Pit Talk by Chad Aucoin

ÂŠICON Communications & Research Inc./Ian McNeil Real Media 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or means, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Responsibility for the research and the permissions obtained for this publication rest with the author. All text published has been given with the permission of the storyteller, writer, or the owner of the recording from which it was obtained, on the understanding that the author would (and did) edit the text. All photographs used are in the public domain or have been used with the permission of the photographer or owner of the photograph. Every effort was made to confirm the identity of people in the photographs. To add identification information for the benefit of future editions, please visit the website www.capebretoncoalminers.ca. Materials from which this book is published will be copied, catalogued and stored at The Beaton Institute of Cape Breton University for future reference.

Published by ICON Communications & Research Inc. In Partnership with Ian McNeil Real Media

ISBN #978-0-9864762-0-4 Printed in Cape Breton

Cover Photo (l-r): Fabe Fraser, Gary "Doc" Strong, Crawford Lloyd, Bill Wallner

PIT TALK The Legacy of Cape Bretonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Coal Miners

Ian McNeil

PIT TALK The Legacy of Cape Bretonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Coal Miners

Table of Contents Introduction

Forward

Preface

A Legacy of Work Ethic

A Legacy of Stories

A Legacy of Infrastructure

A Legacy of Living in Community

A Legacy of Unity

A Legacy of Political Engagement

A Legacy of Competitive Spirit

A Legacy of Art & Culture

A Legacy of Courage

108

A Legacy of Values

122

A Legacy of Camaraderie

134

A Legacy of Nicknames

154

Editor’s Introduction East Lake Ainslie, August 2010 This book is one of a kind, a good idea for which I was asked to be a catalyst. The idea emerged from some people at DEVCO, the Cape Breton Development Corporation, who wanted a book produced to celebrate all that Cape Breton’s coal miners have given us. At every turn there was support for the idea, mainly because the United Mine Workers said “yes” to it, and made the first investment of money. Other entities followed up with financial or in-kind support. They’re listed at the back. We needed pictures and stories to celebrate an incredible legacy of work which kept a nation warm. With ICON Communications, a plan was formed to invite Cape Bretoners to share the stories that would define this legacy of building families and communities. Public meetings were held across the island. Media outlets spread the word and Cape Bretoners came forward to share their stories and photographs. The importance of the work became clear at the start of our first public storytelling session when a man in the audience stood and asked if we could begin with a minute of silence. The title of this book emerged at the New Waterford session, in a fire hall where my late grandfather’s (Johnny “Super” McNeil) picture hangs on the wall with those of many other coal miners who were volunteer firefighters. Rocky Burchell underlined the importance of remembering their legacy. “We used to go to the tavern and be talking shop. Some guy who didn’t know the life would want to get away from your table. ‘Ah, you’re talking pit, I don't want to talk pit,’ he’d say. So I used to take them for a tour out to the pit. Every time I got a chance, I would take them underground and show them, educate them, so they would never forget.” Burchell was asked about the expression ‘talking pit.’ “It’s just exactly what it is. It's what we’re doing now,” said Burchell. Joe Aucoin joined the discussion. “Talking pit and ‘pit talk’ are two different things. Pit talk is talk that happened in the pit. Pit talk stayed in the pit. ‘Talking pit’ could happen anywhere. You could do that at the tavern if you wanted.” We talked a lot of pit to create “Pit Talk.” Themes emerged again and again and are reflected in the chapter titles. The coal miners’ legacy not only remains alive but is celebrated through the telling of the stories in this book. Other books will provide the necessary historical record of tragedies and disasters of this industry. This one begins and nourishes a discussion of the goodness produced by real people as they also produced tens of thousands of tons of coal over dozens of decades. “Pit Talk” is what Cape Bretoners said in public about our coal miners’ legacy. A discussion has begun in this book. Long may it continue. Ian McNeil

Foreword On Talking and Listening Miners love to talk. Good reporters love to listen. I learned this as a young reporter in Cape Breton. I would spend time visiting the homes and collieries to listen to the stories and complaints even when there was no “story” for the paper or the TV program. When “news” happened it was usually complicated by controversy or sorrow but I had the human contacts and, usually, the context. Miners love to talk. For many years as host of CBC Cape Breton’s Information Morning, Ian McNeil shared their stories with listeners, amplified their voices on the radio. Now he’s compiled stories which reflect the coal miners’ legacy and given them a new life and a lasting form in this important, fascinating book. Miners love to talk. The highest form of talk (in my opinion) is good storytelling. The miners’ stories make us think and laugh, help us to remember what is best and mock (and thus help us to forget) the worst. Their stories give shape and meaning to experience that was often dangerous and dark, to lives that would have been, without the stories, unremarkable and brief. The mines are gone now. The drama and the drudgery of mining now exist entirely in the memory. But the spirit of the miners will endure because they loved to talk and because we loved to listen. Cape Breton’s Linden MacIntyre is an award-winning host of CBC Television’s “The Fifth Estate,” as well as winner of the 2009 Giller Prize for his novel “The Bishop’s Man”.

Pictured (l-r Back): Ronnie Kelly, Wayne Morrison, Steve White, Tim Chaisson, Tommy Bonnar (l-r Front): Nipper MacLeod, Billy Petrie, Pius Steveson, Danny Burke

Preface Message from the United Mine Workers of America, District #26 I am happy to see that Cape Breton coal miners are being recognized for the important commitment and sacrifices they made to the coal mining industry throughout the years. They were dedicated right to the end. The UMWA recognized that this book is a worthwhile project and supported the endeavour from the outset. Our objective has always been to work toward making a better life for coal miners, and we remain committed to this goal, striving to enhance their work environment and make positive changes in the industry. Celebrating the Cape Breton coal miner in the pages of this book is a testament to their loyalty and perseverance. The UMWA is proud to be part of this important legacy. Bobby Burchell, New Waterford, International Representative UMWA.

July 2010 This book is a record of a strong community, of kinship in danger and adversity. Cape Bretonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s miners worked where few have done. Their deeps were under the sea. This proximity was an advantage only while coal was the fuel of shipping. Afterwards the rising cost of long journeys to the coal faces was compounded by the short sight of outside financiers. For decades, nevertheless, the determination of Cape Bretoners compelled governments to recognize the national interest in sustaining an easterly outpost of the Canadian energy industry. Eventually, circumstances changed, and the men of the deeps have become their pensioners. But delaying that day and building the pensions was fully worth both the struggle of Cape Bretoners and the support of other Canadians. Tom Kent became the president of the Cape Breton Development Corporation in 1971.

A Legacy of

WORK ETHIC An Extraordinary, Ordinary Miner Beverly Cathcart is the daughter of a coal miner, Rudy Olszowiec, who grew up in Scotchtown, what Cathcart calls “the suburbs of New Waterford.” Rudy and his wife raised children there, but not before he helped first to raise his parents and siblings, developing his exemplary work ethic at a young age. “He worked in several mines,” says Cathcart, “including numbers 12, 16, 20 and Lingan. His father emigrated from Poland when Dad was two. In Grade five, Dad’s father suffered a debilitating back injury, so he left school to support the family. He worked fifty four years. He also went to night school, while he worked, and earned his Grade eight certificate. This is not demonstrative of his intelligence. Dad could put his hand to anything. Da’ was an extraordinary, ordinary coal miner. He died in 2007 at an age of 93 to 96. He fibbed a lot about his age! “In his own small proud way, he tried to perpetuate the legacy of the Cape Breton coal miner when he retired. Shy by nature and disabled by poor hearing, he bravely spoke in public because he felt something should be done to celebrate coal miners. He gave many media interviews and speeches. As a tour guide at the Miners Museum, he made models of machinery in the pit from bits and pieces of toasters, scrap and wires. These models were destroyed in a fire. “He started at the lowest job, a trapper, opening and closing the air door, for when the trip came in and out with the coal. He was eleven and a half years old, and had to work some night shifts. He was so young; he fell asleep one evening, and got into a lot of trouble when the trip ran into the door. This was very serious. He was sent home and told not to come back. “He arrived back at the pit the next day, and asked for another chance. One of the supervisors told him ‘there's a shovel and a pile of dirt, and if you find yourself getting tired, shovel that pile of dirt from here over to there. And if you’re still tired, shovel it back again. “I think it was the same year as the strike, 1925, and there was no other source of income. They had a credit account at one of the company stores, and they were told, after a few months there was no more credit. So he worked out of necessity, and he was in grade five. “Maybe when I was around twelve or so, I think I realized that he was a hard worker. He never said anything. He did mention how the miners were very proud of their work area, how it looked. He never complained. He loved working in the pit. By his example, we understood that, in order to do well in life, you had to work hard. Nothing is given to you. We all did fairly well in our lives, and he never preached. He instilled in his six children, by his example, a very strong work ethic.”

Rudy Olszowiec 4

Pictured (l-r): Walt Hanrahan, Ricky MacDonald, Willie MacKenzie

A Driven Man Kenny Leblanc of Sydney Mines has also been inspired by the example of a parent, his father, John C. LeBlanc. “Most of the miners in town knew him as Johnny. Dad retired after forty nine years working in the pit. He started in the old collieries out in Florence, a shot boy, and he worked with the pit ponies for awhile. He continued upgrading his education, on his own. He went to night school a lot of years, taught night school, and eventually became a mining engineer. “He was driven, a driven man. It was a tough, tough world, you know, and it made a tough man. But he wanted to be a part of the mining industry, and in order to achieve a certain status, he drove himself through his education. We were a family of twelve children, a lot of mouths to feed, but he worked six days a week. He used to leave the house about five or six in the morning, walking down to the pit head, and he'd come home about five o'clock every day. “I think I've walked on the shoulders of many giants. My father was my hero. Every time I took a step forward in the service, in the military, and things were tough, I always thought, ‘Dad worked through some pretty tough times. By God, this Cape Bretoner can do it too.”

Working As Soon As You Got Out Of Bed Tough times happened above ground as well as underground, or even under a house, particularly in Cape Breton’s raw winters. Rennie MacKenzie, author and local historian, remembers how the season shaped his own desire to work as a coal miner in his youth, and how the season’s tests would not stop him from getting to work. “I'd wake up on a February morning at five o’clock and curse as soon as I seen a clock. I’d think ‘I did something wrong with that clock. It can't be five o'clock.’ “You'd be freezing cold. The water was frozen in the house. There was a four foot crawl space underneath the house where the pipes were. I'd have to get the bleeping blow torch. You'd pump it up and hold your hand over the nozzle, open the valve and let the naphtha hit your hand, and run down in a little sink there. Then you'd close the valve, light the sink, and let it heat the nozzle. If you opened the thing too soon, it would be like a flame thrower. It's a wonder it didn't burn the friggin’ house down. You'd get her going; she'd go with a roar. The day started underneath the house, thawing out the water. “The wife was still in bed. You had to get the water going for her, and then you'd set the stove. I wouldn't light the fire but I put the paper, kindling and coal there so all she had to do was throw a match at it. You started working as soon as you got out of bed.

Pictured (l-r): George Merrill, John Leblanc

“I remember a winter. I had an old '46 Ford, V8, and it was snowing. We knew a storm was coming, so before I went to bed, I put the chains on her. I said ‘I'm not getting stuck. I'm not walking to work tomorrow.’ I had a ramp there. You could stand under the car and work at it. So I backed it up that ramp, with the chains on it, and I woke up the next day. “Sure enough, darn geez; there was about two and a half feet of snow on the driveway. No problem. I got the lunch can, the towel and the soap, and put it in the car, got up on the ramp, started the car, warmed her up a bit, aimed it at the driveway, put her in low gear and give it everything she had. “Of course I got stuck. Put her in reverse, backed up again, come at her again, harder than ever. I got stuck again. So I popped the clutch, tried to get a little bit more out of her, and underneath the car, whap! Under the floorboards the engine roared. I stripped low gear. “I cursed and put her in reverse. ‘I still got second,’ I thought. Backed up the ramp again, put her in second, pounded the pedal to the floor, buried it in the snow again, but getting closer to the road. Popped the clutch, whap! Stripped second gear! ‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘I still got high speed and reverse.’ “Put her in reverse, popped the clutch out, whack! I stripped reverse. I walked to work after all. Left the car right in the driveway. This is back in '51 or '52. The old Fords, the transmissions weren't that good on them.” 7

Take Your Blanket and Sleep There The ship which twice brought John Zwarun to Pier 21 in Halifax was a much more reliable vehicle. Colleen Campbell remembers that her maternal grandfather immigrated to Cape Breton in 1926 from a farming village in Ukraine. “He would have been Ivan Zwarun in the Ukraine. Representatives from the Dominion Coal Company went there to recruit men to work in the coal mines here. They were farmers; they didn't have any coal mining experience. I call him ‘Giddo;’ that's ‘Grandpa’ in Ukrainian. My grandmother was ‘Baba,’ just so you know who I'm talking about. “He came over in 1926 and stayed for three years, saved some money, and went back to Ukraine in 1929 to prepare the way for his family to come over. Now Baba and the girls, three at the time, weren't able to come until 1934. Giddo came back in 1930, landed at Pier 21, and then found his way to Glace Bay. My mom was only three and a half when they came over. “He didn't speak English. He had to live in a boarding house. That would have been hard, leaving behind his wife and children. There were really no services, social services, for new immigrants coming into the country. But I don't think it really fazed him. He, I think, was just happy to have a paying job. Life was very poor in Ukraine, and it still is. “I remember him being a very hard worker, extremely hard. As soon as Baba came over, they built themselves a little house. Baba helped. They raised chickens and geese, a cow and pigs. They kept a huge garden; they were never hungry, even when things were lean in the coal mines. They stored food for the winter. Anything surplus was sold, like milk and eggs. “My uncle Mike worked with my grandfather when he was sixteen. One time Giddo didn't come home for twenty four hours and Baba was most upset. We didn't hear any whistles to indicate a coal mine disaster, nothing like that. After 24 hours, she sent Mike over to the mine to see where he was. Apparently a machine had broken down and Giddo stayed to fix it. In those days, there was no communication with the family, no phones or anything. Anyway, when he finally arrived home, Baba had a few choice words to tell him, all in Ukrainian. I know some of them, but one thing she said was ‘if you want to live at the coal mine, take your blanket and sleep there.’ He didn't do that again.”

John Zwarun & his four sons. John Zwarun

No Ma, I Want To Work Bob Muir’s brother said his mother would “kill him” when he quit school before his fifteenth birthday to become a coal miner. All it took was the lure of a dollar a day, at the MacDougall coal mine in Florence, near Sydney Mines, to face that threat. The decision was made while his mother was away on an extended visit in Scotland, the home of Muir’s birth. Even at an early age, Muir’s desire to work was apparent. “John kept saying ‘she'll kill you.’ Oh Ma was the type of woman, she'd say, ‘Robert!’ and I’d say ‘how high, ma?’ That was a lovely woman, great woman, instilled in me a lot of good things, I am sure. ‘What's this I hear about you not going to school?’ Oh yeah, I go into her Scottish accent, you see. “’Well ma, I want to work.’ This went on for a week, ten days. ‘I want you to go to school,’ she’d say. “No Ma, I want to work.’ We had an acre of land, and she said, ‘look, if you want to work, I'll arrange something.’ The land, she got that plowed up with a horse and an old plow. I was to plant potatoes. She had currant bushes, every kind of thing, and I used to say, ‘Ma, you don't even know what they are do you?’ ‘No son, but they'll be good for the winter.’ The old Scottish idea, you know what I mean. “I didn't mind school. I liked it Ian. I never got a strapping in my life and that was common in those days. Hold you by the wrist, you know (slap sound). Of course I wanted to make some money. A buck in those days would be five or ten today. “And poor John, in this coal mine deal, he got a curvature of the spine. They got a cast on him. Next thing they know, a month later, he’d taken a pocket knife and cut it off. He had about three or four casts and he ended up with quite a hump on his back. We worked in those rotten coal mines and there were times when the spine would be all skinned from hitting the top.”

Pictured (l-r): Willie MacKenzie, Jimmy Gouthro

Men breaking surface at #26 Colliery

They Never Saw the Sunshine The appeal of a coal miner’s work had much more to do with the pay than the working conditions, but even that wasn’t much, as Abby Michalik remembers. As he indicates, the rewards for the work had little to do with the work ethic forged underground. Michalik is from Glace Bay, Caledonia district, where the Miners Museum is located. “In 1959, I got hired on at Number 4 Colliery just down the road. I worked with six uncles, my grandfather and three cousins. The men I worked with have got to be the finest bunch on this earth. You've got to look after one another when you're in a mine, because you never know when something can happen, the roof coming in or something like that. You’d learn to work from an older miner. He'd teach you. “I remember one day, we were going into 26 East, on the east side of Caledonia, and I was only a young fellow. I had my two hands on the box going in and a little fellow alongside me, Windy MacDonald, said ‘you better get your hands off them boxes or you’re going to have no fingers.’ That mine opened in 1866 and closed in 1961 so it was almost a hundred years old. “It was an old fashioned mine, the room and pillar, where two miners worked. You were only paid for the boxes that reached the surface that day. In my Dad’s time, my grandfather's time, they worked twelve hour shifts, six days a week. On a good day, you might get ten boxes. That would depend on the seam of coal, the height and the thickness. They’d never see the sunshine. It was dark when they left and dark when they came home. “So when the box left that room, there was a tally and they weighed it. For two thousand two hundred forty pounds, what they called the long ton, they'd give you sixty eight cents back then. As the years went by, the wages started. I was born in 1938. A gallon of gas was only 19 cents; a bun of bread was 9 cents. Wages were 25 cents an hour. Wow, short changed, let me tell you. In 1944, the miners got their first week’s vacation. And no holidays, no sick benefits, no unemployment (insurance) and no (workers) compensation. “But mining was good and I really liked the men that I worked with. It put food on my table for my three children, gave them an education.”

Pictured (l-r): Doug Snow, Sandy MacDonald, Jerry MacNeil, Blair Boone

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

A Day’s Work for a Day’s Pay More than fifty years later, Blair Boone shared that feeling about work as a coal miner, work that ended when DEVCO closed its last mine in 2001. In the meantime, he helped a miners’ cooperative to lobby for a revival of underground coal mining at Donkin. He also managed a call centre, an experience he says does not compare favourably with his work in the coal mine. “I think it's in my blood. I was well looked after by my father, same as his father looked after him. I proceed the same way. I really miss the industry, had a number of jobs since then and didn’t like any of them. When they took DEVCO from me, they shot me right there (points to his heart), took everything I ever had away from me. “I really enjoyed going underground and being a coal miner. Many men found it very challenging all the time, rewarding work. When I came home, I felt like I’d done a day’s work for a day’s pay. “I enjoyed all the people I worked with. You never knew what challenge was ahead and you had to think your way through the challenges. You didn't mind getting up at five o'clock, grabbing the lunch can and heading out. That was just the way of life. “Down there (in the mine), everybody wasn't trying to stick it to you. I worked for Stream (call centre) over in Glace Bay. That's all everybody wanted to do. The whole world just changed for me.”

You Worked by the Whistles George Walker’s father encouraged him to learn a trade and not to become a coal miner. Now a resident of Creignish, Walker remembers how his father went to work in the Inverness coal mine when he was twelve years old, one of many boys that age who worked there. “I think that would be around 1913. Yeah, he was born in 1901. He’d be one of the greasers, greasing the boxes that haul the coal. Some of the young fellows would be underground, fan boys, cranking the fan to circulate air into deeper areas in the mine, eh. “By hand, that's what they did, manual labour eh, to move the air around, like a blower on a furnace. Yeah, and other boys would block off sections in the mine to keep air from moving in, where it wasn't necessarily wanted. They had something like burlap, soaked in a tar eh, to add weight and give it better seal. Smelled like hell too. After he got a little older, he went to study at night school through the Department of Labour and Department of Mines, and he took up stationary engineering. So he qualified as a second class stationary engineer. He hoisted coal, operated the big hoist and ran compressors and generators. “There wasn't much coal mining by the time I grew up. In '47, they had a big fire and lost their bankhead, eh. That more or less put the kaput to coal mining in Inverness. But prior to that, even in the forties, they had what they call bumps, and they had to close off sections of the mine. A lot of the miners moved, New Waterford mostly, and a lot of tradespeople went to work in Pictou at the shipyards. Today I believe I'm the last whistle blower. ‘Whistle blower’ doesn’t sound that good. When I was a young fellow, I'd go over at probably quarter to twelve to the mine, the compressor house. My father would lift me up to grab the rope and pull the whistle cord at twelve o'clock noon eh. “You worked by the whistles. They had signals throughout the day, the first at five a.m. and that would get people up. The second whistle would be at six a.m., the third at seven a.m., and there would be another at noon and one at 12:30. The noon whistle would go, and for people working on the surface, that From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum was their lunch time and 12:30 it was back to work, right. And they had an eight p.m. whistle, curfew. 14

Mick Harrietha

Wayne Deveaux

Russell McNeil

Tom Howard handing out cheques on pay day.

No. 26 Colliery, Glace Bay

They Kept Everything Together The mention of whistles sparks the memory of Gerald Burke in River Ryan. The retired coal miner remembers how his father would answer the call of the whistle to work, even when there was nothing happening underground. “There used to be the whistles. When there was no work at 16, 18 or 12 Collieries, Dad would get up for the early shift, and he'd hear the whistle, to see if he had to come. Then I'd hear him saying to my mother ‘well Tessie, there's no work today, so I'm going out with the fishermen.’ “So he’d go out and fish that day, because his lunch was made. We would go down of course, to see the boat coming in. They would clean and split the fish, and fillet them, and we'd take it home. That's the way he got his fish for the winter. When there was no work in the coal mine, he went fishing. “I remember, growing up, five different farmers, people that grew things in Lingan. We would go help them in the fall, help in the spring to plant too. The fishermen would trade fish for vegetables. We took great pride into it. Everything that I did, or tried to do, I always relate it back to what my Dad did. I never heard my Dad complain you know, never heard my Dad curse. Gerald Burke adds that his appreciation of a work ethic came as much from his mother as his father. “Oh, God love my mother. She held it all together. She had to do the whole thing. “In Lingan, Monday was a wash day. Nobody had their fire on because all the women washed. We had to get water on a Sunday for her to wash on Monday. Now Tuesday was the bread day. That was when all the bread was made, right, and they would make the bread for the rest of the week. Then you would see the smoke out of every chimney. “I remember my mother and my uncles’ wives, women who lived up the Shore Road in Lingan. They never stopped. I mean they were just continually going, washing, baking and having children. They all had big families. They kept everything together. The mother kept everything together. “The men would be working but your mother was home. If somebody got a bad cut or took sick, she had to make the decision about what to do, because there was nobody else, right. The women were close because they relied on each other when the men were all out working. “I remember Mom, God love her, scrubbing floors, no tiles, just the bare boards. And she would scrub it. In a way the women worked harder than the men, when you look at it.”

