Moving Quebec Town Sitting Atop $7 Billion Gold Mine | Huge Moves | Spark

underneath this canadian town lies seven billion dollars worth of gold tons and tons and tons of gold as the price of gold soars can a team move all the homes fast enough to reach it some of the grandest 19th century mansions in america she is sweet can a team move these priceless antiques through a city intact heard the boom and saw a little bit of a spark and was concerned the teams face daunting deadlines they're doing nine houses per week and the searing heat wave pale is hard two towns under threat two teams with a mission to move them [Music] to titanic tasks that will test the nerves of the people who dare to do monster moves [Music] in the heartland of canada work on a truly ambitious move is about to begin the province of quebec is three times the size of france and home to some of the world's largest mineral deposits buried deep beneath the ground are vast seams of copper and silver but the region's most valuable mineral is gold a vast area of gold called the abitibi gold belt stretches across the province hundreds of towns lie along the belt exploiting these riches one of them is called malatik it's one of quebec's oldest gold towns back in 1926 exploratory drilling here led to the discovery of over 5 million ounces of gold buried beneath the earth's surface settlers established a deep mine with over 25 kilometers of tunnels to extract the gold a few kilometers away from the deposits they built homes schools and a church to accommodate the workforce [Music] the lure of gold turned malatic into a boom town but such prosperity could not last forever [Music] by 1965 the gold started to run out production eventually ground to a halt leaving many unemployed sean rose and his family witnessed the town fall into decline recently a couple of mines shut down which really saddens me to see as many people who have lost their jobs and mines and they're at 50 or 40 some years old and they can't find a job [Music] with the gold depleted people began to abandon the town and mulatti's future looked bleak but then an extraordinary revelation offered a glimmer of hope melatic's church sits between the gold mine and the town geologists believed that there were more gold deposits buried underneath [Music] the church could literally be sitting on a potential gold mine [Music] in a final attempt to save the town test drilling revealed something remarkable there was indeed gold buried underneath the church's foundations and this raised the possibility that there might be even more untapped gold under the town itself perhaps the streets of malatik really were paved with gold in 2005 geologists from canadian mining company are cisco moved in to investigate they board over 1 500 holes in roads driveways and back gardens hunting for gold they they drill all around the places for about three years so if there's no gold sorry but they're really stupid but the geologists were far from stupid they analyzed over 400 000 meters of core samples in laboratories as far away as australia it wasn't long before they found what they were looking for the intensive drilling shows that we have around 8 million ounces of gold that could be done over the next 15 years so it's pretty good the untapped gold is worth over seven billion dollars and could transform the fortunes of the town the only problem is that digging it out could destroy malatix homes the gold is buried less than 500 meters below the earth's surface if the miners dig tunnels at such a shallow depth the streets could cave in the only other way to excavate the gold is to create an open pit mine but this will obliterate malati completely to reach the gold without destroying the precious family homes the mining company must move the southern part of the town to a new site over a kilometer away if their plan succeeds they can create an open pit gold mine without destroying the town the church is one of the few buildings that will remain in place please starting from behind the church it's a buffing zone between the city and the open kit the pit will stretch two kilometers wide and almost half a kilometer deep it will yield just over half a million ounces of gold every year [Music] they don't move the houses for nothing they know they're gonna going to make a lot of money so it should be tons and tons and tons of gold lots of gold july 2008 the price of gold is soaring so the mining company must find a way to move 150 homes as fast as possible there are many family members okay everywhere almost everywhere not necessarily on the same street but there are what they're asking us is if we could put them together they offer each family a spacious new plot and a chance to choose new neighbours one of the first and largest homes to move belongs to sean rose's family got five kids aged from 15 to two years old and some of them don't realize what's going on but those at 13 and 15 my daughters my oldest daughters that they know what's going on and they know that we're going to be located a new new site a new neighborhood unfortunately the rooms in the basement including the girls bedrooms will have to be left behind [Music] [Music] my the move will cost over 80 million dollars and is one of the largest ever undertaken in canada the project is entrusted to quebec's leading heavy haulage company eno and goslam peter tobin has moved houses before but never on this scale and never to such a tight deadline since it's such a big project we had to hire a whole bunch of new people and since this is something that's really not you can't learn in school you can't there's no trade schools that that actually teach us we basically had