New Brunswick's affordable ark

For nearly 30 years, the landlocked community of Oakland has been home to an old wooden ship, a vessel its creators imagined as a model of Noah's Ark.

Its location in western New Brunswick has never been advertised or promoted as a tourist attraction.

Even online there's little information about the ark, despite its breathtaking size.

"Three hundred feet long and 30 feet wide and 45 feet high," said Paul Smith, pastor at Burnham Road Cathedral.

Sitting among Carleton County's sprawling potato fields, this ark isn't used for animals.

It's used as affordable housing.

According to Smith, the ark started out as a gift from the late billionaire Wallace McCain, a native of Florenceville, about seven kilometres north.

McCain gave Smith some small cabins and motels as thanks for visiting while he was in a Boston hospital with cancer in the early 1990s.

Those buildings were intended to be used as dormitories for the church's new Bible school. But Smith had dreams of making it much more interesting.

The church strung the buildings together and built a bow, giving rise to its image as a Noah's Ark.

"That was the very beginning; the foundation of it," said Smith. "We ran the Bible school for 21 years."

Catering mainly to international students, Smith said, the School of the Spirit ran into problems in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Stricter rules on entering Canada for schooling meant fewer students were eligible to enrol.

"So it just kept dwindling, dwindling, dwindling to a place where it wasn't feasible," Smith said.

The school closed in 2011, but soon after, the empty ark became the affordable ark.

"We shifted the dorm rooms into housing," said Nathan Smith, the church's assistant pastor. "It met a niche in the market for people who perhaps couldn't afford an apartment on their own."

With affordable housing in demand in New Brunswick, the ark has been full for the last decade.

"I live right in the ark. In the tail-end of it," said Arthur Luskey, who moved in when the ark first opened up for affordable living.

"I run the rudder," he joked.

Luskey said the novelty of living on an ark has never worn off. Neither has the cost of rent.

"They get everything here for between $450 and $500 a month," Paul Smith said. "That's including heat, lights, water sewer, everything."

Five years ago, the church opened a non-profit café inside. Any profits from the soup, sandwiches and pastries go into community projects, said Nathan Smith.

But the vessel has never been considered a tourist attraction by its owners, so it's never been advertised as such.

A photo recently shared online has sparked new interest, however. In the past month, the church has received calls from New Brunswickers eager to visit.

"We had a tour bus call us, of 50 people, wanting to come and take a tour of the ark," said Nathan Smith. "We're not set up for that. It's people's residences. Private residences."

But pandemic-weary people looking for something new to do are always welcome to stop in for a photo, he said.