Something About the Way They Lived Then An adage about the work of women tells us that “it’s never done,” and this may be the case for an older generation of coal miners. In the first half of the twentieth century, some of them apparently found it difficult to come to terms with the end of gainful employment. Len Stephenson of Dominion indicates that the love of their livelihood, at least for some coal miners, extends late in their lives. “One of them, an uncle of mine, was very, very much annoyed. They put him on pension. There was little or no pension. He was seventy, annoyed that they wouldn't let him go back to work. The oldest man I can think of was related to my wife, from Bridgeport. He was eighty-seven when he broke his leg in the mine. I think he wanted to give it up but it would have been a difficult job. There were no pensions, government or otherwise. “They worked very hard. It was something about the way you lived then, contented to work one or two mines, one or two days a week, so there was little income. They entertained each other and enjoyed the company of each other.”

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum 17

A Legacy of

STORIES Cyril Aker of Sydney Mines was inspired by a coal miner to get involved in creating a regular forum for the telling of stories. “Jim Guy was a story teller, a coal miner for years in Sydney Mines, a coal hauler, a great community person, a great church person. He would do such a great job of telling a story, and took such enjoyment in it; his expressions were just really something to see. Inspired by him, we came up with the idea, and got a committee together, to form the storytelling committee. Our first session was to be at St. Andrews hall in Sydney Mines, September 18th, 2001. “Jimmy Guy was going to be our guest speaker, but he passed away before that could happen. So I contacted the family, and told them we wanted to do a tribute to him. Doctor Rory MacLellan gave us beautiful memories of Jimmy. We had about a hundred people for our first session and it was just phenomenal. It brought back a lot of memories for people.”

Jim Guy

Before It Was Called Sydney Mines… In the annals of Cape Breton and Canadian history, the significance of coal may have been underestimated, or at least not fully appreciated. This point was explored by Dr. Brian Tennyson during a public talk at the Sydney Mines Storytelling Session of January 12th, 2003. As director of International Studies at Cape Breton University, Tennyson talked about the history of a part of Sydney Mines known as Chapel Point. “I devoted a lot of time and energy, and dare I say public money, to try to develop it as a historic site, an attraction. A group of us, the Chapel Point Historical Society, agreed that if we're going to ask for money, which of course we were, we needed to know a whole lot more. Being an academic, I started digging and what surprised me, and maybe it shouldn't have, was that the history of fortification on the harbour goes back a long, long way. I didn't know that. I was kind of surprised. “The other thing that surprised me was that what everybody has always said about coal’s importance was not quite right. Historians talked about the history of coal mining and its significance, but they really only talked about it from about the middle of the 19th century. Oh, they acknowledge there were mines, but only that there was just a little digging of coal to keep fireplaces going. I discovered that just isn't true.”

Harbour View Hospital, Sydney Mines

Coal cutters, Port Hood coalmine

Ballast Train on Reserve Crossing, July 1902

They Were Fighting Over It “Once you get into the age of steam power, coal is important. But the importance of coal strategically to Britain and France and the various colonies, New England and Quebec, goes way back. You can find evidence of them digging coal in the very early 18th century. I thought that was interesting. They had convoys, the British and French, convoys with armed frigates guarding them, hauling coal. That tells me it was important, not just some little thing, chipping a little bit of coal from the surface and taking it to Louisbourg. They were fighting over it. So we kind of re-thought the history of the period, the military aspect, the military history of Sydney Harbour. “Now we know that in 1711, the British admiral Walker came into the harbour with a big fleet, I think fortytwo ships. Interesting is perhaps the first mention of Sydney Mines, although they didn't call it that of course, but Lloyd’s Cove. Walker also noted that the French, who’d claimed the area, were already mining coal there. That's before they built Louisbourg. “We also know that, by the 1740's, the French were mining coal. The British took Louisbourg from the French and they mined coal. At Point Aconi, for example, the British actually stationed a few troops there to guard the mines. This is all recorded in the documents. In 1766, we know that the new colonial government granted a license to a private company to mine coal at Indian Cove. The British government immediately repudiated that. They didn't want private companies mining coal, and would also have known that even though the government revoked the license, illegal mining was taking place anyway.”

They Turned Out to be Coal Miners “In the 1770's the British actually sent troops here to dig coal. Imagine the guys joining the army thinking they were going to be soldiers. They turned out to be coal miners. I don't imagine they were too happy. We know in 1778 they sent more troops to guard the troops who were digging the coal. That tells you it was important. They were spending money, allocating resources, on mines. “Mines’ is a grandiose word maybe, for what they had were pits supplying coal to Quebec, to Newfoundland and the colonies along the seaboard, until the (American) revolution broke out and they stopped. Historians will tell you, oh no, the coal wasn't important because the British had lots of coal. Well they did have lots of coal, but it was cheaper to get the coal here, for sale in this part of the world. “In 1781, there was a naval battle off (Sydney) harbour on the 21st of July, French ships attacking the British convoy that was hauling coal out. The French chased the British back into the harbour, and they fought a gun battle, which they won. “Then in 1784, as everybody knows, Sydney was founded. The colony of Cape Breton was founded under Halifax jurisdiction. What is interesting about when they founded Cape Breton is why they put the capital in Sydney, which didn't exist, instead of Sydney Mines. The whole point of being here was the coal, so why wouldn't they place the capital where the coal mines were? The explanation, I think, is strategic. They thought Sydney Mines was too close to the mouth of the harbour. They placed the capital where they thought they could defend or attack. “By the 1790's there were approximately a hundred men here mining coal, hauling something like nine thousand tons a year, which doesn't sound like a lot to us I suppose, but I think it's pretty significant. In 1795, the British actually established a fort in the area, Fort Dundas on the north side. There was another fort, Prince Edward, over on South Bar, and another fort at Sydney. Gee, this is pretty impressive.”

Fabe Fraser

John Caldwell

Fabe Fraser

A Free Trade Agreement “So the mines chug along, supporting the new colony of Cape Breton. Part of the rationale was that coal would generate enough revenue to support a government. It wouldn't be dependent on handouts from Britain. Well that didn't really happen. It did generate some revenue but not enough. They didn't have taxing powers and discovered they weren't allowed to tax the coal. So they thought they'd tax rum and were told they couldn't tax that. “Coal mining was getting pretty serious because, in the 1850's, we signed a free trade agreement with the United States, which meant coal could go there free of duty. Coal mining expanded very rapidly mostly because of American investment. There was a lot of fear about the security (of Sydney Harbour). “In 1860, the Prince of Wales visited. There’s a lot of mythology about it. The only thing he did was inspect the militia, which was made up of coal miners. We know he was accompanied by the coal company secretary and a couple of military officials. They looked at the site, which was really why they came. The Prince was a kind of front for the real purpose. “The British built a significant fortress at Chapel Point, where the ruins are, a pretty serious fortress. As you know, we didn't go to war with the Americans - thank goodness, and again, typically with government, once the war scare passed they just walked away from the fort.”

People in Ottawa Didn’t Listen “And they neglected it through a very peaceful era until the First World War. The interesting thing from Sydney Mines point of view is that, even though the area was incredibly important because of the coal mining and a steel plant, they didn't resurrect Chapel Point. They were really more concerned about protecting North Sydney, where the trans-Atlantic cables came across, you know, the communication system which was the main link with North America. “Even in the Second World War, Sydney was important as a convoy gathering port and naval base, but also because of coal mines and a steel plant that produced one third of Canada's steel. If you sailed into Halifax Harbour and lobbed a few shells into the naval base, that would be very regretful. If you sailed into Sydney Harbour and lobbed a few shells into the steel plant, you would shut down steel production for some period of time. This was a whole lot more serious. People in Ottawa didn't listen to that at the time, which won't surprise many of us. “What you find at the end of the war though, really before the end, is that the importance of Sydney Harbour is declining because they started directing convoys more from New York and Halifax. Chapel Point was stripped, you know, of all its metal and wiring and sits there, a rather sad and forlorn site. I'm still optimistic we'll resurrect it, and have a wonderful tourist attraction and historic site to recall not only the history, but why this history is important to this area.” Brian Tennyson published with Roger Sarty “Guardian of the Gulf: Sydney, Cape Breton, and the Atlantic Wars” in May, 2002.

A Legacy to a Province Dr. Robert Morgan’s credentials in Cape Breton history are solid and complete. His perspective of the island’s history is covered in a two volume set called “Rise Again: The Story of Cape Breton Island,” which begins with the formation of coal millions of years ago. In 2003 at November’s Sydney Mines Storytelling Session, he described how this resource was both a blessing and a curse, a legacy which determined Cape Breton’s dependence on governments based off the island. “This coal was so awful. It wasn't broken; it was great big chunks, full of rock, you know what I mean? They were restricted; it could only be sent to Halifax or St. John’s to be used by the troops for fuel. They wouldn't let them ship it to the states because they were scared the Americans would use it for industry. “So what were they going to do? The danger was smugglers would steal the coal. They decided to close the whole mine down. Do you understand what I'm saying? The rest of Nova Scotia was getting people to move in. Yet they wouldn't let anybody settle here (in Cape Breton) because they were scared of people getting into the mines. So there's the blessing and the curse. “The curse was, at first the British wouldn't let anybody settle here, and then afterwards, when we become a separate colony in 1785, they said, ‘Okay you can settle there, and you can do limited mining.’ But they didn't pay any money, and sent no engines to pump the mines, and you had a restricted market.”

Pictured (l-r): Dan Curry, Ken Aucoin, Art Baxter

Little Glace Bay Harbour, 1890

N.S. Steel and Coal Co.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Piers, North Sydney 1902 These Piers were torn down in 1962

They Wanted the Coal Mines “Now we all know that, in 1820, we were annexed to Nova Scotia. We had no vote, of course, and we didn't like that. Halifax wanted us back because they wanted the coal mines. They needed the income, and that's what ran the province until the 1930's. But way back in 1820, that wasn't the straw that broke the camel’s back. It had to do with coal, of course, and it's really an interesting story. “In 1816, there was a huge volcanic eruption in the East Indies. Mount Tambora blew its lid. It had a direct impact on the history of Cape Breton because it clouded the sky around the earth. This was much bigger than Mount St. Helen's. The next year was very cold, and as a result, there was famine in a lot of places. It actually snowed here in June of 1816, and as far south as Virginia. The mice came out of the fields and ate all the crops here in Cape Breton. The farmers were in dire straits because of that cold year. “The new colony of Cape Breton needed money in order to buy food from away. There were no income taxes in those days, so how was the colony going to get money to buy food for the people? They put a tax on rum. In those days that was a big deal. The problem was that we, our house of assembly, hadn't been called. Taxes can only be imposed if the house agrees.”

The Annexation Was Illegal “And who are the ones that made the noise? They were the guys who ran the coal mines. They said ‘we're not going to pay that tax on rum,’ because it would come out of their pockets. “So it went to the Supreme Court of the island of Cape Breton. Chief Justice Dodd had to agree that the tax on rum would be illegal because the House of Assembly hadn't passed it. They couldn't raise money. Therefore the colony was bankrupt. We couldn't feed our people and it was an excuse for Nova Scotia to annex us. And it's all because a volcano and the guys that ran the mines over here wouldn't pay that tax on rum. “By that time the fat was in fire. Annexation was decided upon by the British, and we went into a cataclysmic state here in Sydney Mines and Sydney. A lot of protest caused the separatist movement to develop. The people of this area actually hired and sent a lawyer to London to plead our case. He got members of the House of Commons in England making speeches against the illegality of our being annexed without the consent of parliament. See what I'm saying? It never went through parliament, so the annexation was illegal. “Through the 1820's and '30's, there were marches and complaints. Thirty odd petitions were sent to England’s House of Commons asking that we be separated from Nova Scotia. Years passed and the coal mines were becoming more important. “As the General Mining Association begins mining properly, more coal is produced, right? As a result more money goes to the government of Nova Scotia. This becomes their biggest source of income until the 1920's. Okay? So the British government says, ‘look, the colony of Nova Scotia would not be stable if it weren't for the money coming out of the Cape Breton coal mines. Therefore you cannot have your separate colony of Cape Breton again.’ It's illegal, but that's what they did. There's no justice in this world!”

General offices and laboratory of the Dominion Coal Co., Glace Bay, 1897

Firsts That Were Fired by Coal The 19th century proved to be a turning point for the coal mining industry in Cape Breton. A number of firsts occurred, and as Dr. Robert Morgan indicates, it had little to do with effective public policy. Cape Breton’s pre-eminent historian, in his talk to the Sydney Mines Storytelling Session of November, 2003, pointed out how a much more personal motivation contributed to these firsts. “In 1827, the mines in Cape Breton were owned by the King, like the Crown owns the mines now, the mineral rights. George the Fourth was king. What happened was, his brother, the Duke of York had a great debt to jewelers. So he went to the king and said, ‘how can I pay off my debt to my jewelers?’ “The king said, ‘hey listen, I own the mines in Cape Breton. How about if I give them to you and we can lease them? The money we get from leasing the coal mines will pay off your debts to your jeweler.’ The Duke of York agrees and he makes a deal. “So now it's owned by the same jewelers who make the royal crown jewels. The company was named Rundell, Bridge and Rundell. Bridgeport, in Dominion, is named for Bridge, who was their treasurer. Anyway, these jewelers aren't stupid. They hire a geologist and an engineer, and the guy's name is Richard Brown. “So Richard Brown comes over says ‘Oh my God, it's just fantastic.’ So he sends back his assessment and says, ‘yes take it. Go into the deal with the Duke of York.’ They founded the General Mining Association and they become the first investors really, in heavy money, in Cape Breton. It becomes the first real industry in the Maritimes: the first coal, the first heavy industry in the Maritimes and one of the first in Canada. And they bring in engines to pump the mines, which is the beginning of scientific coal mining in Canada.”

First Geologist At the same gathering in Sydney Mines, it was Dr. Morgan who remembered one of the first working scientists in the history of Cape Breton. “James Miller was among the first geologists. He did work for the General Mining Association when it was first formed. Now geology in 1790 was pretty primitive. They didn't realize what most of us know now: that coal is compressed vegetation. Fossils gave him the clue. He was one of the first to realize it. “By the way, his sister ran the coal mines here for a few years, the first woman to run a business in Cape Breton after 17 hundred. Only a few people that were women ran businesses before that. His sister's name was Jane Miller. She ran the mines over here for a couple of years when James died of pneumonia. “He never did get to Windsor, Nova Scotia. He was on his way there to teach geology at Kings College, the oldest university in Canada. It had been founded in 1785 and he was going over there to teach. He came here on the way, fell in love with the place and stayed here. He died twelve or thirteen years later, and that’s when his sister ran the mines for a few years.”

North Abutment Dominion #1, September 1902

Grampy Allen Claire Andrea is known to people in Sydney Mines as one of the organizers of the storytelling sessions. Her grandfather’s unique hobby contributed to the health and safety of coal miners. “My grandfather, Bill Allen, was one of those men who came across the ocean, from the midlands of England, to find a better life. I see heads nodding, so they remember him. He worked in the pit briefly when he first came over and ended up being the caretaker for Harbourview Hospital. “But while he was working at the pit, he raised their canaries. He was a bird breeder in England, as a hobby. My mother always told me that Grampy Allen was the one who raised the canaries for the pit. We still have stationery that says ‘Bill Allen, Canary Breeder.’ “A few years ago we did some electrical work in the attic, and had to tear up the floor. It was lined with newspapers from England about an association of bird breeders. The other evidence we found were jars of what I thought were marbles, made of wood, not playing marbles. During the canary-raising process, when they would lay an egg or two, they were taken from the nest and replaced with marble-sized balls. Grampy had to watch the eggs and maintain everything properly for their growth and hatching. “Apparently you couldn't use real marbles, glass marbles, because they would be too warm beneath the bird’s body. That’s why he used wooden ones. So we still have them, a lot of them. I found a manual on canary breeding, and apparently, these eggs were supposed to be taken from the nest until the female canary laid three to five of them. When she finished, you put all the eggs back, over a series of days. You were supposed to replace the eggs with these small wooden balls. There was the answer. “They needed the canaries for the safety of the miners. That's what they used. If the methane level was too high, the canary died and you got the heck out of there. I’ve had conversations with some of the older ladies in town about the canaries being delivered to the general office. When they were running out, they would call Bill and say, ‘send down another half a dozen,’ and they were kept in cages in the general office. So it was important. It doesn't sound like much, but you know, a little canary maybe saved some lives.”

The Poorest of the Poor In a presentation to the Sydney Mines Storytelling Session of November, 2003, Loretta MacKinnon remembered a legacy of poverty endured by miners who worked in bootleg mines, crop pits and mines run by private operators during the Great Depression. “I first became acquainted with this close-knit family in the early 1930’s, and I've never known anyone to be in such dire straits since. They lived in a weather-beaten house that had never seen paint, all the wooden shingles curling up on the bottom. They had no ‘house neighbour,’ you know, a next door neighbour. The family consisted of two girls, eighteen to twenty years old, and three young men in their early twenties to early thirties. I wouldn't want to pinpoint this family, so I'll just refer to the men as Tom, Dick and Harry. Tom would be the youngest, Harry the oldest. “Harry loved to sing, just for his own pleasure, but I think he only knew one song because that's all we ever heard him sing. I don't know the name of the song, but I do remember a couple of lines, ‘No, no, a thousand times no. I'd rather die than say yes.’ “Now there's no father in this house. The mother was a short, tiny woman with long gray hair almost to her waist, when she wore it down. Usually she wore it pulled up into a bun at the top or back of her head. She wore a dress to the floor and a pair of woolen work socks; we called them pit socks, on her feet, summer and winter, no shoes. “The only income was a few dollars that Harry earned by working in the pit, a privately owned pit where there was no wash house, no battery operated lights, just carbide lamps on their pit caps. This was in the thirties when men were crying for work.”

Pictured (l-r): John Odo, Wayne Mauger

Underground Garden of F.B., 1929

The Old Stove Had a Shelf “On opening their door, you were overwhelmed with the powerful smell of creosote, and I hope I'm pronouncing that right. The floor was made of wide planks with spaces between them, about a half inch wide. In summer, these spaces were left open, but in winter they were stuffed with old cardboard boxes, newspapers, old socks, or anything that would keep out the draft. “The only source of heat was an old stove in the kitchen. The stove pipe went up through the kitchen ceiling, through the bedroom and out to the roof. There was no chimney to be seen on the outside, just an old rusty stovepipe. The old stove had a shelf and always a MacDonald's Twist chewing tobacco can on top. In this can there was always a cake of Royal yeast setting out. It came in a hard block, maybe a third the size of a Coffee Crisp bar, and it had to be set in water for quite a while to activate it. Now I do recall the mother, often, cutting out a big chunk of raised dough. She'd stretch it out, put it in the frying pan, and she'd fry that up, break it off and dip it in molasses. My sister Marg used to go there with me all the time and we loved to eat it. “The kitchen table was an old door supported on one end with two birch logs, the other end with a sawhorse. Only the mother’s chair had a back on it. Another seat was an apple barrel. They had no electricity, just kerosene lamps, no water other than a well outside, and no toilet inside or out. The back of the house bordered on woods so you can guess the rest. “Every Saturday Harry would give one of the girls twenty five cents to take the kerosene can and get it filled up at the store. The kerosene cost only twenty cents and he always allowed her to keep the nickel. A lot of times she would get bubble gum. That was a big treat.”

A Mattress Made from Potato Bags “At any given time, there were at least four cats in this house. One of the girls would take a can of milk and pour some of the floor, and the cats would try to drink it at once. Some wouldn't get at it, and when the mother wasn't looking, one of the girls would take the can of milk, pour some on this door that served as a table, and the cats would jump up there and drink it. “Oh, by the way, the kitchen was papered with newspapers, colour comics and pictures from Eaton's catalogues. Marg and I would read these comics over and over again, and admire the clothing from the catalogue pages. “In the living room was an old iron cot with a mattress made from potato bags, sewn together and stuffed with grass. How we loved to flop on that mattress, and I even asked Mother if she would get such a mattress for our old kitchen cot. All we ever got from her was ‘you two stay from there.’ All the boys slept upstairs. When they got up there, the hay or grass would start to come down through the kitchen ceiling. “Harry worked whenever he could, but since there was no wash house on the site, he always arrived home covered in coal dust. He would wash his hands in the basin which sat on top of an orange crate. Two orange crates stood on end together held a bucket of water, and a basin for washing your hands. A bar of soap rested in a sardine can.”

Waiting for the Bladder “A lot of people kept pigs, my father included, fattened them up and butchered them usually just before Christmas. The men who owned pigs would all get together to help one another on butchering day. The kids in the neighbourhood would gather around to wait for the bladder of the pig, which they would rinse out and dry, and then blow it up, usually with a stick of macaroni. The boys would use it for monkey ball, so if you ever hear someone saying ‘what are you waiting for, the bladder?’ That's where it came from. “All the pork fat, mother used for baking beans, which was often. She also made ‘scrunchin’s’ when we had salt cod. We always gave this family a lot of pork fat as well as some meat. The mother would take from the stove some potatoes and pork fat, which she had boiled together, and slice that up just like we slice roast beef now, and they'd eat it just like that with the potatoes. “Another staple in their diet was salt herring. In the summer my grandfather would buy a lot of fresh herring from local fishermen and then salt it in the pork barrel. Sometimes Nanna would give me some salt herring to take to this poor family, and she used to say, ‘Loretta, they're just keeping body and soul together.’ “One day, Nanna informed me that Granddad was going to throw out a whole barrel of fish because a rat had gotten into the barrel and drowned in the pickle. The mother of that poor family told me, ‘run and tell your grandfather not to throw out that herring,’ that she would take every one of them. ‘Just throw the rat away.”

