Gladee’s Canteen

According to Kevin Creaser, Gladee’s grandson, this article was written in 1978 for a local newspaper. Thanks to Kevin for sharing this colourful history of Gladee’s Canteen and the accompanying photos.

Flossie was the one who came up with the idea to open a small canteen on the beach. Just beyond the Hirtle homestead, where Flossie, Gladee, Paul and Cyril grew up, is one of Nova Scotia’s most spectacular combinations of sand, sky and water. The place is appropriately called Hirtle’s Beach. The family had managed the farm and Dad’s fishing, but Flossie thought a canteen might bring in some extra money. It might be fun too!

1951 was the year they built the small shack right on the sand. It had a flip up door and an overhanging roof for the customers who stood outside. They christened it The Seabreeze Canteen.

It all begins with an idea. There was no electricity then, so Paul and Gladee fried hot dogs and hamburgers on a two burner kerosene stove. They served them on rolls Gladee baked up at the house in her Lady Scotia wood range. For refrigeration they used the 18 inch thick chunks of ice they cut from Romkey’s Pond during the winter. Stored in sawdust, the ice stayed frozen during the summer season.

Paul made homemade root beer in recycled beer bottles, and it was a hit! He dragged wash tubs of cold sea water up from the water’s edge to keep the bottles chilled. Gladee remembers fondly how one of the “loafers” who hung around the canteen once leaned his chair back a bit too far. He found himself soaking in the root beer tub.

After a proper road was built and electricity found its way to The Seabreeze, things changed. The Lahave Dairy Truck could now make it down the road to deliver ice cream. Gladee started serving ice cream and homemade pies. And the outside world started beating a path to Hirtle’s Beach.

In 1953, the Hirtles decided to expand not only the menu, but the building as well. They added on a dining room where people could eat inside, at long tables with benches. Gladee roasted chickens every day, and gained quite a reputation for her chicken burgers.

But the beach people really loved the French fries. On a busy day, the canteen would go through four, fifty pound pails of potatoes. John Hirtle, Gladee’s father, peeled all those potatoes, and fresh potato fries remained on the menu until he died at age ninety-seven.

Flossie says it wasn’t unusual to see two hundred people on the beach on a Sunday afternoon in those days. They stayed open until 1:30 am and Flossie and Gladee didn’t go to bed until 2 or 3 in the morning. But they loved it.

In the summer of 1962, a kitchen was added to the back of The Seabreeze. But on October 7 that year, nature reclaimed her beach. Hurricane Daisy blew in the end of the canteen. Undaunted, the Hirtles dragged what remained of the kitchen up and over the edge of the rock beach, to a more secure spot. They constructed a new building, named it Gladee’s Canteen, and it has remained relatively the same until the present.