to start up our own academy of house moving so peter has hired 15 new recruits to train at headquarters but before they let loose on residents homes they must practice their house moving skills on a mock-up it's basically just a house that we move for training purposes we need that maybe a few more blocks to to simulate if the house was completely finished with insulation and drywall and interior partitions and furniture everything is made to withstand shocks and beatings and uh droppings and uh and everything else that we can throw at it so uh hopefully it'll last us for uh for several years [Music] luckily qualified instructors are on hand for two weeks to teach trainees the fine arts of lifting balancing and driving a house [Music] peter measures their performance around the test track with a stopwatch and a glass of wine [Music] [Music] let's go [Music] tomorrow this crew will be moving real family homes for the first time the roses brace themselves for what promises to be a very hard day it's kind of tough really tough what goes on as they say just full of emotions as much as for the residents and now it's gonna be real in the next few days so we're all excited worried but it's a big event full of emotions for us in raleigh the state capital of north carolina work on another challenging move is about to begin the city is one of the oldest and fastest growing on america's east coast a major base for the country's technology and biotech giants its population has almost doubled in the last decade a wave of new homes and skyscrapers now dominate the landscape if a time traveler from two centuries ago walked into town one of the few parts they would recognize is blunt street village this suburb of eight huge ornate mansions was established in 1855 to house state officials each offers a unique time capsule of life in the 19th century but these magnificent mansions are under threat a new development of 500 homes will turn this historic village into a modern suburb to save the buildings from demolition the state has decided to sell the mansions as private homes the most important is the merriman wind mansion which was once the home of a north carolina senator architect steve schuster must find a way to preserve this piece of raleigh's heritage well the merriman win is actually one of the most important historic homes in the blunt street project certainly one of the largest had much of the richest history occurred in this house and like any community maintaining that connection to our past really gives us a sense of place fortunately for steve there's huge pressure on developers to preserve buildings like these the construction and demolition industry creates 136 million tons of debris annually that's enough to build a wall 30 feet thick and 30 feet high around the entire continental coast of the united states just under 5 000 miles yet to save so many grand buildings presents steve with a formidable logistical challenge he plans to find a suitable site for all the mansions and then move them across the city he locates a new plot less than a kilometer away to transport the mansions this short distance will cost four million dollars navigating the mansions through raleigh's busy streets will test the skills of the most seasoned mansion mover steve decides to call in mike blake all right mike's a man who always comes up with a plan use a little addition little subtraction little multiplication a little calculus calculus little trigonometry and a lot of guesswork mike offers three ways to move the mansions one of the methods that we could use to relocate these buildings is to bring in a crew of carpenters take the homes apart piece by piece delivered to the new site and the carpenters would put them back together sometimes a structure is so fragile the safest way to move it is to take it apart completely [Music] the owner of this outbuilding made from logs numbers each timber so he can disassemble and move it to his new garden [Music] dismantling the building takes a matter of hours but reassembly takes much longer even with just 80 logs [Music] each of these massive mansions would be a million piece jigsaw that could take years to complete so he rejects this idea another method of relocating a building of this size is to take it apart in sections kind of like disassembling a rubik's cube sometimes a mansion is so large it has to be divided into movable chunks before moving this 150 year old courthouse in georgia it was cut into cubes for the 100 kilometer journey to its new home [Music] at the new site cranes slowly lift each section into place but it took two years to rebuild in its new location mike fears cutting up these historic buildings may cause irreparable damage this leaves just one option to move the mansions intact each mansion has a unique set of antique features the merriman winds heavy brick fireplaces make this one of the most difficult buildings mike has ever had to move and they're different loads well it ain't symmetrical in the american wind house there are three stacks and all three stacks are in different locations they aren't in a line and so we'll have to use our dolly system and our jacking system and so that when we lift we lift them plain so to speak in terms of removal before lifting the main building they remove antique windows to protect them we're working hand in hand with this historic district i mean they're going to come out here and probably inspect these windows that we've removed so it's something that we need to take caution and removal the team begin to realize that this could be the beginning of a very very long job in the mining town of malatik quebec work is underway to relocate 