A Big Lump of Coal “Sometimes the mother would ask Marg and I if we could bring her back a bucket of coal. So we would ask Ma. When she was in a bad mood we wouldn't even ask her; we'd just sneak in the coal barn and each of us take a big lump of coal. “The most shocking thing we ever saw was the time we went to the house and the mother pulled out a cardboard box, with Morgan Milk wrote on it, from behind the stove. Inside the box was a tiny baby. She told us one of one the boys was building a coffin because the baby was dead. We were too young to know where babies came from. We figured the doctor brought them in that little black satchel. So we asked her, ‘why did the doctor give you a dead baby?’ “I can't remember her answer, but if that baby was alive today, it would be sixty-five to seventy years old. Of course, not knowing that some mother had given birth, we didn't question who owned the baby. “We were never forbidden to go there, you know, directly told ‘you're not allowed to go anymore.’ That wasn't quite the same as, you know, just saying ‘you stay away from there!” My sister and I continued to go there a lot until we got a bit older and other things took our interest. People always said they were the poorest of the poor.”

Shaded by the Sound of the Siren M. Charlyne Chiasson grew up in Reserve Mines, Cape Breton. “My earliest memories were shaded by the sound of the siren. It could mean that a father, brother, uncle or neighbor may not come home tonight. My Dad did not work the mines, but uncles and cousins did, as well as my playmates and cousins’ Dads. We dreaded that sound if it wasn’t the noon whistle. “Reserve was named for the 'reserved' underground supply of coal that was ‘mined out’ before I was born in 1956. What remained was a huge coal bank which defined the village and many underground seams that were mined, probably illegally, by men who would build their homes near them and dig down to get what they needed for heat. “My home was one such structure and there was a depression in the ground that begged annual fill by my Dad as it sunk inches a year. That hole was right by my bedroom window, on a side of the house where we seldom played, and were warned to stay away. I never gave it much thought.”

This Story Is Very Personal “My story starts many years later on Kootenay Lake, British Columbia. After my first child was born, I was dealing with anger issues sparked by motherhood, I am guessing. I had also had issues with claustrophobia which I managed by staying out of tight confined spaces. I had not lived in Cape Breton for many years. “This story is very personal, borders on being a ghost story, but also ties directly to the work I do today. I clear energy from spaces and am a dowser of water, among other things that relate directly to the design field. When this happened I had not yet discovered this work. “I met a group of great women who did retreats at a pristine place called 'Tipi Camp' on Kootenay Lake. A woman introduced us to the ways of the medicine wheel, and other first nations practices. I have since found out that I have some Mi’kmaq heritage. This was my introduction to a form of healing the body, mind and spirit. I went on to study with her every summer for several years. The practice of going into sweat lodges really tested me. I hated confined spaces and would go berserk. I had to pray really hard to endure the sweat lodge.”

I Was Very Freaked Out “One year, a group of us gathered at Tipi Camp for our first 'vision quest' with a man from the B.C. coast, a sun-dancer who led many powerful healing sweats and vision quests. Going on the mountain meant going without food or water for days at a time. You must first be purified by doing a sweat lodge ceremony with the group at dusk. One evening something happened that changed my perceptions of where I come from and what I am here to do with my life. “I was very freaked out about the sweat. Roy, the leader, was like a big bear. With my husband along, I felt stronger than usual. Sweat lodges represent the womb of the mother from which we call come, a magical place where prayers are said aloud and many things are confessed, a healing place. The first round of grandfather stones came in and Roy did the first round of blessing prayers. By the third round I was really starting to get hot and claustrophobic, so I prayed like I never prayed before. “Suddenly I was transported into another time and space. I was raging mad and screaming, stuck underground and I could not get out. I was dying slowly of asphyxiation; yet I was not hurt or disabled. I was a miner after a mine collapse, trapped and desperate and really pissed off. I tried everything to free myself and my fellow miners but could do nothing but slowly die from lack of air. “I sensed the roof of the lodge suddenly open. I could see the stars and felt a huge sense of relief. I was back in the lodge, sweating and praying out loud. I have no idea how long I was in that trance but all my discomfort and claustrophobia was forgotten as I witnessed something very strange and unusual.”

My Life Changed “It took a while to understand exactly what happened that night. I realized that the hole by my childhood bedroom window was a small tunnel that energetically connected me to those miners. It felt like a collective group moved through me that night, men who died a slow death in the mines. In my empathetic way, I had a closer connection to these men than I had thought. “It went beyond the miners’ holiday in the summer, when as kids we would go see the pit ponies, or the coal bank we used as a killer toboggan run in the icy winters. For the first time in my life I could relate to why I was so darn claustrophobic! “After that fateful night, many things slowly came into place for me. I worked harder to resolve my anger by becoming an observer, thinking of those miners who had reason to be angry. My life changed and I went on to meet teachers who helped me to develop my gift of clearing energy. I became a channel through which energy clears. I don’t actually do anything. I have since studied techniques and have released many trapped souls in North and Central America. I feel I was predestined to do this work, although I don’t tell many people about it. Those who need me find me. The miners of Cape Breton, my birthplace, allowed this to come to light. “I have a special place in my heart for the men I felt that night, and will always be grateful for their release and their lives. It keeps be connected to my past, grateful for their gift, humbled by their sacrifices.”

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum 33

Donkin Tunnel

A Legacy of

INFRASTRUCTURE Everything Emanated from Them The personal legacy of the late Irving Schwartz to Cape Breton is enormous. A successful business person and supporter of charities, Schwartz credited his success in life to the fact that he grew up in the coal mining town of New Waterford. “It’s their greatest legacy. Without the coal mines, Cape Breton wouldn't have developed into the industrial island it became. That’s the first thing. Everything emanated from them, the coal miners. They supported our churches, the universities and our cities and towns. Without coal mines we would never have developed, and that's number one.”

Everybody’s Interest George Walker’s father was twelve when he went to work in an Inverness coal mine. “Yeah, he was born in 1901 and there was a great number of boys working for the coal company, greasing the boxes that haul the coal. That's what they did, a lot of the young fellows. Some would be underground, fan boys, and those boys would crank the fan to circulate the air into deeper areas in the mine, eh. “I was never directly involved with coal mining but I had an interest because that was everybody's interest in Inverness. It's the only industry really we had, eh. But coal mining in Inverness was never good, believe me or not. People talk about the boom years but there was no boom years. Even when things were going good, people didn't have too much. It employed some people in Nova Scotia, kept some people home in other words. “You knew you were living in a coal town from the smoke in the smoke stacks. They produced steam to run the mine eh, a big boiler house and four men, I think, per shift, firing the boilers. It was all hand stoked, the same as they did on the Titanic, eh. That's how it was in Inverness right up until the time the mine closed.”

No. 1 and an old angle slope No. 1B mine

No. 3 Colliery Dominion Station

No. 1A Bankhead

Company Houses “We were living in company houses, eh,” says Walker, “and in the vicinity of the houses around the mines, there was nothing but coal ash. Everybody burnt coal, ash piles behind every outhouse, cleaned up once a year, and of course you had the garbage there with that. “Most company houses were quite crowded because the families were big. Like in our family there was eleven, eh. You only had three bedrooms, so there's three and four in a bed, two beds in a room, so she was pretty crowded. “Houses were cold. It would take, in the winter time, half a ton of coal per week to heat them. There was no insulation at that time, anywhere. Water would often be frozen, and if you didn't leave it run through the night, it would probably freeze up. Sometimes even the main lines would freeze up in Inverness. There was wells here and there, eh. You could still get water. Go with your buckets or pails, but it would take a lot hauling, especially if it was eight or ten kids in the family.”

They’ve Been Done Over Len Stephenson of Dominion “was born in a typical coal company house in 1921. It was all softwood floors, very little on the floors. They had a couple of coal company carpenters go around to maintain the things. They were, in the end, rather dilapidated. “There were no bathrooms. The first bathroom someone put in a company house, they called them the ‘proud arses.” There were outdoor toilets and the men would come around after midnight to collect it all and put it over the dump. There was no running water. They had wells in the very early times. About the 1930's, they had the water pretty much in the house, but no toilets. “The coal company put up all the homes, the company houses; we had about 170 in Dominion. They started shortly before 1900. There were three different types: duplexes, the ones like I live in here, and the other ones, single ones you see on other streets. “I don't think there's a better looking community in Cape Breton than Dominion right now. They've been done over; they've been looked after. People started buying old company houses in 1947 for about three hundred dollars. That was about as much as they were worth really.”

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

Coal Ship

Talking to the Wall George Walker of Inverness remembers a form of communication unique to the company house duplexes. “You had just a thin wall between you, eh, and if the lady next door, wanted to get the message to my mother, she'd just knock on the wall, and my mother would go and put her ear to the wall and get the latest, eh. “But then if she wanted to get the message further on to the next place, we had a common water supply. It came down on one line, and it ‘tee'd’ off into the other house, the second house. So what you did, you turned the water on, let it come on full, and then closed the tap suddenly. You got a hammer sound on the line, eh, and that gave a signal to the next door lady to come to the window or back door and get the news.”

The L.O.C. Hall According to Len Stephenson, “coal miners did almost everything. They were involved with building the hospitals and the halls. We had probably the oldest one in Dominion, at least on this side of Sydney. The L.O.C. Hall was built in 1840. The ‘Loyal Order of the Cross’ was a temperance organization that started in England. “I took a young man over the River Ryan Bridge one day, going to (New) Waterford. I said ‘oh my, look on the other side at the buildings.’ He said, ‘that’s where the L.O.C. lost their president.’ There was a bar room there. I said ‘what happened?’ He said ‘Ike got over and got drunk. He was the president.”

Inverness Academy, First Public School, 1904

Mabou Coal Mines, early 20th century, circa 1905

Check-off Ralph Baxter shares Len Stephenson’s view that the ‘miners built everything.’ “In Sydney Mines, we owe pretty much everything to them. The churches were built because they had check-offs, the simple fact that guys with jobs were able to make weekly contributions. The curling rink we had, that was check-off by miners, just like the playground and the ball park.”

Even Antigonish Benefitted Joe Burke of River Ryan is proud of the miners’ contribution to the construction of Cape Breton’s infrastructure. “My God, when you look at it, every hospital, every church, every school; even Antigonish benefitted. I remember when I was only young, I signed off for a quarter a pay for Antigonish to build that college up there (St. F.X.). All the miners donated. Then if your son or daughter wanted to go into it, you had to pay through the nose, and we used to say, ‘God damn it, what did we support that for?”

A Rink in Town Colleen Campbell of Glace Bay was always impressed by miners’ efforts “to ensure that public facilities such as churches, hospitals, and the Glace Bay Miners Forum were built and supported. I remember a check-off system and have the original certificate for two shares that Grandpa purchased in 1938 for twenty dollars. This would have been a lot of money at that time but obviously Grandpa considered it important that there be a rink in town. The miners taught us to support your local community and not to be solely dependent on government to do things for people.”

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

Bridgeport Colliery, Bridgeport

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Fan Houseâ&#x20AC;? from a coal mine in Inverness. From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

Miners Memorial Highway Bob Muir can remember some actual amounts for deductions. “I think it was forty cents a week for the hospital, twenty cents a week for your doctor. You'd sign a card, agreeing, and that's what kept us in health care. We had cooperative hospitals in Cape Breton long before we had the national health plan. Nobody but nobody was ever turned away. Nobody! “The things these people built make them heroes. There's no other worker that has a major highway in this province called after them. Think of that when you drive the Miners Memorial Highway. There's no accountants highway, no lawyers highway, no doctors highway, not even a broadcasters highway!”

The Suit Club Inverness’ George Walker explored some of the deductions from the miners’ payroll, “first the hospital, then the doctor, rent, power, lawyer, union dues, right. They also had deductions on a volunteer basis, if you wanted to belong to a suit club. Did you ever hear of that? “A suit club is where you might contribute to save up for a new suit. You put a dollar away off your check or your pay envelope, every week, eh. This was more or less in cahoots with the paymaster, eh. He probably got a little cut and a deal with the clothing stores in Inverness. So you had money to dress up around Easter, and everybody did dress up at Easter.”

Former mine owner’s estate in Inverness

St. Joseph’s Hospital, Glace Bay

General Mining Office in Sydney Mines (Now a private home)

Memorial Hospital, Nurses’ Home, Inverness

Coal engine, Charlotte Street, Sydney, 1893

Old Sydney Collieries

The Sprays,

A Total Mining Community

No. 4 Colliery, Glace Bay

Irving Schwartz, who died September 18th, 2010, as this book went to print, saw things from the business community’s point of view. “It was a total mining community. Without the miners there'd be nothing left in New Waterford. Without miners we would have no business. It is as simple as that. There would be no choice in the matter. We would have to go somewhere else to make a living. “We had a great relationship between merchant and customer. The miners had charge accounts in all the grocery stores; some never paid cash for anything. One time this old miner came in to Benny Gaum, a Jewish merchant, and he stuttered, ‘B, B, Benny, I want a hundred pound bag of scratch feed.’ ‘Okay,’ said Benny. “And, and, and I'm going to pay c, c, cash for her.’ The merchant was so surprised he said, ‘look John, do you want us to send this up to your house?’ And John, without hesitation, said, ‘d, d, don't bother, I'll send the chickens down.”

When You Turn That Light On The UMW’s Bobby Burchell adds that the energy to heat and light buildings and homes was also a product of the labour of coal miners. “Like a lot of times I'd be at a meeting and I'd say, ‘you know, when you turn that light on, it if wasn't for those Cape Bretoners you're talking about, you wouldn't have that power.’ I think a lot people now realize when they turn that light switch on, with no coal mines since 2000, our power bills are going up. And Canada itself couldn't sell wheat to Russia from Saskatchewan until we went over and bought a piece of their mining equipment. A lot of people don't know that. “We affected a lot of things. A lot of our tax dollars went to Halifax and never came back; well a lot of it did come back, but an awful lot of it went there. Cape Breton coal miners don't get enough credit for the contributions they've made to the good life we live today in Nova Scotia and the rest of this country. We turned the wheels of the industrial revolution and they helped create economic well being our children and grandchildren enjoy so much.”

Sydney Mines

Mathieu Nobleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s map of underground workings.

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum St. Rose 48

Laws Too Nova Scotia’s deputy premier Frank Corbett is a miner’s son who became a legislator with responsibility for tax dollars. “Whether it's, you know, building churches and schools, or the way they shaped our occupational health and safety laws in this province, many laws have been written and changed because of the determination of miners.”

The Backbone On the north side of Sydney Harbour, Cyril Aker of Sydney Mines thinks “the legacy is how much they were involved in really building the community, the hospital, sports facilities, you know. They were involved, a lot, in the community. The miners were certainly the backbone of this town. That's for sure.”

An Awful Lot of Industry Jim Walsh points out that miners created ‘spin-off ’ jobs long before the term became popular. “It was an industry that provided an awful lot of work. Think of the number of people actually working in the mines and the piers, who supplied all the equipment required for working in a mine, even the timber or the lumber. It made an awful lot of industry for the island of Cape Breton. “I look back, and a lot of people don’t think there was ever a mine in North Sydney, but there was a mine right on the front street where the taxi stand is. It was called the Candy Pit because the fellow that owned it ran the candy shop across the street. The area worked came down the front street, down through Archibald Avenue, up by the Catholic Church, and then under where the parking lot is for Marine Atlantic. That was a mining area and it was only about a thousand feet deep.”

Public Transportation John Burton of Sydney Mines acknowledges that very little in the way of transportation infrastructure would exist on the island had it not been for industrial activity of coal mining. “There were these train stations and railways, and the wharf in North Sydney where the coal was shipped out. It came out of the mine, so it had to go somewhere. Somebody had to move it. “Oh, there was lots of train traffic. When I was five years old, or seven maybe, that was our means of travel. Going to North Sydney, you’d hop the main car, and we’d get off before she’d get to the coal pier, then be around North Sydney for quite a while, and then wait for the whistle. You’d hear it blowing, another one coming, so you could hop on and back you’d go. That was public transit for us, anyhow. My grandfather used to say ‘when the mines are finished, generally the town disappears,’ but we've managed to survive because they built a good strong foundation for it, right.”

A Legacy of Living in

COMMUNITY They Were All Coal Miners Ken Leblanc’s father, John, “told stories from back in the thirties when miners sat down and opened their lunch cans. Many were new immigrants who that shared their piece of bread or slice of turnip. They spoke Irish, Scottish, Italian, German and other languages of the world. “I remember him telling me they were all coal miners; they helped build these towns and the unique culture we enjoy today. Sydney Mines was really a one-industry town. Coal mining put food on the table, shoes on the children, clothes on their backs; it was the very root of our existence and our survival. “Not everyone in town was a miner and those that didn't work the mine provided the town with the grocery stores, gas stations, clothing stores, etc. The coal mine was the pulse of the entire town; every single person was affected by what happened; everyone had a stake. The churches were packed every Sunday. “The pit whistle would blow several times a day. We all knew what time it was, if our dads were going to work or returning home. That very sound blasting over the town held deep in our subconscious, a constant reminder that men worked underground. I remember as a young boy in school that, if the whistle broke from its regular timing, something was gone badly wrong in the mine. “I vividly remember the nervousness of my classmates, all knowing very well their fathers were underground, waiting and listening for the sound of the pit ambulance as it would travel down Pitt Street. As it approached Main Street we kids would dash to the school windows to watch the lights flashing and siren blaring. What a hopeless and terrible feeling that was, praying under my breath that my Dad was okay. We were all in this together. Every coal mining community in Cape Breton has been touched with great joy and tremendous tragedy.”

Inverness C.M.B.A. Brass Band

The Minersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Village, Glace Bay

Child’s Play The joy of childhood peaked in the summer for Ralph Baxter of Sydney Mines. He remembers how “we as kids had the luxury of a park, St. Pius the 10th Park it was called, down around Pond Street. It had swings and seesaws, a wading pool and ball field. Every year, the men of the parish would put on this fair down there. Miners ran the booths; it was quite the thing. “My father, every year, ended up running what they called the can toss booth. He had these little wooden cans that were, you know, great for a kid. There were always hot dogs and lots of food. It was just a great way to spend the summer, really.”

He Couldn’t Catch Us The coal mine property was also a place of play for Donny Campbell of Glace Bay. “I'm from Number 2, near Number 20 colliery, up by the new credit union here in Glace Bay. John Bernard Croak School is on the property now, where the mine used to be. I lived on Port Street, not far from there, and that was our playground. We’d go up there, bring the chuck blocks in, and we'd dig holes. We’d use chuck blocks to make little cabins and stick our heads up like gophers and holler at the company cop. Then we'd duck down and cover ourselves back in. “I lived in a company house. We never had a shower, just a tub. If we went swimming down Number 2 shore, we'd have to sneak into the wash house to have a shower. Sometimes the company cops would say nothing to you; other times they'd try to shoo you out. Most times the company cops were older miners taken up to the surface because their lungs were bad. If we showered down at the back door and he was up front, by the time he got down to get us, we were done with our shower and gone. He couldn't catch us anyway.”

Pictured (l-r Back): Jim MacLellan, Ralph Hoffman, Gary Wadden, Kieran McNamara, Bob Cooper, Ernie Boutilier, Len Cholock, Meyers MacDonald, Wally Simpson, Gerald Brown, George Carson (l-r Front): Kevin Ellsworth, Jim Walsh, Fred Howard, Tom MacNeil, Barry Campbell

Main Street, Inverness

Lower Railway Street, Community Picnic Grounds, July 1, 1904

Jimmy Taylor and his wife throwing horseshoes at the annual miners picnic.

Inverness Drama Group at the Old Parish Hall From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

We Never Wanted for Anything Colleen Campbell remembers fondly her childhood summers in Glace Bay. She grew up “just a stone’s throw away from mine. We lived next door to #26. We would spend an afternoon at the shore, hear the 3:30 whistle, and pack up our gear to head home for supper at four o’clock! “When the horses came up (to the surface) during miners vacation, it was just great. They’d put them in a big corral. I felt very special when one of the miners put Collie’s little girl on the horse’s back for a ride to the pasture. Mom would look at me with dismay when I returned home full of coal dust, but she never scolded me! Every day my sister Yvonne and I would pick fresh clover and grass. With some apples and carrots, off we trotted to feed the horses. I would come home filthy dirty. “For most of my childhood, during miners’ vacation we were not able to go on a family trip. There was no extra money. We were taken to local attractions, like the ‘circuses’ in Glace Bay and Sydney. Dad’s relatives would visit us from the ‘Boston States.’ I frequently went to the slag heap at the shore to dig for fossils. We never wanted for anything. “My father often took my sister and me to his work site. Many of the men knew the Campbell girls by sight. I think this was the reason I was allowed to sell Kool-Aid on hot summer days to the men working on the surface. They paid me a nickel a glass. They shared the glass! “One time, my father made arrangements to take me down the mine shaft and walk several hundred feet underground. I thought this was wonderful and exciting. Just think! I was walking under the Atlantic Ocean! The memories are so in the blood. You don't get it out of the blood.”

It Was All Through Love As the second oldest son of his family, Gerald Burke of River Ryan assumed responsibility for his siblings at an early age. “I had four younger brothers. If I would go home early, Mom would say ‘where's Pat or Danny? Go get them; it's time they were in the house.’ So then you would go, right, and say to them, ‘you're wanted home.’ They might say ‘no, we're going to play another game.’ I wouldn't dare go home and say to my mother, ‘well they’re not coming.’ “So I would have to go back. Then you would get kind of mad, right, but I mean it was all through love. You know it was. It was all through love and caring and that's what it was all about.”

The Kids Would Go Banging on Them George Walker remembers how the New Year was celebrated in the coal mining community of Inverness during the late 1930’s and early ‘40’s. “First thing at midnight would be the blowing of the whistle at the mine. The churches would ring their bells; the school would ring their bells. There'd be rifle and shotgun shots eh, and washtubs were used, you know, the big round washtubs. The kids would go banging on them. Usually they would bring in an outside orchestra for this big New Year’s ball, eh. Gib Whitney and Don Messer had these big bands that would come to play the hall.”

