Timmins will be front and centre when the new season of Salvage Kings airs.
Last year, the crew from Priestly Demolition were in town to tear down buildings and film for the second season of the History Channel show.
“As soon as I saw these jobs come up and I Google Earthed them, I thought there’s a lot of history here we’ve got to go to this,” said Ted Finch, Priestly Demolition head of salvage.
Last year, Timmins council gave the go-ahead for The Salvage Kings to take down three city-owned properties — the Central Tavern (The Zoo), the old Tisdale public works shop on Evans Street, and a Schumacher house. They also filmed at the Grand View in Schumacher.
Two episodes, including the season premiere, feature Timmins.
Before tearing down the buildings, Finch, foreman Justin Fortin and other members of the team look for hidden treasures.
“I take as much as I possibly can. Some things are just too far gone anything that I can save that we can recycle, we can repurpose or sell as is we’re taking it,” explained Finch.
When they find historic items tied to the town — such as the old police records uncovered at the Tisdale public works shop — they find somewhere local to leave them. The police records were handed over to the Timmins Museum.
“In an instance like the Tisdale, they left a lot of equipment there, compressors and unit heaters and stuff, so we sell them. That helps to offset the demolition costs,” said Finch.
The most difficult tear-down in town was the Central Tavern on Bruce Avenue.
The decades-old building was really close to the neighbouring structures and attracted a crowd of people watching the demise of the once-popular watering hole.
“I was pretty nervous at some points there because of spectators, there were so many of them. I was trying to do my best and every time I looked around I saw more people, it really adds to my stress level,” said Fortin.
“You just never know. It’s controlled as much as I can, but you never know and you gotta be as careful as you can and you gotta be on your game. You can’t be out late the night before, you’ve gotta be thinking of everything — one little 2x4 can slide far away and I just don’t even want to think about it."
After the demolition, the crew put about 150 bricks from the building curbside for people to take.
“It’s so easy to do and it’s so cheap. There’s no cost to it, but it feels good to go out of our way at lunch and put these bricks out there and locals can grab them and have this momento,” Fortin said.
Even though the spectators add to the stress of taking down a building, Finch said he likes talking to the locals.
"They all have stories about what you may find or what happened there. It gives you a little heads up when you go into a building,” said Finch.
In Timmins, the hunt was for gold in the historic buildings.
“I liked the gold because it was a real hunt. We got those police reports, which were very cool, we got to look into a lot of history there - they were very interesting and that made me start hunting for gold more,” he said.
“And so many people talked about it and it defined an area, it’s Timmins. Timmins was built because of gold and everyone was talking about it. To find it was just spectacular,” added Fortin.
It wasn't all business when the crew was in town.
Fortin spent his down time on the Mattagami River fishing for walleye, which he jokes do not like him.
He even had a run-in with a bear one morning.
“He ran by me and looked over and did a ‘wassup’ and just kept going and I didn’t know what to do,” said Justin.
The Salvage Kings premieres April 19 at 10 p.m. on the History Channel. It's also available on the Global TV and StackTV app.
