton bags, and a handcrafted quilt that was raffled off. 

There were tickets sold on model boats, on Easter baskets, on antique cake plates. There was an art show of local talent, a fundraising auction with antiques, the Co-op held an Old Post Office Day, and the Baddeck Legion hosted a dance. The Baddeck Lobster Suppers and the Bell Bouy Restaurant held Old Post Office luncheons and donated all proceeds to the fund. The Silver Dart Lodge hosted a sold-out gourmet dinner, donating all the food, wine, staff time and door prizes, so that every penny of money raised went to the restoration fund.

Quilt designed by Baddeck quilters Joan MacLeod and Jessie Ross. We've lost both of them since this appeared in the Victoria Standard. (Photo courtesy Donald Pare)

"It's been simply magnificent," said Nancy Langley, when interviewed for a newspaper article that fall. "I am extremely proud of the people of Baddeck. Everyday someone, somewhere comes forward with an idea, a response or some kind of support," she said.

On a cool November day, fifty feet above the ground, John Urich and his crew capped the chimney, with two 300-pound stones.  They were the last stones to be put into place. The exterior restoration was complete. The Old Post office had made it through what was likely the worst year in its history and was stronger than ever.

"Believe-you-me, it's going to be there a long time," said John Urich.

On November 30, 1996, the community gathered to celebrate at the community centre to honour the workers who helped to put the Old Post Office back together.

The setting of the time capsule, November 1996. Photos as they appeared in the Victoria Standard. (Photo courtesy Donald Pare)

At the main door of the Old Post Office, while Nancy and the crowd looked on, John Urich placed a time capsule - a collection of items including business cards, newspapers and an Old Post Office key chain, in the keystone behind the stone head of Charles J Campbell.

"The time capsule is what is tickling everybody," Nancy said. "We're all wondering who will be around when its opened."

In the previous six months, Baddeck had raised $60,000 through sheer grit and the governments noticed. The province contributed $35,000; the county $25,000.

Volunteer Shirley Mason and former MLA Kennie MacAskill on the cover of the Victoria Standard, 1996. (Photo courtesy Donald Pare)

"We've come a long way in a short time." Nancy was quoted in the provincial newspaper. "We've accomplished what we set out to do, but we're only part way to our goal, we still have the interior to work on. This is very much a work in progress,” she said.

Then, it was back to work. Another $150,000 would be needed to restore the interior.

Over the next year there were more fundraisers, more tickets sold, more dinners, more keychains, and bags and more people offering help, donating their time, money and effort to be a part of the restoration of the Old Post Office.

Image from the Victoria Standard newspaper. (Courtesy Donald Pare)

When word got out that Mr. Urich was looking for worn and weathered brick to redo the two interior fireplaces, people went digging in their basements and gardens, happy to help and have their brickwork part of the new chapter of the iconic building. When a former Baddeck resident heard a furnace was required for the building, he had a new one shipped to Baddeck. Businesses regularly knocked 15 or 20 percent off their bills, while one contractor, who after installing a countertop said, ‘never mind the bill.”

At the end of November 1998, we gathered again a final time.

It had been two and half years since that horrible gray April day when the walls fell. Two and a half years since we faced a future without the old building as part of our community. In that time, we worked together, inspired one another and contributed to its revival. We had saved the beautiful, historic Old Post Office!

When all was said and done, more than $260,000 had been raised.

That day, Nancy was beaming as she stood atop the stone stairs and cut the ribbon. During a radio interview later, her voice full of joy and happiness, she said: “I’m so happy I want to change the name of the place from Bad-deck to Good-deck!”

A joyous Nancy Langley cuts the ribbon held by Constable Barry Forrest at the official opening of the Old Post Office in November 1998. This image appeared in the Cape Breton Post. (Image courtesy Donald Pare)

·        Nancy Langley died in 2018. She was 90. https://haverstocks.com/tribute/details/3070

·        John Urich died in 2015 He was 84. https://www.dignitymemorial.com/en-ca/obituaries/sydney-ns/john-urich-6456555

·        Thanks to Donald Pare and his Baddeck in The News Facebook page. Last year, he posted images from the Victoria Standard newspaper, including the one above of Nancy on the day of the opening in 1998, which inspired this history of the Old Post Office.