Our First Date Irving Schwartz began to interact with the general public in his home community of New Waterford when he was “quite young, around eleven. I was driving truck and doing deliveries at thirteen, so I came in contact with our customers at a very early age. We were delivering furniture, washing machines and chesterfields. Before that I drove my uncle’s horse and sleigh and did deliveries of groceries for Claener’s Grocery Store. Ninety percent of the people who lived in New Waterford were coal miners. “Living there had a great influence on my life, my ethics and views of how to treat people. We had a culture. If you were a coal miner, you were tough and you were macho, all that sort of stuff. You inherited that culture if you lived in New Waterford. “I was in Montreal, taking the woman who would become my wife out on our first date. We seemed to be getting along very well and she reached over to hold my hand as we were walking down St. Catherine Street. Instinctively I pulled my hand away and she said, ‘did I do something wrong?’ I thought for a moment and said to her, ‘we don't hold hands in New Waterford!”

Bank Night Anna Caverzan of New Waterford agrees that women gave responsibly to the social fabric of coal mining communities but made time to balance their hard work with some recreation. “Well I think the wives were very supportive to their husbands. Most wives were home all the time, and they might go out to the Majestic Theatre for Bank Night, which was on Thursday night. “There was money involved and the women used to go, most of the women, you know. I don't think it was for the men because my mother always went. Apparently one night she didn't go and her name was called. They used to draw a name. You could win twenty five dollars and if you weren't there, the next week it went up to fifty. “She sewed a lot and made things for us, never purchased anything too much. Sometimes we had to do without things because there were no groups that would come and help you out, like the Rotary Club or whatever. They had all that on their shoulders, you know. It was a tough time.”

Watching road race, Senator’s Corner, Glace Bay, 1908

A Black Suit Ruth Cormier’s Dad was James Struthers. “He came from Scotland when he was nineteen, with four brothers and a sister. His brothers didn't like it; they went back to Scotland. He lived in Donkin when he first came here, then worked in 26, and actually built his home near 26 mine. That's where I live today. “1960 was a big year. My Dad represented coal miners when the Queen came to Cape Breton, all of the coal miners in Cape Breton. He and my mother went to the Isle Royale Hotel and Ann Terry was doing the commentary for the radio station. We were home listening. We didn't have a car but I remember this black limousine coming to the house to pick them up. He had to have a black suit and a certain colour tie, and my mother wasn't allowed to wear anything blue, because the Queen was wearing blue that day, so.”

Quite an Adventure A hot date in a coal mining community like Sydney Mines could mean a cruise to Sydney, according to Bob Muir. “I think it was W.N. MacDonald in Sydney, the man who owned the castle. He also owned the ferry boats, the Peerless and the Electronic. Look, any silly thing you want to know, I'll remember it! “It used to go between North Sydney and Sydney Mines. That was a big deal. We'd go; I think it was a quarter or fifty cents to go to Sydney. We’d go up Charlotte Street, have a cup of coffee and a piece of coconut cream pie. Then we’d go back down the street to the ferry and back to North Sydney... quite an adventure!”

You’re Johnny’s Boy Kenny Leblanc of Sydney Mines remembers that “my father's (John T. Leblanc) release from coal mining was fishing,” though he was reluctant to share the exact location of the most productive places in which this hobby was pursued. “I can't tell you that McNeil. You know I just can't tell you that. He used to hunt around Frenchvale a lot, and up in River Denys. I'm sure of that. I know it was his time away from the mine, from the pressures. “When Dad came home in the evening, we'd all sit down as a family for supper, and he’d go around the table. ‘What did you do today?’ But as the evening progressed, I’d say five nights a week, the phone would ring from the pit, something going on. He was always on top of everything. “I didn't realize the full extent of it until I came back home in 2001. I traveled around Cape Breton and talked to people. Fishing on the Margaree, I met a gentleman who said, ‘you're Johnny's boy.’ I've met so many people who spoke of him with the greatest admiration and honesty. You know, they said he was hard, but he was fair to everybody. “There was a big strike in the mines, sometime in the forties, and Dad, being a mine official, wasn't part of the union. He spent three or four days at a time below ground because of the conflicts. Our neighbours were all coal miners, and Dad used to instruct Mom to put burlap bags on the back step with a few turnips, a few potatoes, and a bit of sugar. They would go to bed and, come morning, the sacks would be gone. “These were his friends, his neighbours, people he went underground with, in life and death situations. He helped feed them and people never ever forgot that.”

St. Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Church, Inverness

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

We Just Stuck Together He saw it everywhere he looked in his home town of Glace Bay. “Togetherness,” says (Big) Jim MacLellan “was the strength of our people over the years, whether it be in town, a neighbourhood, a family, or a married couple. It was the strength we possessed and showed to each other, how we banded together, you know, in times of turmoil here. We just stuck together. “I recall, when the mines were going to close, that the women took part in it. They ended up going to Ottawa and helping the union people, made phone calls, and eventually more men got pensions than what was planned. “Say you're working at a face and there's only two of you, or you're loading coal. There may not be anyone within five hundred feet, maybe a thousand feet, maybe even a mile. You could be alone. So you get to trust one another, you know, and that trust goes a long, long way, even on the surface. A lot of guys say they were buddies for ten years, but rarely saw each other on the surface, except birthdays or something like that. They go different ways after work, but when they meet in the mine, they’re together again. “When the miners came to work here, my grandfather's time, they had to live in shacks. I can remember growing up as in kid in Caledonia seeing open sewer drains. They had to overcome all these problems and it was by sticking together. His leaders were probably socialist and, no matter what the obstacles were, they found a way to overcome them.”

It Was Fair for the Miner The loyalty described by MacLellan carried over to the relationship above ground between merchant and consumer. Irving Schwartz described a loyal relationship which would be tested during labour - management disputes. “During the 1925 strike, before I was born, the ‘pluck me store,” (the company store) cut off all credit for the miners. Right off the bat, they tried to starve them out. The merchants, the Claeners, my relatives who had grocery stores, fed those coal miners during that strike. “Allan MacDonald told me about the night they burnt the ‘pluck me’ store down. A crowd went down the main street, smashing windows in stores and all of that. His father went over in front of Claeners’ Grocery Store with a chair. He said, ‘these people fed me all during this strike. Nobody is going to touch this store.’ Widow Jack MacDonald is the man who did that. He sat in front of that store the entire night and nobody touched it. That gives you an idea of the relationship between the miner and the small merchant of the day. “So automatically, when there was a strike, you stopped collecting your accounts receivable. You didn't expect the miner to pay; you didn't go chasing him. He had tough times, and he had to get his groceries first, and pay his basics. It could be very tough running a business and not collecting your accounts, but it was fair for the miner. He couldn't do anything about it. “You also supported their efforts, their charities and their various causes. It was a very strong relationship. Today you got the big box stores. You're a customer; you come in. There's something for sale and you either buy it or don't. In our day, a lot of people dealt with you because their parents had dealt with you before. This loyalty extended pretty far. “I remember the time the son of our next door neighbour, a coal miner’s family, when his mother sent him up to the store to buy a pair of shoes for Christmas. We were so busy, and my mother said to my brother Joey, ‘you wait on Lauchie.’ Joey was an academic and didn't know anything about style, clothing or business. “In the end he sold Lauchie a pair of shoes, but an hour later, Lauchie's mother came rushing into the store. ‘What's the idea? What's the idea?’ My mother said ‘what's wrong?’ Lauchie’s mother said Joey had sold Lauchie a pair of white shoes for Christmas. Now Lauchie didn't know the difference; my brother Joey didn't know the difference. Yet the family knew this was where they were going to buy their shoes, no matter the colour, so there was that strong relationship.”

Colin Campbell pictured on the right. 59

A Legacy of

UNITY “For nearly two hundred years in Cape Breton, coal miners endured the most demanding of working conditions. In the absence of support by mine owners and managers, coal miners took it upon themselves to improve these conditions. The vehicle through which most of this change took place was the trade union. Perhaps the coal miners’ legacy which made the greatest impact, with the greatest number of people, is a tradition of membership and activity within these unions. Their history was explored by Don MacGillivray, author and professor at Cape Breton University, during a public talk at the Sydney Mines Storytelling Session of November, 2004. “Okay, the General Mining Association came in here in the mid 1820's. They smashed older pre-capitalist modes of production right away. One of the very first things they did was make illegal a very old tradition of treating minerals and coal as public resources, held in common by the majority of the people. “They waged an intensive struggle against this common resource strategy right from the beginning. They were serious about it, really lobbied the authorities for proclamations forbidding people from digging coal. They prosecuted people they caught and charged them with theft. “Another thing too, the GMA was plagued by thousands of illegal squatters, primarily from Scotland, although there were some from Ireland and other places. The GMA wanted systematized immigration to insure order. In that short period, more people from Scotland were coming into Cape Breton than were going anywhere else in the world. “Sydney Mines was a little bit different. They had a cadre of skilled professional miners, primarily from England. If you look at the census, in 1871, the two groups are Scottish Catholic highlanders and Presbyterian highlanders. They are very, very much over represented in all the low class and low paying jobs in the mines in the Sydney Mines area. The workforce increased by almost eighty percent. “Then there was a blast, and a couple of years later, a sixty percent decline. What did that mean? A surplus of labour. What did the GMA do? Reduce wages ten percent. Then they went for another fifteen percent, which they got by 1875, and in early 1876 they also began to blacklist the leaders of the mines. Surprise; another strike. This is in the spring and summer of 1876. What was different was there was a tremendous amount of violence for the first time. “John Rutherford, a senior member of the GMA, tried to entrap men when they came to pick up their pay at the company's offices. He was essentially trying to provoke the men to violence. He was successful. He said force must be used and action taken to silence agitators or excite them to acts that will United Mine Workers strike, 1909 require the aid of other powers.”

Dominion No. 9 Opening

Pictured (l-r): Brian Morrison, Joe MacNeil

“In June, court proceedings began against twenty two people; only two were convicted. Apparently public opinion was running so strong in favour of the miners, that the magistrate, when he passed sentence on one of the leaders, scandalized the GMA. He said his sympathies were with the men, but he was obliged to punish them anyway. This gives you some indication that there was a real strong division, within the community, and everybody certainly did not follow the GMA, not simply the miners. “The GMA thought this was a conspiracy of about fifty men and they went after them. They evicted people from public houses and attempted to bring in strike breakers and also the military. When armed volunteers arrived, some strike breakers refused to work. One look at the situation and they left. Others decided to go to work and were fired upon. A strike breaker had his house blown up. “Sydney Mines, in the summer of 1876, was a watershed unprecedented in the history of the community. The violence was not random at all. In late August a couple barns of hay belonging to the GMA were also destroyed. “That strike in 1876 in Sydney Mines launched the coal miners of Nova Scotia, as a whole, into their role as the central figures in the working class movement. Delegates from the mine became a mobilizing legend in the 1880's and 1890's in the mining communities. Steel comes in at the turn of the century. Some citizens wanted to change the name of Sydney Mines to Steel City. That's because of the establishment of the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Corporation in this area. Then James Bryce McLachlan sets up in Sydney Mines.”

Things Were Thrust upon Them J.B. McLachlan is one of Cape Breton’s best known labour leaders and advocates of J.B. McLachlan unions. During the 1920’s, he and provincial CCF member of the legislative assembly, Forman Waye, lobbied together and separately for the betterment of the lives and livelihoods of coal miners and steelworkers. Colin Waye of Sydney, grandson of Forman Waye, writes that “they had a common interest. McLachlan and the coal miners walked out to support the steelworkers. My grandfather worked at the Sydney Mines steel plant and the Sydney one. “I really don't think they had any kind of plan when they were involved in some of these historic labor issues. Most of it was reactionary. Things were thrust upon them. Working conditions were atrocious at the time. Men were killed and seriously injured every day. When layoffs came, workers and their families were tossed into the streets from company homes. “My grandfather (Forman Waye) was still in elementary school when his older (eleven years old) brother, who was working in the mine like many boys of the time, lost his leg in a rock fall. His grandfather was a miner. His father was a miner, and all his uncles and brothers. His cousin was killed in the mine. Most of these men served their country in World War One and returned to fighting for their very lives at home. “One of Forman Waye's first public acts was to try to help out the starving miners. He met with the company bosses to explain the hardship. He was blacklisted for his efforts and had a hard time getting work after that. “Miner organization seemed the only way out of their dilemma. This was illegal and considered to be communism. Against them at that time were the company, local businesses, local clergy and local newspapers. They had no support at all. “The local paper, right up to the modern era, would never mention the progress or good works accomplished by these labour movement pioneers who suffered great hardships. They seemed almost wary to give any credit that might support labour or CCF ideas. This led to the creation of several Labour newspapers of the time. “Many people do not realize the struggle, the real line that was drawn. Imagine the armed forces setting up machine gun nests at the steel plant. My grandfather's house was raided by police, always searching for union funds. “As my grandfather sat in church, he listened as the minister proclaimed to the congregation that if they voted for the likes of Forman Waye or J.B. McLaughlin, they would burn down the churches with clergy inside, as they were an evil menace. It was a real story of struggle, the miners and steelworkers. Poet Dawn Fraser says people starved on the streets. Anyway I guess I might be on the soap box a bit, but the essence is a real life battle for worker rights and justice. It was hard fought. We all enjoy the benefits today, but neither companies nor governments gave in easily.” 63

Big Frank It was during this highly charged era that the “real life battle” was fought, by the likes of Frank A. McIntyre, who was born in Glengarry (Big Pond, Cape Breton) in 1871. According to his grandson, Jimmy McIntyre, "Big Frank” left Big Pond at the age of thirteen to work in the coal mines (Reserve & #2) around Glace Bay for the next fifty four years. Big and very powerful, his strength was legendary around Glace Bay. “They said his hands were that large, he could hold almost two pounds of loose tea in them,” says Jimmy. “Big Frank bought a horse from the coal company, a black stallion, too wild for the mine. One day in the barn the horse bit Frank. He turned around, hit him with an open hand and knocked the horse out. “Back in 1925, a group of hungry miners asked Big Frank to lead them in a raid of the company store. Some of them spent two years in Dorchester Penitentiary for taking part. Big Frank was featured in the book ‘Company Store,’ written by John Mellor. I would always enjoy talking with some of the older miners that knew Big Frank, like Angie Addicott, Billy Pittman, and of course my father John James, just to name a few.”

I Have Some Good News The union made a difference in the daily lives of coal miners’ families, as indicated in a family story told by Anna Caverzan of New Waterford. “Actually my father had a mine accident and lost a leg. He belonged to the union and the head at that time was Ellis Green. “This is going right back; I was about a teenager then. He was after starting back to work, a lighter job, a sitting down job. He was supposed to pull a lever to bring the coal up. When he wasn't doing that, they knew something was wrong down below. So they investigated and he was keeled over. He had passed away. “This doctor, not the one who was there when they took off his leg, went to the mine and said that he died of a heart attack. We had eleven in our family, and the Dominion Coal Company weren't going to pay anything towards the family. Ellis Green, who was head of the union, knew Dad was treated by another doctor, who would have known if he had a heart condition. They discovered it was a blood clot in the leg; that's what killed him. “Ellis Green came to visit my mother, I remember, because there were lots of kids around, smaller ones. He said ‘I have some good news for you,’ and told her she would get the compensation. The union fought for her, and she was very pleased and happy to hear the news. I remember that because it’s a memory that you couldn't forget, you know.”

Miner boys at Caledonia, 1895

Pictured (l-r): Adam Kirk, Chris Kuzmanov

Davis Day In Cape Breton’s coal mining communities, June 11th has been known as Davis Day since the date in 1925 when William Davis was shot to death during a clash with police employed by the British Empire Steel Corporation. For months, BESCO had conducted a campaign to break the union which represented miners, local 26 of the United Mine Workers of America. The company and miners took turns wresting control of a facility at Waterford Lake which provided electricity and water to the town of New Waterford. A battle took place in which three hundred gunshots were fired, one of which pierced the heart of William Davis, killing him. By November, the labour-management dispute was settled and the anniversary of Davis’ death became a date on which unions and residents remembered the legacies of coal miners and their union’s efforts. The Government of Nova Scotia passed an act in 2008 to make June 11th “Miners Memorial Day” across the province. The first Miners Memorial Day was marked in New Waterford on June 11th, 2009, with a memorial church service and tributes from union and government representatives at the Miners Memorial Monument. In attendance was Norma MacDonald of Dominion, William Davis's granddaughter, who became aware of his legacy early in life. “My mother never let us go to school on Davis Day. She took us to Davis Day as soon as we could walk. She talked about how they had to grow up without a father, because he sacrificed his life for miners, and she was very proud of that. It was hard on my grandmother too, but she was very proud of what he did for coal miners.” Norma MacDonald’s grandson, Tristan Samboys, is the great, great grandson of William Davis. “Since he's been able to understand, he knows who William Davis is and why he died. He’s very impressed that he got shot by a gun. Of course a child at that age would, and he knows - all of our children know - what Davis Day is all about. Some days it's sad, especially since our parents have gone, but we love to have the chance for us, as a family, to get together and celebrate our grandfather.” “Since my mother died, and all her other siblings have died, and where it's only the grandchildren, the great grandchildren, and now we have some great, great grandchildren, it's our place to keep the legacy going. We promised our mother we would, as long as every one of us can, to always be here on Davis Day.”

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum Pictured (l-r): Frank Selvet, Dougie Pearson

No. 14 Colliery, New Waterford

Davis Day Ceremony, New Waterford, June 11, 2009

“I can't really remember him, but I can see my father, who was a miner as well, and I can imagine what he went through as a miner, and I just, you know, it just blows me away to see these men here, all these miners, so hard working and you know, I just love them for it.” Rudy Pfeiffer of Gander, Newfoundland, is William Davis's grandson. “This is my first year that I've been able to attend this ceremony and I'm quite impressed… the crowds, the people, the Men of the Deeps, the speakers, I mean it's just amazing how much they appreciate and show their dedication to William Davis and I'm quite proud of it.” Tom Miller is the director of the Cape Breton Miners Museum in Glace Bay. “The coal miners of Cape Breton, as was said here today, were responsible for the development of not only Cape Breton, but Canada in general. I think about all that the coal miners sacrificed, even their lives, to make sure this was a viable industry… not only William Davis, but others who sacrificed too, the harshness of their employment as they tried to eke out a living. My grandparents and uncles and other relatives were all very hard working people and they did it simply to raise their families.” On Miners Memorial Day, Angus Grant remembers his father’s legacy to him. “The most important thing my parents ever gave to me was a union. When I started in the mine, I didn't have to go out like people do today, and try and fight to get a union. The most important thing on the job site was the union, just because of health and safety. Look all around us, all around the world, and see where they had disasters in mining, particularly in Nova Scotia. The union, especially the UMW, had full time people working on safety. It’s why I’m alive to remember.”

No. 26 Colliery, Glace Bay

Coal trimmers at Old Glace Bay Dominion No. 2 Colliery

First pay by cheque.

Doug Howard Beanie MacQuarrie

John Bernard Mackie

Bernie Brown

Charlie MacNeil

Neil Weiner MacNeil

Alec MacLeod

70 ?

Pictured (l-r): Nipper MacLeod, John E. MacLeod, John MacLeod, Davis Day, 2009

A Legacy of

POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT A Bit of a Big Mouth As builders and residents of their communities, coal miners and their families became active in local, provincial and federal politics. For many, their introduction and training took place within their union. Such was the case for New Waterford’s Bobby Burchell, now in his third decade as “international representative” for the United Mines Workers in Canada. “I was a mechanic in Lingan, quite active in my local union, and I guess I had a bit of a big mouth. I was approached by some guys and it's rather funny how it started. “Every union meeting I used to fight with three guys, Peewee Gillis, Bunny Corbett, and Silvio Caverzan. If I could figure out a way to get them arguing or fighting at the union meeting, I'd do it. One meeting I got up and announced I was going to run for international officer, for the union, knowing I would never win. You had to run right across Canada. I'd never win out west, and there was several guys running locally and I knew I wouldn't win against those older guys. “But I figured I could get a little bit of exposure, for down the road, so I put my name on the ballot. Peewee made a snide remark about me running and Bunny and Sil laughed, so when the meeting was over, I walked up to the three of them. I knew Bunny was supporting the other ticket, so I asked Peewee and Sil if they would be my campaign managers. “What’s the old story? Hold your friends close and your enemies closer. The two of them kind of looked at me and shook their heads, and I won't say the words they used to answer. We went out on backshift that night, and they were on the same shift. I went over and approached them again. “And they said ‘you know what, we talked about it and we're going to support you, because only an idiot would go on the way you do, and have the nerve to come and ask us. So we're going to support you.’ It was probably the smartest political move I ever made in the union because both those guys eventually won over Frank (Corbett)’s father Bunny, to my side, and a lot of the older guys. “I remember one night on back-shift I went to Number 26 campaigning. I had some stickers and one old guy in the bath house, when I was leaving, said ‘you got any of them stickers left?’ I said ‘yup.’ ‘He said, ‘when you're going up Phalen Road there's a graveyard. Go in. Put about fifty of them stickers right on the headstones.’ “I looked at him. ‘What are you talking about?’ He said ‘listen buddy, I've been in this local fifty years, and every election there's at least a hundred guys from that graveyard who vote!’ So that was a good tip, and I was lucky in one sense. Nobody was more shocked than I was on November 11th, 1982, when I beat my closest rival by two to one. “It’s 27 years this year. I'm the longest serving elected international rep in the history of the UMW in Canada. I've never been opposed since 1982, acclaimed every time. I'm up for re-election again this year, and hopefully, knock on some of Irving Schwartz's wood, I'll be successful. It’s been a very enjoyable career, a lot of ups and a lot of downs, some very tough times.”

Pictured (l-r): Jimmy White, Mick Harrietha

Coal office, Sydney, 1925

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

A Blood Sport Bobby Burchell refers to “Bunny” Corbett, a coal miners union leader who is also the father of Frank Corbett, MLA in the provincial riding of Cape Breton Centre and deputy premier in the first NDP government elected in the history of the province. “If politics in Nova Scotia is a blood sport, it's thanks to the miners. It's their bluntness to you. When I go to a door looking for a vote, miners and ex-miners are very open. They'll tell you what they think of you. They've carried that bluntness outside of New Waterford or North Sydney, Sydney Mines or Glace Bay, to the broader politics in Ottawa and Halifax. “When they went on these journeys, scholars listened. They may not have had the book learning, if you will, but they had wisdom of life beyond that, and people would understand what they talked about. They knew they may not have the perfect Queens English, but they got their message through, and were respected. I often think, when I get the distinct pleasure to stand in the legislature, it can't help but bring your mind back to who went before you and who you represent. “I often think that there are lawyers in this room, and doctors in this room, but I know the greatest people in Nova Scotia are back in Cape Breton, in New Waterford and Scotchtown, and Lingan, Reserve Mines and Dominion. You know that those people are the ones who built our communities. “I asked my father ‘Bunny, what do you think of (Bobby) Burchell running?’ He said ‘you know, nobody should be allowed to run until they wear a pair of pit boots.’ What he really meant is that Bobby was very new to it, that he didn't have enough years in the mine. He believed that you should wear out a couple pair of pit boots and find out what’s going on in the world. “They were probably a prime example of two adversaries that, later in life, became the greatest of friends. They still had bitter differences, but they knew each other collegially, and they respected their differences. But they also understood their primary purpose was to represent the working men, and that was where they knew the buck stopped.”