150 homes that sit on a bed of gold the rose family of seven have had to temporarily relocate from this into this their house is one of the first to be moved inside peter tobin works out how to build a steel lifting rig under the house to raise it off its footings let's go see what's going on downstairs this is different than what we expected this beam wasn't here so we might have to make some changes in our loading plan the family has been assured their house will not be damaged so when the carpenters move in to remove the balcony it's an unpleasant surprise for sean out for a morning jog it's not the same house i thought that we're just gonna leave the uh the balcony there on the porch and that was okay what's what a shock i can't believe what's going on here [Music] the team install a steel frame under the roses house they know that if the rig is not perfectly level the house could topple when they lift it down the road some of the new recruits prepare two smaller homes they must lift three houses every two days to keep the move on schedule so we're looking at nine houses per week that where that that is the that is the uh projected uh projected outlook for the time frame it's now midday the team is under tremendous pressure to load all three homes onto wheels for the move tomorrow the crew are testing a secret weapon to lift each house in record time four high-powered jacks that can lift the entire house in one go [Music] traditionally house movers use hydraulic jacks that can only lift 20 centimeters at a time [Music] as each side rises they build wooden towers to take the weight of the house lifting the roses house using this seesaw technique would take over an hour so the movers have developed special jacks to relocate this town they fit under each corner of the house all four jacks lift together halving the time it takes to do the job we're hoping to see real benefit as far as time saving with a project of this scope if we can save a couple hours on each house that's quite a bit of hours at the end of the project that we're able to save [Music] the jacks work brilliantly it takes just 30 minutes to transfer the smaller homes off their footings and onto wheels [Music] but the rose's larger 45-ton house could take much longer to shift [Music] [Music] is [Music] let's go [Music] let's go after several hours they finally load the rose's house onto the truck leaving behind a basement full of memories which sean sees for the first time in the full light of day that was once my basement i can't believe it's all guns destroyed i feel sad when it's rolling i might have a different reaction the team positioned dollies to support the rear of the house and complete their final checks for the big move tomorrow but just as peter prepares to roll the convoy out of town the department of transport deliver some bad news well i guess what's going on now is we're shut down they still want to inspect this one and the other one that's on the other street here that's going to set our schedule back by another day the officials are concerned about having such massive loads on milantique's busy roads they want to check whether the homes exceed the weight limits they've even brought special scales to slide under the truck wheels they revealed that the combined weight of the move rig and house is over 60 tons the dollies are designed to support these heavy loads but the department of transport is concerned that they have no brakes they fear that the truck brakes alone may not be powerful enough to halt the house if the new recruits need to stop suddenly to avoid an accident the team must fit air brakes to each set of dollies fitting these brakes will cost them precious time but it now means they can do an emergency stop [Music] yeah right now he's checking to see that the brakes work and they appear to be working fine yeah they are we can see them we can see them move it takes the rest of the day to install and test the brakes on the roses house tomorrow they will have to do the same for the other two homes before the convoy can set off [Music] in raleigh north carolina mike's team prepare to move blunt street village's eight historic mansions each one has a unique shape and poses a different challenge [Music] the first step is to lift the 300 ton merriman wind mansion off its foundations but the old chimney may be too brittle to survive [Music] this house was originally built around three brick chimneys with the surrounding structure all made from wood [Music] any attempt to move the buildings without supporting the tall chimneys could be dangerous a small bump in the road could cause them to collapse wrecking the building and endangering the crew so they must thread a steel framework underneath the floor to lock the chimneys in place they hope this will spread the weight across the whole base of the building making the move safer if anybody was up underneath it you would probably be dead at the point of it collapsing to make it even safer mike decides to take down the top of the chimneys he sends up new recruit jeb to dismantle the brake work gentlemen before we start up we need a little safety meeting no bungee jumping with a 30 30-foot cord and it's only 25 feet to the ground no diving into a tea cup of water and i see that your lanyards are secure lift the stable so you guys are really ready to go up so proceed halfway up jeb has second thoughts five feet each way and you can't fart without moving look at this shoot i'm not getting back on the damn lift sorry it wobbles too much i don't have the cajones for it i'm sorry it's time for the boss to show how it's done [Music] later that morning mike prepares a second mansion in the