Liquor of Course Community historian Len Stephenson of Dominion acknowledges the impact of coal miners on local political life. “There's no doubt that what united them was the unions. The PWA started here in Dominion. “The miners were always active in politics, especially on election day. My mother and father would go out to vote with long faces. My mother was a staunch Tory and my father was a stauncher Liberal. That was typical in elections. Whoever was involved always made sure they had something to pay off the voters, liquor of course. “They had a lot of bar rooms in the early years. That wasn't unusual. They had many community groups organized, the AOH (Ancient Order of Hibernians), church organizations. But a lot of it was for politics, arranged for politics. It died out eventually but it was active here for quite a while.”

Pictured (l-r): Vince Serroul, Brian Cullen,

Mike Collins, Jimmy Collier, Roy Steffens 75

Respect All People In November of 2009 a former coal miner, and retired Canadian senator, celebrated his 90th birthday at home in Sydney River. Early in life, Senator Bob Muir took advantage of the fact that his Scottish mother had gone on an extended trip to the home of her birth. Before he turned fifteen in 1934, he was at work in the Franklin mine near Florence. “My mother went to Scotland on a trip and I stayed with my brother John, the oldest brother. School quit, the last of June, and I got a job. I think it was a buck a day, a whole dollar a day. “John said ‘Ma will kill you.’ She used to say to me ‘I want you to get at least grade 12.’ We had seven in the family. My father died when I was four. I don't even know what it was to have a father. I never did get the grade twelve. “I got it through the years of dealing with people. I ran municipally, five elections for town council, won every one of them. I ran eight consecutive elections, won every one of them. My mother taught me to respect all people, from the working man to clergy, to people in authority. “You might fight with someone in the house, verbally and everything else, but you could go to dinner with the guy you gave hell to. I remember Jean Marchand, minister in charge of the Cape Breton Development Corporation, one day when I'm making a speech in the (House of) Commons. He's sitting with a friend and they're laughing and talking, as I happened to look around. Some guys are writing letters; some are reading, but they're listening. “What an opportunity! I just leaned back on the desk behind me and paused. When you paused in the House in those days, everybody would wonder why I was not talking. What's going on? And the gallery used to be full. “Anyhow, I said ‘Mr. Speaker, look at the minister! There's how interested he is in the unemployed in Cape Breton. He's over there smiling like a Buddha; he doesn't give a damn! I went on and on, and he's looking at me. “After it was over, he put his hand on my shoulder. ‘God damn Bob, you were in great shape today. Let's go have a drink.” Well I didn't drink, but I went to dinner with him, and that was the attitude. He always had a soft spot for me because he was a big shot in the Confederation of Catholic Trade Unions in Quebec, and he knew I organized United Mine Workers at the Franklin and a couple of other mines. I'd get them to sign the cards and everything else. “Well Ian, my philosophy has always been, and I'm not running for a damn thing now, not for the ladies aid or CWL or anything: you are nice to people, you work with them. That goes in the mine and in Parliament. You kiss ass to get what you want. If that doesn't work, then you start kicking ass. “They got to know that, you see, and if a deputy minister blocked me on something, I'd say, ‘well maybe I'll pose a question to the minister. I'll quote you and you'll go down in history for posterity. You can tell your grandchildren to look in the Hansard; my name is in there when Bob Muir gave me hell.’ Things like that. “My way of doing business was influenced by my time as a miner. I learned a lot in the union halls, yeah, because they could get rough, you know. You've heard of wash house lawyers? They'd get up in the union hall ‘I rise on a point of order, and blah, blah, blah… “I remember one night… in many unions they had different guys that stayed in office so long, they were buddies of the boss. We went to work to change that in an election. Neil MacKinnon became president. I became secretary. We took the whole thing over. The first meeting we had after that, our opponents brought their crowd. We had our crowd. “You know what he did, the first thing? This was in the union hall, right across from where Needs is now, Stubbert’s old place (Sydney Mines). He hauls out a bottle of rum and puts it on the desk. I said, ‘Neily, you can't do that.’ He says ‘oh to hell with it, I'm the president.’ He took a couple of slugs. “The meeting is going on and he starts arguing back and forth. I'm there busily engaged, making notes, minutes. Finally, Neily got mad at somebody and said ‘God damn it! Shut up!’ He smashed the bottle and it went all over the desk. Well then it blew up, and everybody was scrapping. I was smart and snuck out the back door. I got out. I wasn't going to get in that hassle. It got in the papers. “But no, there were some awfully good union men. I worked for Freeman Jenkins as President, Dan Willie Morrison. You must have heard of him, (former) mayor of Glace Bay. God, I go back so far.” 76

It Just Gets in Your Blood In more recent history we witnessed the evolution of another union leader who aspired to be a politician. Joe Burke of River Ryan loved politics from the start. “I was always involved. Oh, I had many arguments in the pubs and that. Clary Gillis was my first vote. And then I always worked for the CCF party. “Now I had a laugh when I went running for County Councilor in 1968. I went to Len Lee’s house; I said ‘Len, would you give me a vote.’ He looked down and then he threw his eyes up in the air and said, ‘Joe, if there's one vote in that box, it's mine.’ That's how sincere and good he was. “I made her anyway and from there I got involved with union politics. Bunny Corbett, Frank’s father, supported me. He was my vice president and I was president of the local. Frank is our MLA now, and I support him in his elections too, because he and his father and I were very, very close. “From there it just gets in your blood, and you want to keep doing it. I enjoyed meeting with different people in government. I made many trips to Halifax, and lobbied for automatic assumption, which our (unionized) people are compensated for today. “So we got this bill put through. The Liberals wouldn't do it for us. John Buchanan promised us, ‘if we are elected, we will pass that automatic assumption for your people, Joe.’ I was the spokesman. We made one trip up, Ian, and we had it.” Many people would expect a union leader to consider running for the NDP, but Joe Burke surprised many political observers and caused some controversy within the union, when he chose to run for the Buchanan era Progressive Conservatives. “Well it all happened so quickly. I got a call from the Premier. They knew I was pro-labour and NDP and stuff. He said ‘Joe, you got to give me an answer now. We can't wait.’ “I looked at what he'd done for the miners. Not only that, the coal industry was facing problems, especially the Prince Mine with its high sulfur coal. They wanted to put a new power plant out in Lingan. I said ‘no, there's one there already. We have to put it on the north side (of Sydney Harbour) to protect that mine. I said ‘it'll save the mine,’ and he listened to me again. Buchanan also promised me the job of minister of mines. So I went and all hell broke loose. “I could have been minister of mines, and I know for a fact that I could have helped this coal industry tremendously, in my opinion. But the guys didn't see fit to put me there. And the media kept giving me a hard time about taking sides with a so-called anti labour government. “I only wish I had time to work at it. I only had one month and it was a miracle what I done in one month. I never stopped. I think I lost about 25 pounds going door to door. Oh my God, I was worn out when she was over. The guys said to me at the (union) district board meeting, they didn't even want to meet. I said ‘you'll meet, because I'm still president. I guarantee you.’ I never had one minute’s problem with the men. It was just that that executive didn't like what I did, part of them, not all of them. “I said ‘you fellows don't run me, or tell me what I'm going to do. It's the membership that put me there and the membership will take me out.’ And that's what I always stood for.”

Bill Marsh

A Proud and Outstanding Invernesser The son of a coal miner from Inverness, Cape Breton, former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister and Senator Allan J. MacEachen was renowned for his knowledge of parliamentary procedure and his willingness to help the many impoverished constituents who toiled in resource based industries like fishing, forestry and coal mining. Deeply influenced by the philosophy of Co-op Movement leaders Moses Coady and Jimmy Tompkins of Margaree, MacEachen advanced an agenda of social justice which was formed in coal mining communities like Inverness. MacEachen’s electoral and legislative achievements are well known and highly regarded. What may not be as well known is that he often did not win the polls in his home community. One longtime Liberal did. Charlie MacArthur was successful in many municipal and provincial elections. On the day of his death in February, 2010, his good friend Lawrence MacIsaac wrote, “he was more that a good friend to me and my family. My father was known as ‘Johnny Rankin.’ He was a younger brother to ‘Joe D.’ “There were no bigger Liberals in Inverness that Da, Joe D and Charlie, except maybe Allan J! That being said, at his passing we set aside our political differences (and we know all major parties are found in great numbers amongst our clan) and speak about Charlie as a great Canadian (he served his country in World War II in Europe), a great Nova Scotian (he served as MLA for Inverness), a great citizen of Inverness County (he served as a councilor and county warden for in Port Hood) and a proud and outstanding Invernesser (a life-long resident of Inverness, one of our former mayors when we were an incorporated town). “But there is a particular reason why I honour him and his spirit. In the early 1960s, during one of the mine accidents in Inverness, Johnny Rankin was pinned under a massive rock following a cave-in. Most miners left the site, fearful for their own lives. Da was left down below. “It was Charlie who insisted that a rescue team go down to save Da from perishing. Da got out safely (even though he was troubled the rest of his life with a bad back) and Charlie loved to tell the story of how he found Da down below. “Today we honour the friendship that existed between these two coal miners. We honour Charlie for service to his community and country. Today, I say again to Charlie, a big thanks for ensuring that our family had a loving father and husband. Rest in peace my friend! I know that you, Johnny Rankin and Joe D are enjoying a few old stories from the pit and probably complaining about the current governing parties in Halifax and Ottawa!!”

Allan J. MacEachern

Charles MacArthur

A Legacy of

COMPETITIVE SPIRIT Matt Vicker

Monty MacLean Lloyd Thibault

Cracks Brown

Archie MacDonald

Fred Jardine

Bill MacDonald

Matheson, Darryl 1999 e Ryan Hockey Tournament, March pbell, Tommy Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien, Ben Furey, Cam No. 2 Pit Ponies, 10th Annual Vinc tar, Murdock MacMullin, Donnie Cam Khat Tom cott, Addi Steve , Issac Mac , Wishy Pictured (l-r Back): Jimmy Campbell Addicott, Graham MacPherson , Jackie Griffin, Freeman Jenkins, Jim (l-r Front): Shelley Currie, Brad Kerr

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

Kelly

As much as they loved their work, coal miners lived to compete. Their legacy includes a long line of leagues, championships and annual tournaments. In New Waterford, the Coal Bowl brings together some of the best high school basketball teams in the nation. For over twenty years in Glace Bay, the annual Vince Ryan Memorial Scholarship Hockey Tournament raises scholarship funds for graduates of Glace Bay High School and Cape Breton University. It is simply one of the largest adult hockey tournaments in the world. Over 150 teams from across Canada and the United States gather in communities across Cape Breton for hockey and nightly entertainment with participation by former National Hockey League players. Donnie Campbell is a former coal miner and past tournament participant. Proud of his roots in an area named for the “Number 2” mine in Glace Bay, he organized a team of players exclusively from there to take part. “What we did, we went out on the internet and said ‘anybody that grew up or lived in Number 2, you're more then welcome to come home and play for our team.’ “We made sweaters with the little pit pony on them. Everybody on the team had to have an affiliation with the coal mine. I was telling the story earlier about Gary MacAulay. Gary lived up on Church Hill, and he called me. He said ‘I hear you're putting a hockey team together for Number 2.’ I said ‘yes Gary, I am.’ He said, ‘can I play?’ and I said ‘no Gary, you can't.’ He said ‘what's the problem?’ I said ‘you're not from Number 2.” “Oh yes I am,’ he said. I said ‘no Gary, Number 2 is from 11th Street to First Street. You’re up on Church Hill, but here's what I'll do for you. If you can get a flatbed that'll move your house down for the weekend, by the church, I'll let you play.’ He hung around with us the whole weekend. He never played.” “I remember sitting on the step as a young boy, and there'd be Buddy MacNeil and all these guys that worked in the coal mines, out having a juice bag you know, on a Saturday night. A juice bag is something you sneak into the Bayplex. You’d put a bag over it so the kids wouldn't see. Anyway, we talked a lot of sports. You'd go to bed thinking ‘this is great. This is fun and games.’ There was a lot of humour and laughter. “I played softball too. That's all you talked about in the mine. ‘Who're you playing today? Where are you playing? Every section in this town had a softball team: Caledonia, Number 2, Bridgeport, Kay’s Corner, everybody had a team. “And I'll never forget one time, I went up to see Jim (MacLellan). We were playing his team in the playoffs. Jim was the manager, and I said ‘is there any chance of getting the day shift for a week so I can play in the playoffs.’ And Jim said ‘you got it, because I don't want you to use that as an excuse, if we beat you.’ Sports was big, a real big part of it.”

A Big Thing George Walker reminds us that miners were fans of sport as well as active participants. Growing up in the coal mining town of Inverness informed his experience. “Yeah, I was only a young fellow, born in 1931, so I'd be seven or eight years old at that time. “Yeah, my father used to take the house radio over to the mine on Friday night, when the fights were coming in from Madison Square Garden in New York eh. He’d put the telephone to the radio speaker and the fellows underground would get the results of the fight right away. “Oh, they were interested, especially in major league ball and hockey. Of course the fights were a big thing anyway. Yeah, like the nights (June ’36, June’38) Joe Louis and Max Schmeling mixed it up.”

They Were Raided That Night Len Stephenson reminds us that miners would watch a range of sports, including illegal activity like cock fighting. Stephenson describes his home town of Dominion in terms of its favourite sport. “It's a baseball town, that's it. “But New Waterford is, no doubt in my mind, the best sports community in Nova Scotia. They won everything: basketball, baseball, rugby, horse racing. They had three or four Canadian boxing champions. Now they have a million dollar soccer field over there. But that's something new. Before that, they were even into rooster fighting. “They invited me to go to one and I didn't want to go. I finally agreed. They had it up in River Ryan; this was one of their favorite places. But something happened that night, I just couldn't go. They were raided that night, lost all their birds. But that was New Waterford. “The miners were very competitive. The colliery league was competitive. The Dominion Hawks go back to 1917. They have a tremendous club down by the beach there now; the Hawks Club finances all their Little Leagues and stuff. You wouldn't have anything without the coal miners.”

It Keeps Kids off the Street The wives and children of coal miners gave a lot to sport too. Blair Boone, a coal miner, was president for twenty one years of a club that trained young boxers, Ring 73 based in Glace Bay. “The miners’ wives basically supported our bingo games, and when we lost the coal industry in 2001, our boxing club went way down hill. I couldn't send my boxers all across the country, as we used to do. “We had many boxers, sons of miners, so when we put on a boxing card, you’d put a thousand fans in there, no question. Then a lot of miners left (Cape Breton) and we lost a lot of kids both ways. It really hurt our boxing program in Glace Bay. To survive we had to take over the Membertou Boxing Club. They pay us to look after them now, and that money keeps the light and heat on in our club in Glace Bay. It keeps kids off the street.”

Dad Gave Me a Quarter One Night Abby Michalik of Glace Bay was kept off the street as a child by his love of sport. When he mined coal as an adult, he participated in the underground sports talk. “Oh that was a big thing here, like the Antonians back in '52. It was good ball that we had here, and hockey. That's another thing. The miners built the (Glace Bay) Forum. They would deduct it off the pay envelope. “I was only a kid. We didn't have too much home because Father didn't make too much money, never owned a car. Dad gave me a quarter one night to go down to the Miners Forum. That's when the imports would come in here and play. I went to the back door, and if you didn't get in front, you couldn't see the goalie. I was the first one there, waiting for the door to be opened. So they opened the door. This big fellow grabbed a hold of me, parked me in the back, so I lost my spot in the front. “I remember when they used to clean the ice. They had a long stick with branches on it. They’d sweep the ice on both sides, scrape up all the snow, dump it and come out with the hose. They flooded it with the hose. Then there was a big improvement, the forty five gallon drum.”

LOC Baseball Team, Dominion

Co-op Baseball Team

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

Glace Bay Miners hockey team

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

Street hockey in Glace Bay.

The Best Ball Park in Eastern Canada When Michalik refers to “imports,” he includes the many able athletes who were lured to play hockey and baseball in Cape Breton by the promise of a job. Kenny Jardine remembers that era. He played baseball with the Ramblers at the Miners Memorial Field in Sydney Mines. “I played a lot of baseball as a kid, but our big years were in the late fifties and early sixties when we won the Nova Scotia championship. I wish I could do it today. “The coal miners gave from their pay to support the Ramblers. There were a lot of imports in the late forties and they had to be paid. The coal mines didn't bring them in. The colliery league brought them in and the coal miners paid their salaries through check-off. “When I started there were no imports, just local players. The Cape Bretoners had gotten better. Rossy Gordon and Billy Merritt, Leo Doyle, you couldn't beat those fellows. Bobby Ferguson, Gerald Buffett and Doyle MacLellan were professionals in their own manner, professional quality baseball players. If they had the chance, like they do in other countries… you know, we only had a very short season here. These guys were exceptionally good. “We were only little children sneaking underneath the fence when the imports were here. We were playing in the pastures and stuff. They kind of encouraged us along the way, and we had such good help from a fellow by the name of Joe Scott. He seen us playing and he organized our baseball league, inter-squad leagues you know, between Cranberry and where I come from, the Main Street here. Joe Scott produced one heck of a pile of baseball players in Cape Breton. “The Brown Street Park was the best baseball park in Eastern Canada at the time, and it was immaculate. A Burchell man looked after it. It was unreal how good that man was for a baseball field. It had the best pitchers mound in Nova Scotia. “I can say that because I pitched on them all. I pitched over in New Waterford and it was nothing but a pile of gravel. I almost fell off the mound when I pitched there, but I'd still win.”

Buddies with Your Buddies Again It was not the quality of the pitcher’s mound that kept Rocky Burchell of New Waterford playing ball in Cape Breton. Yet it did keep him from moving to a job in western Canada. Burchell was a catcher. “Well I wasn't professional, by no means, but Lingan started a ball team at the colliery. It was a new mine and I was ready actually to go out west. I was after taking a welding trade and got a phone call one Monday morning, wondering if I was interested to play. “I said ‘well God, I got no job or anything.’ The voice on the other end said ‘well, would you work in the pit?’ I said, ‘Jesus, you get me a job, sure I’ll play ball. That was on a Monday. I started back-shift that Sunday. So I took it, the best thing I ever done. “I never thought I'd like coal mining, not for a minute. But I tell you, once I started, it was something else. I'm at least a fourth generation miner, but I wasn't too sure of myself starting out, you know, back-shift on a Sunday night. But I tell you, it was a great experience right 'til the day I left. “Look at the history of it. I mean a lot of it, ball, hockey, basketball, boxing, you name it. Coal miners got their hands in every bit of it, and that's where the camaraderie comes in. You have that kind of thing going on at your work site and then you take it to the field. We couldn't wait to get our shift over, and get to a rink or a ball field, to get at it and be buddies with your buddies again. Right? That was the whole idea of it. I played against Glace Bay; I played against North Sydney, Bras d’Or, Florence, Sydney. I might not have worked with all of them but you got to meet them all again, right?”

A Legacy of

ART &CULTURE Any argument about the impact on arts and culture by Cape Breton’s coal miners will begin and end with The Men of the Deeps, a choir of working and retired coal miners. Organized in 1966 to be a part of Canada's centennial celebration, the group made an effort to preserve in song some of the rich folklore of the island's coal mining communities, sharing it with audiences throughout North America. In 1976 they became the first Canadian performing group to tour the People's Republic of China after the restoration of diplomatic relations. Their role as international ambassadors continued at Expo ’86 in Vancouver and in 1999 when they travelled to Kosovo in the former Republic of Yugoslavia to perform in a gala festival in support of the United Nations Children's Fund.

The Men of the Deeps

Doug Morris

Stanley “Nipper” MacLeod

Bob MacLeod

Art Martell

Ray Holland

Paul “Paulie” White of the Men of the Deeps made the guitar seen here. “When we were touring British Columbia, we ran into a guy who made a shovel guitar. I took on the task during the winter to build it to use on stage. It just happened to be the last pan shovel DEVCO had in its warehouse in Glace Bay. “It was a real highlight on the road. I still laugh at the shipping labelled ‘mandolin,’ ‘guitar,’ ‘bass’ and ‘shovel!’ I even played it with Symphony Nova Scotia as Scott MacMillan conducted! Good fun!”

Jack O’Donnell, Director of Men of the Deeps

Just Like Clockwork Joe Burke of River Ryan was a member of the group until eight years ago. “I tell you, when we sang those songs, like ‘Working Man’ with Rita MacNeil up in Carnegie Hall, there would be goose bumps come onto you. “It really, really gave you great pride to be able to do that and say, ‘hey, we're singing about our roots and our occupation.’ Thank God it’s been done so people will know what it's all about. “It used to uplift you to sing in that group. You could picture the industry as you sang about it. We practiced every Sunday, and our director Jack O’Donnell said, ‘we can't have books in front of us. We're supposed to sing right out from the heart, and we got to memorize these things, have them in your head. “And by God, we got on stage, and every song would come, just like clockwork, bing, bing, bing. It all stayed in your mind. There was one song I used to sing solo, ‘Number 12, New Waterford.’ I could sing it for you, if you wish…”

Number 12, New Waterford I have a tale to tell you about one of our mines, And it happened not so very long ago. They had to seal the mine off, for there was a raging fire, And two men lost their lives way down below. Chorus: In Number 12, New Waterford, everything was going fine. They were loading lots of coal their buddies say, And smoke began to gather, and they knew there was a fire, And they scrambled for their lives that fateful day. A trip it left the road; it caused a terrible smash, And it caused an awful fire along the deep. The miners they were worried as they hurried for the top, For the smoke was thick and it was hard to breathe. (Chorus) They had to seal off the mine with one man trapped below. For the fire raged and threatened that small town. We always will remember those men, who lost their lives, And those who toiled so far beneath the ground. (Chorus)

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

He’s Still There Joe Burke could “see the industry” in his mind’s eye, when he sang about it with The Men of the Deeps, and described what he envisioned when singing “Number 12, New Waterford.” “It was a guy I really knew. Earl Leadbeater is still underground there. I worked with Earl different times, played ball, softball and stuff, with him. It's a shame that he's still down there. I talked to one of my buddies, Clarence O'Connell who, God love him, is dead now too. “He was right behind them, and they were getting kind of weak and overcome from the noxious gases and stuff from the fire. They were coming up the Third Deep and he said they figured Earl went out through the trench to get his coat. That would be the worst place ever to go, because the smoke would be coming in. I guess he got overcome by smoke, and God love him, he's still there. “Clarence said they couldn't go back because the smoke was thick and they were just keeping ahead of the fumes. That fire, it was unreal… but anyway, God love him, he's still there. That’s what I see when I sing that song.” 95

John MacLeod

Al Provoe

A Beautiful Surprise Gerald Burke auditioned for the “Men of the Deeps” in 1985 at the suggestion of his brother Joe. “I had to quit other things, darts and bowling, going here and there, because you had to practice every Sunday, right? I enjoyed it. I still enjoy it very much.” The forty-three year history of the Men of the Deeps has seen the group perform many times on major television networks, as well as “live” in countless concert halls, large and small. In addition to a honourary doctoral degree from Cape Breton University, the group has been recognized with several major awards from the governments of Canada and Nova Scotia. In 2003, the chorus was featured in the Gemini award winning film, “The Men of the Deeps.” To belong to the singing group, a man must have worked in a coal mine. Ages of members range from the early forties to the upper seventies, several of whom have been with the group since it was organized in 1966. Today the Men of the Deeps is a social institution. Clad in blue coveralls and hard hats, they make an impressive impact when they enter a dark concert hall with their helmet lamps lit. The Ottawa Journal described the group's visit to China as the “best people-to-people exchange ever.”

Does that Guy Got a Bomb on Him? “The people you meet through the Men of the Deeps are out of this world,” says Burke. “In 1999 when we went to Kosovo, I was one of the first guys off the bus. I seen this guy and he's walking right towards the bus. I said ‘now, does that guy got a bomb on him, you know? What’s he walking over here for? Two or three other guys got behind me, so I say to them, ‘listen, watch that guy coming there.’ “I don't know who he is or what he wants til he gets close. And who was it but Paul MacDonald from New Waterford! Sharkey MacDonald's son! I mean I got the surprise of my life, right. It was a beautiful surprise, especially in Kosovo. It was something else.”

Our Way “We're trying to show the rest of the world our way of living, our way of caring, our way of loving and our way of happiness. That's what we try to do. People will come and say ‘we always heard about the rough and tough Cape Breton coal miners. All they want to do is drink and fight and kick with their steel toed boots, right? We changed that whole image. To me, it was through song and through meeting people, and showing respect. You can't do any better. “Joanie and I, my wife and I, we’re married fifty years. She’s at least fifty percent part of the group, for her agreeing and going along with my commitment. I would not be able to do it by myself, right? But that’s my big commitment, church and the Men of the Deeps. “Sometimes people pay fifty, sixty and seventy dollars for a ticket. We say to ourselves, ‘you know they can't be in their right mind. They're paying seventy-six bucks to hear me!’ But they're paying because of what the group is all about, right?”

Poetry in Motion While coal mining inspired the songs of the Men of the Deeps, it has also encouraged countless Cape Bretoners to pen poems, among them Rick Stevens, “from Glace Bay, the son of a coal miner. I believe that our coal miners should never be forgotten. The stories in this book come from good times and bad, circumstances which shaped our lives and made us what we are today. How fortunate am I to have been born under some unfortunate circumstances!”

Frost on the Nails Hard times, hard times, no stranger to my door, Owe my whole paycheck to the company store, No milk for the babies, the cupboard is bare, Hard times, hard times everywhere.

Woke up this morning, I’ll tell you no tale, Wind blowin’ through and frost on the nails, No fuel for the fire till I broke up the chairs, Hard times, hard times everywhere.

Work for a dollar; down in that hole, As your legacy’s written in blood on the coal, For the wheels keep turning and they never slow, Hard times, hard times everywhere.

So you’ll work for a dollar down in that hole, As your legacy’s written in blood on the coal, For the wheels keep turning and they never slow, Hard times, hard times everywhere. Oh, hard times, hard times everywhere.

Richard T. Stevens

Shane McNeil of New Waterford “wrote this poem for my father (Frankie), who worked in the pit.”

From the Son of a Miner

Mural by Terry MacDonald

No more gear upon their backs, glossy eyes yet excited that there's no going back To the black that was their life for twenty years or more, no more wife's dreading that three am call that the hole had swallowed their loved ones. No more seeing the black rimmed eyes from a backbreaking night in coal dust No more banking the stove to heat the home before heading out into the dark to see the dark. All that’s left are memories of east wall, of knee high water, of shower room talk that the men shared after the relief of hitting the topside And I have the pride of saying my father worked in the mine, that he went down into the black hole never knowing what would happen to give us things we never really needed, and although I'll never see those black rim eyes or gear upon his back, I think we’re all glad he is never going back.

Shane McNeil

Andrea MacEachern of St. John’s, Newfoundland, notes that “both my grandfathers and many uncles and cousins were Cape Breton coal miners. I was born and raised in the New Waterford area and always had an interest in their stories.”

Fourth Generation Coal Miner Oh, the life of a coal miner, Could I ask for one that’s finer? I wake up at dawn, To make that bloody pawn. I gave sweat, blood and tears After many hard years. My life I practically gave Six days a week in that goddamn cave. I make my way to the pit Every day, just wanting to quit. But, despite all the rage, My family depends on that wage, And the company depends on that coal to generate electricity For North America’s big cities. With my lunch can in hand, I begin my journey to no man’s land. Decked out in my pit socks, work boots and coveralls,

What would they say, if they could talk, these walls? Under the ocean to the seventh mile, Marching one by one in single file. More dust begins to settle on my lung. This has gone on since I started mining, so young. For forty years no less, I’ve been longing for a rest Day after day Until 2001, the month of May. No more coal is needed Seven thousand men defeated. What in God’s name will I do now? I would find another job, but I don’t know how I’m a coal miner, fourth generation. I needed a rest, not a permanent vacation. This way of life that carved Cape Breton Island’s culture, Was taken away with the swiftness of a vulture. Andrea MacEachern

In March of 1981, the original host of CBC Radio One’s “As It Happens,” Barbara Frum, visited Lingan Mine to meet miners and learn about the industry.

Ed Durdle, Manager

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By Ned MacDonald

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Debra Murray of North Sydney submitted this song, dedicated to her late uncle, Alex Brown.

A Beautiful Man At the ripe age of nine, but a moment in time He traded his innocence in for the mine Though it wasn’t his choice Just like most other boys He accepted the reason and rhyme. His mother would cry when her son said good-bye Never sure if by evening she’d understand why There was coal dust ground in Where the grass stains had been In the better times, dead and gone by. CHORUS Yes, he was a beautiful man in his day Sometimes of granite and sometimes of clay Yes, he was a beautiful man in his day A rugged and beautiful man. In the rich and damp earth there’s no treasure that’s worth Any more than a coal miner’s pride And in 1909 the lad stood there in line With his peace pail and lantern beside Oh he said his good-byes as the tears washed his eyes And was lowered at will underground Where he chiseled the walls of the dimly lit halls As the sweat matched the tears pound for pound CHORUS Then the whistle would call, wipe your brows to them all And your tears if there’s any away For your shift has been stilled and your buckets are filled Pack your gear up and call it a day There’s no other man in the shift of the sand Who’s been closer to God or done more with the land I can see him today with his hair silver gray And a pipe in his freshly-scrubbed hand. CHORUS (REPEAT) Debra Murray

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

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Murray also presented several poems about coal mining, all of which reflect a deep respect for the qualities of her coal mining relatives, particularly her Uncle Alex. “My uncle told me about the pit when I was young.”

In The Pit Here in Cape Breton once the pit was king; men and boys and men and boys and men and boys went down there and they dug and they dug and they dug until they found our future. Their faces may have been waxed with sweaty coal dust and their hands may have ached like the very worst tooth but their hearts were stronger than the pain of it all and they sang and they celebrated and they worked together as a team to give us the stuff books are written about now. My uncle told me about the pit when I was young and just as much as his words I remember the sparkle in his eyes as he spoke though I wonder now, at times, if it was actually tears? Debra Murray

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

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“The Franklin Duckbill” In the late 1940’s, Bob Muir was what he calls “very junior,” a young man beginning a career that would lead him to union work, politics and the Canadian Senate. The country of Newfoundland had yet to join confederation when Muir worked at the Franklin Mine in the Point Aconi area. “That's right. I gave out the lamps, kept the time and wrote a monthly bulletin for them. I got a shift a month for that. I think it was four dollars and eighty five cents. The bulletin was named after a piece of old machinery, the duckbill. “The nose was about that wide. You shot your centre shot and rib shots to loosen the coal. This thing had two handles; one was to feed in, the other to go back and forth, so it automatically dug the coal out, went back on a pan line and filled the boxes. “But when I started - it was my idea - I said, ‘why don't we have a bulletin?’ See? There’s the mine. There’s the banner. I drew that. Can you believe I could draw that? ‘All success depends upon cooperation… monthly bulletin published in the interest of Franklin Mine employees…’ “You’ll find cartoons in here by Earl Harrietha from down Bras d’Or Gut, Mill Creek side I think. He’d go to our yearly picnic and draw everyone there. The owner, Dave Burchell asked what I am going to put in this bulletin. He said ‘look, no restrictions. Put in anything you want.’ I said, ‘about the company and the miners?’ He said, ‘whatever you want.’ “So I used to give the officials a little hell once in awhile.”

A DEVCO Artist The visual arts were as likely a pursuit for coal miners as the literary. Paintings and photographs, even cartoons, were made by miners and those who were inspired by them. At a storytelling session in Sydney Mines, Kenny Jardine remembered his brother Vince’s prowess with a pen. “He was a DEVCO artist. DEVCO had a newsletter out about every two weeks. Vince was the artist, plus he put in articles and work schedules and stuff for miners. “He was an electrician, worked underground in Princess (Colliery), but through rheumatic fever he took a heart problem and ended up in the VG for sixty days. The doctors told him he could never go in the mine anymore. He had to rest for about year until his heart healed. So they gave him a job on the surface looking after the (blasting) powder and caps. I think, when he turned around and started recognizing there was more to life, he realized there's other things you can do.”

Keystone The Miners Museum in Inverness was founded and nurtured by volunteers, none more committed than the late Ned MacDonald, a municipal councilor who died during the winter of 2010, shortly after sharing knowledge and photographs with the Pit Talk project. It was MacDonald and former MLA Charlie MacArthur (who also died during the winter of 2010) that George Walker sought out to preserve the keystone for the Inverness mine, eh. It was on the portal, you know, before the surface opening. “I was nosing around Inverness and I saw this keystone, and I'd remembered seeing it in place. I got a hold of Neddy and Charlie to have it placed at the Miners Museum. Anybody going underground would see it every trip, eh. “They make an arch eh, the locking stone on top, and it had the date when the slope was first built. It's nice to see it preserved, eh, rather than being lost.”

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A Perfect Opportunity Len Stephenson of Dominion has done more to save and convey the community history of Dominion than any individual. Born in the mining community, and having worked briefly in a coal mine, he says he was well placed to gather and record it. “Well, I took a job at the post office. Just by being there I was able to connect with everyone in town. I was interested in the history too. My parents were so much involved, here from the beginning, before 1900, but I just had a natural interest in it. “I had a perfect opportunity. The miners, as they would retire, would come to the post office. I would do their paper work for them, sign affidavits, anything else they wanted, no matter what it was…even wills. Then, in response, they cooperated to the fullest. They give me their pictures, their tapes and everything else. But that’s how it was in a small community. That was being in the post office.”

Allie MacLean

Dan Bimbo Roach

Jean Joe Chaisson

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A Legacy of

COURAGE That Was My Test Rocky Burchell of New Waterford remembers the turning point when he realized coal mining is not an ordinary job. “It was probably the first night. I was kind of like a rookie, right, so they just put you on the bottom level. Alex White comes out; he's the foreman at the time. He sees me, probably mucking under the belt, and says ‘right in on the wall, you're going!’ That was my test and into the wall I went. “It was a lot more dangerous, dirty and stuff like that, right. You're right into the thick of things there, where the coal’s being cut and the jacks are being moved. And I mean the mines were still a little dangerous then, right. “But I don't know if I really would have had the backbone, or whatever, to be able to go in some of those old mines and really do it. To me, that was mining. It was mechanized by the time I got there. I mean when I walked a wall, I could walk down a wall. I could stand up six feet tall and walk the length of it, you know. “But when these old guys worked, it wasn't like that; my grandfather, my father, that was working in the mine.”

Remember the Loader New Waterford’s Rennie MacKenzie believes there was one particularly courageous kind of miner. “I feel we should honour the loader, the guy that got the coal out of the pit. Back in the 1950’s, this guy would do the brutal bull work and he was well accustomed to it. “The panline, the thing that took the coal, was right up tight against the face. You couldn't stand between the panline and the coal. He had to shoot two holes in the wall and leave a pile of coal. He scooped the pile onto the panline until he could get it down far enough so he could crawl over the top on his hands and knees. That guy worked and he worked hard. “He had to stop and put up three straps. There was what you call a ‘stay hole,’ and that was a brute. I saw a guy digging stay holes; it was a work of art, watching him. The first one I dug damn near killed me. My arms were like lead. I couldn't make the pick hit where I wanted. Just before the pick would hit the coal, you had to duck your head and shut your eyes. If you didn't have your eyes shut, you were going to get coal in your eyes. “They loaded eighteen to twenty tons of coal every day. He'd have to have strength and keep at it. The first section of coal I loaded, my legs were like rubber; my tongue was hanging out. I couldn't finish it in eight hours. Some of these loaders would come out on Monday morning hung over, and they'd still do it. I'm saying if they had contests in the Olympics for these fellows, they'd take gold. They did that for a living. Those were the guys that kept her going. That's why they had coal mines. They earned their money.”

Early 1950’s Dosco coal mine. Pictured (l-r): Walter Fortune, Jack Tighe Sr., Heckie MacKinnon, Dan MacDonald, Bernie Ling, Nandy MacKinnon, Ed Aucoin

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June 1980, first wall in Prince. pictured: Danny Genter

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The Dangerous Days Three generations of Blair Boone’s family have worked more than a century in coal mines. “My grandfather worked forty-nine years and my father worked thirty-seven. I was in my twenty-third year before DEVCO closed the doors. Actually I went to college. I was a ventilation engineering technologist, and as I grew up, my father and grandfather would talk coal mining. I knew in my own heart that I would most likely go underground.” Boone became an Underground Manager. “I got to know the men very well. I was called in when it was too dangerous for the men to work. If it was above two percent methane, I had to evacuate the section. I would go in with a crew of management do what we had to do to make it safe. I wouldn't send a man anywhere that I wouldn't go myself. I think back now on the dangerous days we had down there. “I was hired in '79, just after the explosion at 26, and we found a lot of people didn’t understand the whole methane concept. We would be cutting up the hill. Men would go in and they would drop. It was oxygen deficiency, too much methane in the section. We'd go and de-gas the section, do a lot of talking amongst each other, so everybody knew what was going on and prevent the situation from happening again. “When I went down in Lingan, we'd get these gas feeders, just cracks in the floor. Men would be working, a lot of men on the wall in them days. They'd be brushing, and next thing you know, the monitor would go off. The place would get shut down fast, and then everybody would be scrambling because once production shut down, there's no coal coming. We would go in and do methane drainage drilling, something to increase the ventilation. I spent as many as three days on walls, double shifts or around the clock, to get the gas out. We tried to make it safe, so it wouldn't reoccur, and then men go back to work.

Knock on Wood We Don’t Blow the Mine Up “I always used to say ‘knock on wood we didn't blow the mine up.’ We had some serious stuff, like 26 blowing up in '79. Our crew was I think, pretty fortunate, but the day we had the rock outburst down in 3 slope is a day that sticks in my mind. We were not really aware of it. It was happening over in 26, exploding and knocking out rails twenty at a time, and nobody knew it was taking place. Then we had it over here where the machine was down cutting in 3 deep. I was in the mine that day, and you could hear the shudder of the ventilation in the mine, and we all knew something happened. We didn't know what happened. “The whole face of stone collapsed on top of the machine. There were eleven men in that section they're all still living today. We tested the gases, plus five percent methane, which means it's highly explosive. The ventilation fan was still on and I'd say that was the reason why the men survived. “We were bare faced. We called the surface because they didn't know what was happening. I never seen anything like it. The operator was buried; all I could see was his head, and him crying. The whole lift of the pit was on top of that man. It took us eight hours to get him out. The Draeger teams came in; even the doctor came in. The man in the cage was smashed up pretty good too. I don't know if he ever went back to work. “But with that kind of danger, it was the same thing; just everybody pull together. I couldn't believe that one.”

A Dangerous Place to Go John Burton of Sydney Mines confirms that “the pit was a dangerous place to go. The old saying was, ‘when the rats leave the pit, you better get out too.’ In one disaster there was a large number of men killed. Some of the miners remembered the rats. The rats were leaving, so they knew they were supposed to leave. Get out, eh. It was one of the things they knew amongst themselves I guess.”

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Putting Their Lives Literally on the Line Joe Aucoin of New Waterford says he “worked wall faces as a production supervisor, in Phalen with our roof falls. There was no semblance of mining when you were recovering a wall because forty feet of open area had fallen. There was no support above. You had to use jacks; men were going in there putting their lives literally on the line, just to save an industry and everybody's jobs. “I have the greatest respect for them; I put them right up there with servicemen. I don't know if people can even imagine what miners went through in putting out a fire, putting their lives on the line, just to save a buddy or an industry. “I can see them crawling on their bellies. They had to take their belts off in order to get under some places... shovelling stone on their knees in just unreal positions. You needed someone to make it light, so if you got someone like Wagon Burner in a crew, he'd tell stories that would lighten a very grave situation.”

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Pictured (l-r Back): Al Neary, Cecil Doucette, Ike Batten (l-r Front): Junior MacDonald, Shelley Gouthro, Brian Duhamel

A Big Flash Came Gerald Burke’s courage was tested during a fire in Lingan Colliery. “A big flash came; everything just lit up in orange flame. Two guys stayed, myself and Brian Power, to fight. Maybe we were just too scared to run. “I went on the intercom system and told the people on the surface there was a fire, right. The two of us went for the fire extinguishers, which were all empty because they would play games with them. I got an axe and cut the water hose off. We had to get down the middle of the road on the floor. You could hear the wind noise. We were trying to protect the wall face. The flame meant it was okay because the mine’s not going to blow up. It's going to burn the gas that’s there, right. “I stopped at one time and said, ‘dear God, if this is what I'm supposed to do, give me guidance.’ Anyway, in three minutes to five minutes, the flame went out. I didn't know what to do. Then the foreman came and asked what took place, and so I told him. He said, ‘who put the fire out?’ I said ‘The Lord.”

Then I Went Back Bob Muir worked at the Franklin coal mine in Point Aconi. “The Franklin was a very modern mine. If you and I were working together, I'd say, ‘how's the roof over there?’ You always carried a cane, a little stick to rest on while you were bent over. If you got up a little over three feet, you'd hit the roof. You could tell by the sound of it. How you learn these things, I don't know. What the hell did I know going in the mine at fourteen and a half? “You could tap it. ‘Pretty good buddy. I think it's pretty good.’ Later that day, you’d walk over it and whump! Pots; they called them pots. They'd drop right out, and that killed a few at the Franklin. “My buddy and I were in the level trying to get this stone down. He and I had the bar in there to pull this thing down, couldn't get it down, couldn't. It was a high spot, and I kept pulling and pulling and I was getting it, like this. “It drove my face down between my legs. I broke seven ribs and four vertebrae. The overman said ‘I'm going to get the stretchers; don't let him move. I could hear that; I never went unconscious. They got me up, which they never should have done, because of the spinal cord, you know. They stood me up, and I stupidly said ‘alright let me go.’ “I started to fall and that's when they grabbed me. I was months in the hospital with a cast from the hips up over my shoulders. “So that was the 13th of July, 1940. I was off for about a year. Then I went back. It sounds very stupid now, but the reason was to prove to people that I wasn't a coward, that I wasn't afraid to go down the mine again. That's the only reason I went back. I didn't have to.”

From the collection of the Inverness Miners Museum

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The Pot Just Fell on Him Perhaps another sign of courage is the willingness to work in a coal mine when you have seen people killed and maimed in the pit. Jim MacLellan remembers his first cousin, Johnny, who worked with his father in Number 24 colliery. “They were loading coal, and 24 wasn't very high, only about three feet of coal and they had to take about two feet of stone. Johnny was eighteen, loading, and didn't know there was a pot of stone over the top of them. It fell and it flattened him. He never got out of the wheelchair until he was buried at age 45. “His father never forgot it. It troubled him. His father died young because it bothered him so much that he had seen that. You see, in the mines, your buddy is always responsible for looking over your back or looking over your head. His father was a top miner but he just didn't realize that the roof was just a pot of stone. This pot just fell on him and, you know...”

My Hero Kenny Leblanc remembers his father, John C. Leblanc, who worked forty nine years in the pit. Born in Sydney Mines, Kenny joined the Canadian military in 1973. He retired to his home town in 2001. “I've walked on the shoulders of many giants and my father was the biggest. He was my hero, strong in his morality and his drive. He had it tough; he had it hard, and when I was in the service and things were tough, I always thought about Dad. He went through some pretty tough times, you know. “As a young boy, we lived on Beech Street here in Sydney Mines. His being a mine manager was quite difficult, and I recall that, for about a two year period, that I slept downstairs on the couch, because the vehicle was vandalized several times. Dad had rigged an alarm around the vehicle, so if it went off, it was my responsibility to go barrelling out the back door trying to find somebody.