village for the move the watson hume house was home to state horticulturalist harold hugh and it sprouted some offshoots that will make it particularly difficult to move a little concerned but not major it looks like this section of the dwelling was added on at a later date from original construction a later extension to the watson mansion doubled its size this means there's a weak link between the two halves of the house when the mansion bumps over the curb the extension could break away from the main building [Music] to prevent this happening they must bond the two halves together by wrapping the mansion in almost 200 meters of steel cabling tightening the cables will ensure the house remains intact throughout the move we're gonna put three steel bands around it and just to help pull and hold the two pieces together we're going to wrap this baby up strap her real good hopefully we won't injure her in any way and get it to the new location in one piece [Music] the workers wilt under the midday sun as you can see i've only been out here maybe an hour and a half and i'm drenched hail is hot up here you can get relief i can give you a bottle of cold water you can give me a bottle of cold water inhale ain't no ice water with both mansions braced and bolstered the team can now raise them off their footings [Music] their big fear is that uneven weight distribution could unbalance the loads it's out of balance on on this side we're heavy on the front on this end and light on the other side on the other side of the house we're heavy on the back and light on the front so what we want to make sure is that the fireplace and the floor system around it lift at exactly the same time mike gives rookie jeb a second chance he puts him in charge of the machine that controls the 20 lifting jacks jeb has no illusions about the responsibility my first time running this machine i'm more than more than little numbers i'm very nervous all right all i have to do is hit that lever that way the wrong way and the house will fall figuring you blink when you're responsible for having 300 tons of weight on jacks that's enough to make a young man nervous your pressure's going to drop total pressure goes you're going to actually flood the other leg just crack them slowly jeb battles with the controls but eventually the building is raised from its foundations inch by inch his confidence grows as the mansion is lifted over a meter into the air mentally uh it's all right physically i'm ready for the bed so i just came inside to take a quick tour and uh everything's looking good she is sweet in the gold mining town of malati quebec the department of transport insists the first move takes place at night when there's less traffic they give peter just four hours to motor the three homes along the route to the new site at 4 00 am the rose family wait nervously to wave off their house i'm very excited today uh the kids are here really really happy about that [Music] [Music] is the team's first challenge is to drive the homes out of this crammed suburb to reach highway 117 a short cut across the town the driver must dodge street lamps and road signs [Music] shawn follows anxiously as it approaches each hazard spotters ensure the two smaller homes keep a safe distance in case the first driver has to brake unexpectedly i'm just amazed it's amazing to see the way it works i mean i'm so used to our street i'd miss it but it'll be something new we've lived here all our lives lived in these houses we've played on these streets so it's it's something it's something historical for us to see the geography of the town changes forever because the whole city was almost dying slowly since the last 30 years so it's a rebirth believe me but just as they reach the highway the move grinds to a halt transport authorities have stopped the town move they're worried this convoy of giants could risk blocking the highway this road is the main artery connecting all the towns along the gold belt peter's team wants to motor all three houses along the highway to keep the town move on schedule there are fears that an accident could shut down this vital route for days [Music] to limit the dangers they insist the team moves only one house at a time that's three separate journeys eating up three times as much time [Music] the highway police inspect the loads carefully before allowing the first house to proceed since it's such a high impact or high visibility project they're going to enforce the rules as best they can to prevent any accidents from happening [Music] 5 am the rose's house receives the all clear peter's team now has only three hours left to complete the move they dare not travel any faster than 10 kilometers per hour down the highway they make it off the highway without incident but face one final obstacle ahead they must cross an operational railway line to reach the new site but if debris falls from the house as it crosses the rails or skids off course this could cause a major accident [Music] to prevent the wheels jamming the driver must cross the tracks as slowly as possible and keep the wheels at right angles to the rails the front wheels cross safely but the driver watches his rear dollies nervously in case they spin on the smooth rails the house reaches its new footings at 6am but the team now has only two hours left to move the other two homes [Music] stay on time [Music] let's go three homes finally make it to their new street just after 8 a.m it's quite amazing kind of special it's finally done we're almost the team must sharpen their technique to stay on schedule they have seven months to move the remaining 147 homes before the miners can start digging for [Music] gold it's the morning of the big move in raleigh crowds gather to watch mike's team get the historic village on the road wow there are a whole lot of people a whole lot more people than i expected this morning i think it's wonderful that they're they're preserving these homes and keeping them in the community and moving them to a place that they can still be enjoyed squeezing these super-sized mansions through raleigh's narrow streets will keep mike on his toes more than 15 power cables criss-crossed the route to the new site these hang too low for the mansions to pass under disconnecting all these lines will cost over one hundred thousand dollars each time a house moves to avoid these power lines mike decides he will have to take a more precarious route across rocky ground 300 tons of history on wheels ready to roll here we go the watson is coming off the original foundation we're in the middle of a turn getting ready to head into formation she is smooth smooth itself the merriman wind mansion is so heavy that mike needs to attach a bulldozer for extra pulling power we're moving here we go just as the merriman wind mansion gets moving it sinks into the soft soil the makeshift wooden road buckles under the weight i think it's gonna crash it takes two hours to haul the homes just a few meters to the roadside their challenge now is to guide them down the curb the curb may only be 20 centimeters high but this is a precipice for the mansions to descend this is the most intricate part of the whole move right here we're going over curves the house is becoming unlevel as you can see if you it's coming up and down so we're having to really make sure that it stays level so it don't flip off we've seen this house over here sitting here for months so it is surreal to watch it go across the street one by one the wheels touch down onto the tarmac but halfway across strikes we just blew a tire blown tire i thought everyone thought it was an earthquake i was actually on the opposite side of the house and heard the boom and saw a little bit of a spark and was concerned there was a power line but it was actually a tire the road slopes at an angle so as the mansion descended the curb it started to leak with the entire weight of the mansion pushing down on the right side of the rig the pressure proved too much for the tires to bear [Music] the blowout causes the building to twist dangerously out of shape the team must work fast to replace the tyre and level the building before its stressed walls explode under the pressure hey let me show you something mike is desperate to move the mansion off the main road before rush hour begins the team rushed to repair the punctured tyre but it's now midday mike must complete the move before rush hour to avoid major traffic jams he levels the mansion and it rolls gracefully over the curb to continue its journey i just let it run off raleigh's police now fear that the 300-ton mansion might sink into the timer we have to map the street with timber and so we pulled our truck across now we're making adjustments as we go along for our rear wheels progress is slow leap frogging the wooden boards along the route it's going very well everything's moving very smoothly the watson house cruises along just ahead it's smaller than the merriman win mansion so the crew can move it much faster at 5 p.m they finally reached their destination now comes the tricky bit reversing the mansions so they fit precisely onto their new footings you need five more feet you need to pull up pull up a hair pull up a hair that's it we're good for the weekend ready to go home spend time with the family play with the dogs and pets come back tuesday and start again over the next few months mike relocates the other six mansions that make up the village all right come on back just a hair more raleigh now has a new historic center these magnificent mansions will be the most desirable residences in town in quebec the old town of malatik is taking shape in the new district to the north the balcony on the roses house has been rebuilt and the family home has received a new coat of paint everything's uh perfect now painting and the new basement that i was looking forward to is just perfect the rookies from the house academy are now seasoned pros they are so confident on the open road they're having no problems relocating 36 homes a month it can only be positive for this town the companies will be opening up and the economy and local economy will be great everything's just perfect for now the old homes are moved on to new basements at the new site the residents have new neighbors and new street addresses the house moves are completed on schedule phase one should end by the end of the week so in a couple of days that's going to be over for the moving of the houses the next step is to finish the inside of the houses put the lawn put the asphalt would like that to be done by the next month since cisco has been in malartic the houses has gained a value of around 20 which is pretty good for the residents when the town move is complete the bulldozers will move in and melatique's new gold rush can begin [Music] [Applause] let's go [Music] bye

Channel: Spark

Views: 375,933

Rating: 4.7506957 out of 5

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary, huge moves, monster moves, moving a building, building move, renovation old house, moving big buildings, technology 2021, construction management, engineering design process, full documentary channel, science experiments, engineering documentary, national geographic, Building Relocation

Id: zSjgC4ujO-A

Length: 44min 52sec (2692 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 24 2021