John C. Leblanc

I Forced My Hand to Move “In 1950, there was a cave-in on October 19th. Many men lost their lives and Dad was buried alive. It was a collapsed wall and they sent the pit animals out of the mine along with the injured and the dead people. He was taken out, dropped on a gurney, covered with a sheet and put in the morgue with the other people who died. “Dad was considered to be dead by the people who hauled him out of the pit. A nurse had gone into the morgue, and as Dad told me, in his mind he could hear sounds. Somehow he could sense that he was covered, with a cloak or something, and these are the words my father told me, ‘I forced my hand to move.’ “The nurse reached over, pulled back the sheet, checked his carotid (artery), and said ‘My God, he's still alive.’ “So they wheeled him out of there, and brought him to the hospital. He was there six months with broken thighs, crushed lungs, face lacerated, eyes hanging out, ears ripped. He told me that when they took him to the hospital, Harbourview Hospital, that all he could think was there were too many mouths to feed. ‘My God, I can't go now.’ “Six months later he was back in the coal mine working again. He was a very proud man and mining was in his soul. It was his heart and his soul. Much as he loved us, I know he loved the mine, and he loved the underground. “I have six other brothers, and we were forbidden, never allowed to go underground. That's one thing he staunchly made clear. He didn't want any of the boys going down. It was a tough, hard life.”

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Pictured (l-r): Clarence MacKinnon, Frank MacDougall, Donnie Morgan, Ray Edmond, Pius Hickey, Ambrose Deveaux

Pictured (l-r Back): Blair Boone, John Baldwin, Donnie Currie, John Walker, Tom MacNeil, Theo Musial, Gary Wadden (l-r Front): Cyril Leblanc, Jimmy “Jimbo” Cantwell, Tony Barrett, Billy Harris

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I’d Like to Have My Body Come Out Blair Boone’s interest in mine ventilation and his study of the gases present prepared him to promote safety in what could be a deadly workplace. “Knowing how dangerous it is underground, I didn't want to be a Draegerman (named for the German company which produced air tanks and face masks used in mine rescues). The men used to talk to me a lot about these mine rescue competitions. We took a lot of pride in trying to beat 26. Lingan was tired of losing so they put a young team together, and I thought about it. “You need to know ventilation, part of many things you need to know, so they wanted that skill from me. The other thing I always thought was, if I get killed underground, I don't want to be left there. Even though I'm dead, I'd like to have my body come out. That was probably the biggest reason for joining the Draeger team. “For these competitions we would train three months. We weren’t getting paid. Every day after work and every weekend, we learned about mines, fighting fires, handling smoke, gas ventilation, gas testing and first aid, of course. The guys got pretty well educated from it and when they had to use it, they were there to use it. “You're asked to do things way above your call of duty, as a human being and a Draegerman. You risk your own life all the time while you’re down there. You risk your life in many different ways. Our Draegermen are known, even way before my time, as the best in the world. “Lingan mine finally beat Glace Bay in 1990, which was a real big thing. The whole mine celebrated with you. I was part of it then and enjoyed it. We just kept refining our skills and you kept doing it. Even in 2001 when we lost our jobs, we won the Maritimes mine rescue competition that year. We could have quit but we didn't. We stayed with it, you know. I just think it comes from being a Cape Bretoner and a coal miner. There's no escape or leaving the pit. You're part of it and you stay with it.”

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Blair Boone

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I Felt His Fear Gail Woodford is the daughter of a coal miner from Glace Bay. She knows that the children and spouses of coal miners had to be courageous too. “I came to realize very early in life just how dangerous this job was. We learned how delicate life could be and how quickly a loved one could be taken away through an explosion, an accident with the box cars and machinery, or the collapse of a wall or ceiling. “Dad would leave the house to go to work at three in the morning. I would lie there listening to my Daddy get ready in the quiet, hear him picking up his lunch can, then close and lock the door. I would hear him walk in his pit boots to the car and drive away into the dark and dreary. I felt his fear, even though he never expressed it. I would close my eyes and ask God to take care of him and please make sure that he came home safely. Many times I cried. “When he walked into the house after work I would be so thankful. I remember running to open his lunch can to take out a leftover sandwich, and even though I could smell the distinct scent of the damp coal mine, there was something about that old sandwich and black cold tea with sugar. This comfort food symbolized one thing. He was home again.”

That Would Have Ruined My Reputation in New Waterford Irving Schwartz remembered that his mother wanted all her sons to know what it was like to go into a coal mine. “We were merchant class in New Waterford and the last thing my mother wanted was for her boys to be sissies. I knew that if I wanted to feel as macho as the next guy, I had to go down and see what my fear ratio would be. It was a matter of testing myself all the time. “The first time I went down, I took a druggist from Montreal, and a Second World War ace pilot with me. The druggist got to the bottom of the rake and he panicked. He had to be controlled. I kept walking into the mine with the air force pilot. The ace, just before he climbed through the hole to go up the wall, panicked. It just so happened there was a Draeger crew training and they had a special rake to take them up. I was able to get them out of the mine before they went out of their minds. So I knew fear and what being down in the mine could do to somebody, but I wouldn't dare get panicky for all the tea in China. That would have ruined my reputation in New Waterford.”

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VALUES He coined the phrase “I guarantee it!” Consumers know that New Waterford born Irving Schwartz would back up his talk with action. His credibility had been earned during decades of doing business in Cape Breton and beyond. Schwartz gave credit to coal mining neighbours for the way he conducted himself in business. “I had a neighbour, Mr. MacIntyre. I never found a finer man, a more ethical and honourable man in my whole life. As I grew up, we talked about management and unions and all that stuff. I listened to it and gradually got to understand what was fair and what wasn't fair: when the men were being used, when they were being abused and they were being treated fairly. Those lessons stuck with me. “I never raise my voice to employees. I bend backwards to make sure that I'm being reasonable and fair, lessons I learned from New Waterford, from the men in the union. I carry the same ethic in my dealings with people at ticket counters or in restaurants. I've learned to have the highest respect for the working man and the working woman, all because of the culture I picked up in New Waterford. “It has stood me in very good stead. It has made more of a man of me and I can look myself in the mirror. I have been down every coal mine in Cape Breton during the last fifty years, and I've an emotional attachment to mining and coal miners, so I feel very deeply for these men.”

Be Proud of Where You Live Colleen Campbell of Glace Bay is proud of the values conveyed to her by her grandfather, John Zwarun, affectionately known as “Giddo,” (Grandpa in Ukrainian) “I remember his respect for the environment. The term wasn’t used at the time but Giddo never wasted anything, nothing. He composted, before it was fashionable, and used the compost in his garden. I remember as a little girl, asking ‘Giddo, why save a piece of wood?’ “Where he was from, they had managed forests. You weren't allowed to take wood, so it was a real precious commodity. Nothing was wasted. “Another of the main things he left me was a sense of how proud he was to be a Canadian. We kept our Ukrainian traditions in the home, but Giddo was extremely proud to be a Canadian. He’d say ‘be proud of where you’re living and be proud of your country. “Outside the home we followed Cape Breton traditions and spoke English. Giddo didn't speak English when he came, but he taught himself to read and write it, using the Cape Breton Post as his textbook. Giddo, whenever he went to town, always got dressed up. He did not go anywhere looking like a slob. You dressed in a shirt and tie and that's the way it was. “And Sunday's were time for leisure, so once a month we went to church in Whitney Pier, the Ukrainian church. You could only go once a month because we didn't have a car. The rest of the Sundays were spent visiting Ukrainian families in Glace Bay and Dominion. It is a wonderful legacy.”

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Pictured (l-r Front): Brian Tighe, Eddie MacLean (l-r Back): Peter MacPhee, Charlie Roach

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Pictured (l-r): Kye McNeil, Jeff MacDougall

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A Lot of Singing Bernadette Bisson is proud to be “a coal miner’s daughter,” the third youngest of ten children. She grew up in the MacKay’s Corner area of Glace Bay. “My Dad worked in Number 11 mine. “He worked in Number 10 in Reserve and had just transferred to Number 11. Two weeks after the transition, a fall of stone had him, a spinal cord accident. He was buried underground and said to his buddy, ‘if you can get out, go, because I can't walk.’ The accident did not break her father’s spirit, according to Bisson. “He made us the happiest family you would ever want to meet, all ten of us, with very little money coming in. Dad was in the first war, so he got a small pension, and another small one from the mine. When one went up, the other went down, so it wasn't easy. “Like I say, it was just so normal and natural. We did a lot of singing. There was a lot of singing in my family. It could be anything really, anything popular. My father had the best attitude. I asked him one day, ‘are you in pain?’ He said, ‘Bernadette, if I wasn't, I'd be lonesome.’ That's the kind of man he was. “He had to go upstairs to use the bathroom. Nothing was easy. So he went up, seat of his pants, one step at a time. The example was just so loud and clear. We couldn't help but learn from it. I brought his picture so you can have it. In good weather, he'd be outside all the time. He was everybody's grandfather in MacKay’s Corner. He talked with the children, teased them. They were impressed by, you know, a man in a wheelchair. They couldn't understand what that was all about, but he made them laugh.”

Tough but Fair “Now I'll tell you another story,” says Irving Schwartz. “There was a lot of bad feeling between management and union, and there was one particular deputy mine manager by the name of Eddie Durdle. He ended up as underground manager, and at the time, they had a problem with men coming late to meet the rake going down underground. So they made a rule that, if you didn't get there fifteen minutes before the rake went down, you couldn't go down. “This particular day a man came to work from Port Morien on a Ski-doo. He arrived late, and Eddie says, ‘I'm sorry but you'll have to go back to the wash house because I can't let you down.’ Eddie had a big heart and felt very bad. He went over to the wash house and said to the fellow, ‘look, you've come all this way in this weather, on your Ski-doo. I can't stop you from going down; I want you to go down.’ The guy says, ‘to hell with you! Then I'd owe you a favour!’ “Eddie had the miners’ respect. I remember that, after a union meeting, the minutes would be printed in the newspaper. When they referred to Eddie, they always referred to him as Mr. Durdle. The other mine executives were always referred to by just their last name, no ‘Mr.’ “You could be tough as long as you were fair, and Eddie understood being fair. There was another mine manager over in North Sydney named Archie MacDonald. One day there was a wildcat strike, which they managed to end. The next day the dozen guys that started it were brought into his waiting room for a little chat. He kept the ring leader to the last, in the waiting room for about seven hours, eventually brought him in and asked ‘now what have you got to say?’ He said “I've been sitting here, Mr. MacDonald, and about two hours ago it came to me, that work is bread and bread is life.” “Is that what you thought?’ he said, and the employee said ‘yes.’ He said ‘Okay, you can go to work tomorrow morning.”

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A Sense of Place Donnie Campbell is from the Number Two area of Glace Bay. “At the end of it, we made good money to stay home and live here on the Island. It's a decision a lot of miners made. Do I go away? “I went away and lived in Barrie (Ontario) for a while. I was working at a factory, and my mother had called me to say ‘they called from the mine. Monday morning you got to have your medical.’ This was on a Thursday. I looked at my niece across the table and asked ‘how quick can I get a flight out of here?’ That Saturday morning I was back home in Glace Bay. “I just wanted to live in Cape Breton. Some people go away and that's it; they don't care if they ever come back. Not me. Like I said, I was away. I just missed everything, the sports, the community; that was the whole thing in a nutshell. “I have a twin brother that teaches school in Dartmouth and he invited me up to his classroom. One of the students in grade seven said to me, ‘Mr. Campbell, how come you're a coal miner and your twin brother's a school teacher?’ And I said ‘that's a good question.” “It's like this’, I said. “When we were only young, seven or eight years old, my mother said ‘look, we don't have much; one of the twins is going to have to go work in the coal mine.’ I said ‘I'm the biggest and strongest. I'll go. Let Jimmy go to school. “I said, ‘Jimmy went to school. I paid his way through school. He graduated from St. FX and became a school teacher.’ I said, ‘and class, he never thanked me.’ I was just trying to get at my twin brother because I do it quite a bit.”

Blunt and Direct Campbell’s playfulness with his twin shows up all the time in the interaction and conversation of miners, according to Rocky Burchell of New Waterford. “We’re blunt and direct. I used to get phone calls from the manager’s office, telling me to go easy, but that's the way we were. That was the way to deal with a miner. “They come to the office and bang on the counter or do whatever. So you just threaten him, ‘I'll pull you in through the window, or whatever, and straighten you out.’ That's the way they liked to be talked to. I mean, I got more respect out of them for that, rather than just caving in to them. It stayed with them because they knew I'd back them too. So it worked both ways. “I used to tell stories about this guy, a hard ticket to work with. I was always trying to remind him, ‘hey listen man; this is the guy making your pay. Now you treat these guys good, right.’ So of course, a couple of guys come in. They're short on their pay or something. I call him. ‘Hey, these guys have a shortage of something.’ “He’d say ‘ah, tell them they'll get it tomorrow.’ I’d say, ‘well I'll just send them over there and you tell them. Either send it to me here; let me do it or I'll just ship them over there to you.’ Anyway it worked out good. Just say it straight.”

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Pictured: Ike Batten

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Always Polite Coal mining “is in my genes,” says Colleen Campbell, daughter of Colin “Collie” Campbell of Glace Bay. He worked in the 1B and 26 coal mines during a forty one year career. He served his country as well in that capacity as he did for three years with the Canadian Army in World War Two. She writes, “At nineteen, he joined the army. Three Campbell men, Grandpa, Dad and his brother Charles served overseas. Dad’s army years counted as years worked in the mine, although he was never able to use them toward his pension. He died unexpectedly when he was 58 years old. “Dad only talked about the good times in the army, wonderful stories about the people of the Netherlands. During the liberation of Holland, Dad contracted diphtheria, and was hospitalized in a make-shift Canadian hospital in Nijmegen for three months. He told us how kind everyone was, especially the nurses. “My sister Yvonne and I attended the 60th anniversary of the liberation in 2005, in memory of our father. We met a Canadian nurse who had taken care of him. At a reception in Apeldoorn, the nurse saw the picture of our father that we always carried with us. Without any introduction she looked up at Yvonne and asked ‘Campbell?’ “She told us many things about our father, but one that stands out was that he was always very polite. During his life Dad taught us to be respectful of others and to lend a helping hand. He was well liked by all, especially the miners, and there was standing room only at his funeral.”

They Never Had a Mortgage “My parents married in 1948,” adds Campbell. “On their wedding day Dad took his bride to the bankhead to show her off to his buddies. Her white satin gown was stained with coal dust. My parents built next door to Grandpa. They started with two hundred in cash and neighbours helped them dig the basement by hand. They added to the house whenever they had money. They never had a mortgage. I remember when we finally got the indoor bathroom, a treat that we no longer had to traipse to the outhouse.”

My Uncle Alex The relationship with a favourite uncle inspired Deb Murray to write about Alexander Augustus Brown, “born in Sydney Mines, Cape Breton, in 1899. He was more like a grandfather to me, a rock muscled, white haired, friendly giant of a man. His silence spoke volumes. His penchant for a rocking chair and an intricately packed pipe are fond memories.” From her writing, we learn that her Uncle Alex conveyed the value of a sense of duty. “A veteran of both World Wars, he served with the Cape Breton Highlanders, then overseas with the fighting 25th battalion in St. Malo, France. In the Second World War, he again signed up in his home town of Sydney Mines, and was assigned duties as a Sergeant instructor in Petawawa, Ontario. “Then he answered the call of Princess Colliery in Sydney Mines. He went from the dust of the battlefield to the dust of the coal field. Uncle Alex took the bus daily, and when he returned home with his coveralls dusted in coal, we were not allowed to touch him until he was thoroughly scrubbed and “decent.” I can still smell the Old Spice aftershave he wore and the chocolaty scent of Old Chum pipe tobacco wafting through the air of a quiet evening at home. “Uncle Alex was the anchor he had tattooed on his arm: steadfast, respected and admired. My brother Glenn and I clung to him like barnacles on a hull. His eyes would hug us long before his arms did. He always seemed old to me but he was close to the age I am today. “I cry happy tears when I flash back to trips with my aunt and uncle to DB’s Pond. We held to hopes of catching what Aunt Ellen would call ‘a beautiful fish,’ and were grateful for what she referred to as a ‘good feed.’ “Alexander Augustus Brown died a good time after his fifty years hacking black gold from the walls of his workplace, Princess Colliery in Sydney Mines. It seems fitting to me that the colliery closed on the same day he passed away. The history of Cape Breton coal mining lives in our hearts because of special gentlemen like my Uncle Alex.”

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The Value of Education Ralph Baxter of Sydney Mines gives credit to his coal mining father for promoting the value of education. “My father, Bob Baxter, has the unfortunate distinction of being the last miner who lost his life at Princess Colliery, December 19th, 1969. I think my father instilled in me the thing he used to say all the time, ‘stay in school, you won't have to go in the mine.’ Education was a big thing with him, although he never had a lot. “It would come up for discussion at supper time, any time. When I wasn't doing well at school it would come up. One of my brothers wanted to quit early, and he said to him, ‘you either go to school or you can work in the mine.’ “I think a lot of the miners in Sydney Mines valued education because the work was so hard. It never paid enough. I seen his paycheck. He was supposed to be on the high rate, and it was something like a hundred dollars for six days work, you know. He was down at the coal face. When they used to blow the coal down, they would clean it to set the shots.”

Frog Town Remembered John Burton’s interest in learning was supported by his father. Burton, from Sydney Mines, is a lifelong learner who chose to study his family’s genealogy. “My grandfather Edward MacKinnon was born in 1890. His father, Angus, worked in the mine, and he drank most of the rum that buddy was talking about before. “I remember when I was five; he'd take me walking with him down Cottage Street. They called it Frog Town in those days, on account of all the frogs in the bog between us and Crescent Street. There was a station over there and they had trains come up from Florence, from Number One. There would be coal moving, and he explained to me all about the steel plant. You got to remember there was a steel plant where the coal went. “I think they kind of instilled into us, like someone said, the fathers didn't want the others to go into the mine. They wanted something better. ‘Get the education, get the education.’ God, our family is well educated now. Cost a lot, but it's well worth it. “I think he instilled in us how to go out and solve things, work with it. From my grandfather I learnt all about unions and labour. Another thing I always remember was when he was going to work, he'd kneel down by the chair and say his prayers before he'd go out that door. Then he walked to work too, which was one mile, right down the road.”

The last production shift on 1 North Wall, Prince Colliery, was November 23, 2001. However, the last shift in the mine was on Friday, December 7, 2001, when changes were made to the underground ventilation so the main fan could be shut down. Pictured (l-r Back): Russell Mugford, "Red" Fraser, John Baldwin, Gary Wadden, ? ,Joe Shea (l-r Front): Kevin Holland, Brent Boutilier, Tom MacNeil,Connie Kalbhenn

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A Time to Play Ralph Baxter of Sydney Mines asserts that miners, “my father in particular, worked so hard… you know, worked hard and played hard. At the end of it, my father’s release was to play cards, and he ended up having a couple of card shacks, what they called card shacks. He would put on a poker game there. “I was never a party to it, but I had the advantage where a lot of times he’d come home with a pocket full of money, and we'd end up going to the theatre. Some of the miners lost their money because apparently he was pretty good at what he did.”

A Time to Pray George Walker remembers that, while growing up in his home town, “they used to have church missions in Inverness that would go on probably for ten days. The miners would have to be in church at five a.m., before they went to work. Of course they'd have another service at seven o'clock in the evening. I remember my father getting me up to get there at five a.m. I was only a young fellow, thirteen or fourteen. “Most of them miners were religious people; I would say most of them, yeah. My father would get on his knees every morning and pray before going to work, say a few prayers; they all did that. Oh, it might be at a chair downstairs at the kitchen table. It learned us, I suppose, to be cautious. It taught us to be church - going people and so forth, yeah.”

That’s Who Got Me This Far Before Gerald Burke got married, he knew “that my Dad and Mom were praying for me. Of course, I would do my own prayers, right? I have a very, very strong faith. I have a very, very strong belief, you know, and without that I know that I would not make it. I would not be what I am today, except for my faith. That's one thing that I base all my life on today. I mean I'm 71 years old you know, and I give it all, the biggest credit, to God himself. That's who got me this far. “Dad would not go to church, right, but he stayed home and did all the cooking for Mom. That was her day, her day of rest. We would all walk up the apple orchard with Mom to go to church, right. “I experienced things in my life that I know were miracles. I know that for sure, that they were miracles. It made me stronger in my faith to see things that I did see, to ask for things that happened, that shouldn't have been, but it all came together. I mean I was never scared sitting in a rake in the mornings, going down. “Before I'd leave home, I would say my prayers, right. And then, going down in the rake, I would say my prayers. I wouldn't only pray for myself. I would pray for all my guys, all my buddies, right? Then, coming up on the rake at the end of the day, I would thank the good Lord. I was never afraid. “That's what got me through my life so far, my faith, from my mom and my dad, right. If ever in this world I had to choose between money and faith, I would choose faith.”

Pit ponies coming out for the summer. 130

(l-r): Joe Shannon, Peter MacPhee

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Pictured: Sandy MacDonald

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He Talked About It til the Day He Died Ken Jardine Sr. worked with “the last pit pony that ever worked in Princess Colliery and his name was Dexter. They had a horse in there after that. I don't know his name but he was very seldom used. Eventually they had to remove him from the mine. “I had to go to Number 9. Number 9 was the stables, eh, and they even had a big stall there called the maternity ward. Billy Stewart would say ‘go to Number 9, pick up Dexter and take him down to 14 South.’ It was a mile, at least. Wait 'til the rake went up, and then take him down the rake. By the way, he even had a hard hat too, eh, made of hard leather. “You know, you looked after your pony. So I’d take him down, and take him to the level, and take some material into the brusher. Then I’d take the debris back out with the pony. He was a nice little pit pony. “When the time came, they retired him, and a Mr. Bradbury who lived in North Sydney took Dexter. He gave him a good long life in the pasture. As you know, when the ponies came out of the pit, they were blind. After a couple of weeks they'd get their sight back. “My father loved the pit ponies too. His name was Fred Jardine, born in 1891. He went to the pit when he was fourteen and worked there until the war broke out, the First World War. He was gassed and spent six months in hospital in England. He suffered from it until the day he died. “After the war, he came home and went back into the coal mine. He loved chewing tobacco, as I did when I worked. We all did, eh. Anyway, there was a little pony down there by the name of Nellie, Dad's favorite. When Nellie seen Dad, she’d go crazy wanting a chew of his ‘baccy. “One morning my father was on the eleven o'clock shift and they were just out of the mine. A call came up from the attendant at the stables that there was a fire. And all the miners, they loved those horses. Every miner went back in that pit. They had no rescue gear in them days, so they took their water bottles and rags, and soaked the rags. My father went down with them. They went into all that smoke and got every blessed horse out of there, out to the fresh air. Not one horse was lost. Dad took Nellie out and he talked about it 'til the day he died.”

No. 26, last of the pit ponies, Laura, 1975

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A Legacy of

CAMARADERIE The camaraderie of coal miners endures, lasting longer than the mines in which the bonds of friendship were formed. Ernie Conrod of Glace Bay tried working underground but spent most of his career on the surface in a machine shop. He still counts many former coal miners as friends. He feels that the danger and physical demands of the coal mine forged those friendships. “It (underground) wasn't for me. I didn't think it was a fit place for a human being. That's probably why the miners had that camaraderie. It was such a damnable place to work. You had to make it pleasant. That's what I feel about that. “I can never understand my father being a miner. I think he liked it, but when you're down in the mine, you get a first hand view of what they’re doing. There's none of it pleasant.”

You’re Only a Baby Fred Howard of Florence is a third generation coal miner. “I guess it came through to me by tradition, from my grandfather and my father. I actually started in Princess mine. We had hooks then for your pit clothes, and when my grandfather retired, I took over his hook.” Howard credits the older generation of his co-workers for creating this legacy of camaraderie. “It was a learning curve for me. The older men kind of took you under the wing, and they were always there to look after you. I started by doing all back-shifts at eighteen years old. It was probably only about a year and a half that I was in there and there was a bunch of older gentlemen working in the advanced heading area, or what they just called ‘the deeps.’ “This particular day, something had broken down. There was some slack time so they got carrying on a joke. They said, ‘well, he’s only a boy so we should do the appropriate thing.’ So they emptied a stone dust bag and spread it around. Then they put it on me as a diaper. They said ‘you’re only a baby, so you need a diaper.’ “That was kind of your initiation into the group, something you took for what it was worth. I think the lesson there was ‘we know that you are the next group coming behind us, that eventually we older guys aren’t going to be here. This may not be the perfect way to make a living, but it’s a good way, as long as you’re ready to apply yourself. There’ll always be something you’ll get back from it. I think that was one of the major issues I learned over the years. “I think that’s part of the camaraderie, always somebody looking out for somebody else. There’s never ever a time you would think that somebody wasn’t looking out for you. It’s like a family, eh. You have your family at home, and at work you have a family too. You were with a particular crew in a section, which was your family underground, in the deeps or in a section, on a wall face, whatever the case may be. It was always that kind of unity. If you could do something to make it easier for somebody, then that’s what you did.”

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Pictured (l-r): John Chauder, Bill Waters, Joe Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neill

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Pictured (l-r): Lloyd Gillis, Willie Buchanan, Andy Hines, Kevin Henessey

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I’m Going to Kill You Abby Michalik of Glace Bay remembers how older miners helped a new miner to become comfortable in his workplace. “If you were on a wall, they would teach you everything that you had to do, help you put up timbers and that. They would keep an eye on you all the time and make sure you weren't getting out of hand, safety wise. “If you made a mistake, he'd call you over and give you a bawling out. I remember one day with an old fellow in Caledonia, George Bobbett. I was only new. So we're on the wall; we're cutting timber out and I was making a cap piece. George had an axe, and he had a file in his back pocket, so sharp you could probably shave with it. He took care of his tools. “So all of a sudden, I hit the stone below the coalface with the axe blade. Well mother of God, I see him coming after me. ‘You little Polander, I'm going to kill you!’ He wanted me to show the same care for his axe that he did. “My parents came over here in 1901 from Poland to work in the coal mines. They couldn’t speak English. They put all the Poles in Number 4 Colliery. Once you learned how to speak English, you would be put into other mines. What a great bunch of men to work with over the years!”

Pit Lawyers Veteran miners helped young miners with mentoring about many of life’s issues, not just the ones which arose in the workplace. This guidance was provided by what Abby Michalik calls a pit lawyer, “just an ordinary man that knows everything, not necessarily educated. We’d go to our pit lawyer, and I can name a few of them, but I don't want to. “If a fellow ran into a little trouble, with the marriage and that, you knew everything that was going on up on the surface. If people were running around and that, you'd find out (in the mine). But that man, like I said, he knew everything, and if you got into trouble he'd come and tell you how to go about it. ‘You go to your safety committee, and then you go to your union,’ that kind of thing. We had a lot of pit lawyers down there.”

Pictured (l-r): Bill Kelloway, Dan Boutilier, Don Campbell, Bill MacLean

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Pictured (l-r): Mark Kelland, Joe Gilmet, Bo MacDonald, ?, Russ Mauger

Joe Deveaux

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Gerard Burke and Alex White, Davis Day, 2005

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Pictured (l-r Back): Mickey Bigley, Frankie Conrad, Don Peckham, Glenn MacLeod (l-r Front): George MacLean, Bernie “Jose” MacLean, Reid MacMullin, Joe Byrne, Tony DeGiobbi, Steve Forgeron

Pictured (l-r Front): Allan Brown, Din MacLeod, Bill Tremblett (l-r Back): Lawrence MacEachern, Gerald Jennex, Binky Baldwin 141

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He’s Not Going to Work Gerald Burke of River Ryan insists that the “buddy system” led to this informal training and sharing among the men underground. “You had to rely on your buddy, and your buddy was your God in the flesh, not in spirit. He looked after you and you looked after him. With the buddy system in the coal mines, nobody had to go see a psychiatrist. They would talk with me as a buddy. I would talk to them as a buddy. That was as far as it would go, right?” This talking among coal miners saved lives on the surface as well as in the mine. Burke, who retired in 1994 because of injuries and silicosis, remembers trusting relationships with his fellow miners. “I went out this morning to work, right, and I went into the change area and dropped my (clothes) hook. This guy was sitting down on the bench, his head between his two hands. So I said ‘do you care to talk about it?’ He said ‘no.’ “I said ‘if you want to talk about it, I'll be here.’ So I went back out and put on my work cloths, then went to my locker for a finger of chewing tobacco. He came and said ‘yeah, I'd like to talk about it.’ “So I said ‘okay, I'll go in and tell management that we’re not going to work today.’ He said ‘you can do that?’ I said ‘we’re going to do it anyway.’ He said ‘how am I going to get paid?’ I said ‘well if the company don’t pay you, the union will pay you. Don't worry about it.’ “So I go into the manager, right. I took a committee man with me, Timmy MacNeil, God love him, and I said to the manager, ‘I got a problem about one of our workers. He's not in the right frame of mind to go underground today. He's not only going to put himself in danger; he's going to put everybody else in danger.’ I said ‘he's not going to work.’ “Okay,’ he said, ‘that's no problem. Just put his number in and forget about it.’ I went out and told the guy. Then we sat and talked. He told me his wife was going to leave him. She said she didn't love him anymore. So I said, ‘what were you thinking about anyway?’ He said ‘I'm thinking about killing myself.’ “I said ‘you got two daughters. How would you like your two daughters to grow up, go to school and everything, and other ones saying to them that your father did away with himself?’ I said ‘I don't think that's the answer.’ I said ‘wait until I get my clothes off. I'm going for a shower and we'll go have a coffee.’ “I took my car, drove, had a coffee and we talked and talked. I mean we started about 6:30 in the morning. At 12 o'clock we were still talking and driving around. I said, ‘what are you going to do when you go home? You have to see somebody. Do you want somebody to talk to other than myself?’ He said ‘what about the committee man?’ I said ‘no problem.’ I told the committee man Timmy what took place, what happened. He stayed with Timmy that night. The two of them were young, right, and pretty close. I said ‘if you have any problem, give me a call.’ “So I lay in bed that night and never got a call. I kept saying, ‘well dear God, it's looking pretty good.’ Next morning, I go out and Timmy's there and so is the other guy. He's ready for work. He comes over and says ‘can I hug you?’ I said ‘sure you can.’ He said ‘I have a whole different outlook on it.’ I said ‘you'll find out the truth about your wife, and when you do, if you want to tell me about it, tell me about it.’ “So about three months pass and he came to me one day. He said ‘you were right. There was another guy.’ So that was it. The guy worked steady. His two daughters are after graduating and have good jobs. He has a good job and everything else. At Christmas, I always get a card from the guy saying thank you.”

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Teddy and the 12 North Bears For Donnie Campbell, the camaraderie of coal miners showed itself in humour. “Oh, the camaraderie of the men was just unbelievable. What was said in the mine usually stayed in the mine. Nothing was brought to the surface. There were all kinds of pit lawyers who handled all kinds of cases, divorce cases and that stuff. “But it was the humour. Going into the mine, in the rake boxes, guys would play Tarabish; for an hour and a half they'd play cards and tell stories and jokes. “I remember one time, Joe Burns and I were sitting in the second box. Back then, the supervisors got in the front box, and then everybody else got in behind. I think it was around late '75, '76, and all the new guys were sitting in the second box. We'd sing on the way in. It was Christmas time, so Joe decided to take out a sheet for everybody, with Christmas carols on it. It was cold on the rake going into the mine, and there we were, singing Christmas carols. I'll never forget it. We bought tee shirts and called ourselves ‘Teddy and the 12 North Bears.’ We all worked on 12 North Wall. “And I'll never forget, I was over to the ball field on South Street, watching a ball game one day. Victor Jones was in the stands with his wife, and he said, tapping her on the shoulder, ‘there's one of them singing bears from the pit.”

Pictured (l-r): Joe MacNeil, Harry Bert

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There Was No Inhibition Joe Aucoin of New Waterford is a former coal miner who has written a collection of stories based on his career. He freely shares these stories, and in the course of relating one of them, explained how this working life inspired humour and camaraderie. “Cape Breton coal miners were a very rare breed. Because of the hardships they endured, they developed a tough exterior to protect themselves against what life had to hurl at them. You would never see a miner verbally express his love for his fellow workers, but the bonds among these men were no less there. Miners risked their lives daily just to make a living. They would often go to great lengths to help each other out. “In the wash house, where men changed in and out of their work clothes and bathed in communal showers, there was no inhibition. A few men were better endowed than others, and perhaps looked upon enviously by some, but little attention was paid to the naked body. When a man came up from the mine, he would get out of his pit clothes, sit naked and relax with a cigarette before going into the showers. “On one occasion, John Alec (‘I'm using a fictitious name. Some of you might know who this person is.’), a seasoned miner, was doing just that. I won't say he was well endowed, but he had a scrotum on him that looked more like it belonged to a bull. Now the bench on which John Alec sat was made of two parallel planks with a space between them. When he sat for a cigarette, his scrotum dropped into the space. “When he went to rise, he let out a yelp. He was trapped! Everyone erupted into laughter. To compound matters further, he asked for somebody to give his testicles a twist so that he might get free. No one came near him to lend a hand. Finally, after much finagling and contortions, he was able to extricate himself.”

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Myles Gardiner

John Haynes

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Number One Mine Night Shift c. 1933 First Row (l-r): Alex Dixon, John Angus MacIsaac, Anthony Moret, Johnny MacDougall, Alex Angus Kennedy, Danny MacIntyre, Donald Archie MacKinnon, John R. MacDonald, Alex Dan MacKinnon, Angelo Varnier, Archie MacLellan, Jack Stubbard, John MacDonald, Billy MacLean, John MacGillivray, Angus MacKinnon, Richard Quigley

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Second Row (l-r): Johnny Rorison, Alex MacIntrye, Danny MacLean, Stewart White, John Angus MacNeil, Dan Allan MacLennan, George van Strippen, Angus MacKinnon, Jules Pedipaw, Joe van Volson, Lauchie MacLean, Eddie MacQuarrie, Angus MacDonald, William Gillis, Charlie MacMaster, Jimmy MacInnis Third Row (l-r): Jim Dan MacEachern, Pat Poirier, Eddie MacLeod, Red John Angus MacDonald, Alex Watson, Carl Habicht, Jimmy MacDonald, Danny MacIntyre, Duncan Campbell, Hughie MacDonald, Dougald MacDougald, Red Johnny MacLean, John Alex Smith, Tony MacLeod, Sandy Campbell, Martin Coady, Peter White

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Doug Shield

Don MacLeod

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Blood Brothers While coal miners laughed together, they occasionally fought with each other too. The UMW’s international representative, Bobby Burchell of New Waterford, remembers the unique camaraderie of a pair of coal mining brothers. “I used to shake my head a lot. You'd go to a union meeting and brothers… I don't mean union brothers; I mean blood brothers, would actually get up and fight with one another. I was at one meeting when two blood brothers were throwing chairs at each other, and the meeting would be over, we'd all be outside and they were the best of buddies again. “Then you'd go into the pit. Once you got to the pit everything changed. Underground, everything changed. If Frank Corbett was my worst enemy, when we got underground, we were buddies; we worked together. Maybe I didn't like him, but he still did the job, and you looked out for him and he looked out for you. “When you get that far underground, miles out under the ocean, and all you got above you are lobster boats and lobster traps, you need somebody to depend on. If something happens, you can always count on the guy next to you. You knew he was there for you. I say they'd sacrifice their own life to get you out. That was proven so many times with the Draegermen and the barefaced miners. Whenever there was a disaster, the barefaced miners went there first until the Draegermen got there. No hesitation.”

You Watch Their Back Gerald Burke notes that coal miners’ camaraderie went with them to the surface. “I mean if you went to town on a weekend, to a ball game, hockey game, or whatever, and you seen your buddy getting scuffed up by a couple of other guys, well then you would pitch in. There's no way you're going to beat my buddy, right? That's the way it was. You would pick up for the guy. “It's not as serious as when you're down in the coal mine, but you know, the outlook is that you look after each other. When I sing with the Men of the Deeps and we go away, you know, after a concert, we try to get to an Irish bar or a Scottish bar. We will not let one guy go to a washroom by himself. Two other guys will follow him. You watch their back. You got that in the coal mine. You watched out and the closeness is still there. “When somebody was in trouble, that person was looked after. I’m always proud of coal miners because they cared. They cared about other people. They cared about children. I say that the closest knit people are coal miners, other than them guys in the war. In war time you’ve got to rely on your buddy, that guy next to you.”

Pictured (l-r): John Hawes, Paddy MacNeil

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Pictured (l-r): Kevin Hennessey, Ken Rosnick, Tom “Coke” Chauder (in behind), Roy Thomson, ?, Andy Hines, ?, Todd T. Walker, Richard Corbett

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A Legacy of

NICKNAMES Pickle Arse Albert “Dear Abby” Michalik of Glace Bay remembers how his favourite miner’s nickname came to life when he was a child. “We used to go down Commercial Street for the Orangemen’s Day Parade, July 12th. You'd see the big horse coming down the street, the Donkin band, and the sea cadets. Next to the Co-op down there, we had Thompson's, and they used to have barrels placed out on the sidewalk eh, so you could sit on them… barrels of apples and pickles and the like. “So this man was sitting on a barrel of pickles, and all of a sudden the barrel broke, and his arse went in the pickle. Well ever since, they called him “Pickle Arse,” and the name was given to his children and passed down to their children.”

Nipper Nipper MacLeod is a former coal miner who sings with The Men of the Deeps. He says his nickname came from a relative, “actually my uncle who passed away last year. He got the name from a cartoon character in the Cape Breton Post. That was it, kind of a ‘Dennis the Menace’ character. That's why I got it. There were three or four Nippers in New Waterford.”

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Pictured (l-r): Brian MacMullan, Danny Wilcox

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Pictured: Stan (Junior) Penney

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Arse First “Big” Jim MacLellan worked with a man known by this unique handle. “Yeah, we had a guy in Number 12, and his nickname was ‘Arse First.’ Excuse me ladies… “He was in charge of material going in the mine. Men came along and they’d give him a list, you know, for two boxes of timber and one box of oil. He would then send, into the mine, two boxes of oil and one box of timber. So they called him Arse First!”

Dan the Dancer Gordon Hayes of Marion Bridge “heard someone mention ‘Dan the Dancer’ MacDonald in Glace Bay. I thought that was just a fabulous name. Not sure what the story is behind it, but I think it relates to the mining community and I hope someone can add to it. “We we're in our late teens, all having a few beer out in the back field, and one of the guys went over to the corner of the field to have a pee. All of a sudden we heard ‘Aw, I just pissed on my knuckle’. Hence we called him Piss Knuckle, and that name has stuck for a long, long time.”

Johnny… Jack Toomey in Bras d’Or remembers “when I was just a little guy growing up in the colliery town of Sydney Mines. On Saturday mornings, I would go with my father to pick up his pay, a little brick building by the station house where the rink is now. “A little train, a miniature train called the ‘man car’ would come up. You’d hear its little toot-toot, all the men would jump on board and the little train would take us down to the pithead, where the men would be paid. Two big guys in suits with a suitcase would set up a little table in front of the wash house. They'd open up the suitcase full of brown envelopes, the men’s pay, and they’d line up. “I used to find it so interesting and humorous when they’d come to the MacDonalds. There were so many John MacDonalds; a whole litany of nicknames would pour out: Johnny Gossiper, Johnny the Crows Nest, Johnny Here-IAre, Johnny the Prune, Johnny Black Angus and Johnny Come Lately. Each of these names meant something but they were all John MacDonalds! “Johnny Gossiper, of course, got his name because he liked to talk. Johnny the Crows Nest lived in a little apartment on the top of Main Street where he could see down the street - it was called the crow’s nest. Johnny Here-I-Are was a neighbour of ours. He went to the pit when he was 12 years old. His job was to open the door and let the air flow through the different levels, and sometimes he'd get lost playing and doing different things in the pit. When they'd call him, he’d respond, ‘here I are’, so it was Johnny Here-I-Are.”

A Thousand Nicknames Dave Ervin of Sydney remembers “my late uncle, Doctor Billy Nicholson from Reserve Mines. In his early retirement, he did a lot of writing, including a list of nicknames. There were a thousand to fifteen hundred nicknames on his list. One day someone sent an anonymous letter saying, you know, some people have a nickname when they’re young that they don't like, and they try to outlive it, and it's terrible that some people keep bringing it up. “Well Billy was not the type to do anything to intentionally hurt anyone, so he destroyed that whole list of 1000 or 1500 nicknames. Too bad it isn't around for this project!”

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Big Foot Art Spencer “worked in or around nine different mines in my career, so I ran into a lot of different nicknames. They called me ‘Big Foot’ because I wore size 13's. They'd be tormenting me, saying the cows were crying today because instead of killing one to make a pair of boots, they had to kill two cows to outfit me with boots. “My father in law, Michael MacNeil from Glace Bay, was called ‘Mickey One Duck’ but not to his face. They’d kind of holler at him when they got a chance and then run. One day he went to work and said ‘last night they stole all of my ducks but one.’ So he was named Mickey One Duck. “When I worked in Number 26, there was a man who formerly played with the ball team in Dominion. They called him Buggy Nose. He had quite a large nose and a buggy was a thing you could put under the wheels of coal cars to keep them from moving. “There was another man called Cranberry because he had cranberries in his lunch all the time. Another family was called the Big Pays, because one time, one of them got only a couple of cents in his pay. So anyway, after that, they were the Big Pays. “Another name I kind of wondered why a man answered to ‘Spoonbill.’ These two men worked together, one named Bill. Each had something in their lunch cans that called for a spoon. Only Bill had one, so when his work partner needed it, he would say ‘Spoon Bill’. That nickname stuck to him.”

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Giovanni Angione

Roy Thomson

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The Clock Simon Gillis of Whitney Pier remembers how his wife Myrna’s brother, John Dunn, “always got a bit of a giggle when nicknames were mentioned. One of his favourites referred to a fellow they called ‘The Clock,’ so named because he had one arm shorter than the other.”

Joe the Jig “There was a fellow that worked in Caledonia, Joe Deveaux, and he was called ‘Joe the Jig’ because he could take two sticks and go like he was playing the fiddle, you know. He worked down on the landing with these chain couplings (connected boxes together). They were precious because you could lose them, you know. If Joe’s work started at six in the morning, he'd go down at five to the mine, sneak down to the other landings and take their spare chains, the couplings, up to his workplace. “The other landing guys said, ‘we got to stop this.’ They would blame Joe and he said ‘no way would Joe Jig ever do that.’ So they stone dusted the area. This would be like snow, you know. They stone dusted the area where Joe worked and where he used to take the spare couplings. “So Joe starts down this morning to steal some more and he noticed the stone dust and how it showed his tracks. So he kept going down to the bottom of the mine where they hadn’t dusted, and he took two couplings, then backed up the deep. “When the men come down, all they seen was tracks going down, but they didn't see anything coming back. So after that day, his famous expression in Caledonia was ‘you'll never frig Joe the Jig!”

Freeman Jenkins

Bill Cooke

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A Poem Full.. Well, we have Donald the Horse and Alice the Colt. Now for nicknames wouldn't that give you a jolt? Or Mick the Clinker and Neil the Bailer, Scalper Whelan and Danny the Tailor, Peter Toad and Mike the Dog, Jim the Hawk and George the Frog. Have you heard about Indian Jack and Mickey the Butt? Or Jimmy Yankee and Andrew Nut? Next is Silk Hector in all his glory, Money Mick and Father Rory, Malcie Bad Luck and Jim Smelly, Sandy Clean and Mickey Nelly, St… St... Stuttering Jack who talks so funny, Laughy the Soldier and Peggy Punny. You remember Dougald Swift; that’s a name not slow. How about Hughie the Squirrel and Henry Crow? And for names that would knock you silly, There's Danny the Goat, and Mick the Billy. Nickname's sometimes come in handy. With Malcie Ironsides and Johnny Dandy, There's John MacLean; they call him Curly. There's Robin Cuckoo and Doodle Hurley, Dunky Snake was big and strong; Six Foot Angus, he was long. Alex Buzz was full of sap, Hector the Itch and Old Flip Flap, For smart ones, Reckoner takes the cake. Blind Lauchie and Sandy Big Snake, Danny Mud, there is none any wiser, and Angus the Neck and Alec Miser. These two names have a tickle, Johnny Boss and Danny Pickle. Dempsey's Laundry is not very starchy. Ask Jimmy Monk and Powder Archie. You may not like this but I don't give a darn, for Alex Slippery or Danny Rope Yarn. Jack the Grey had a brother, a lawyer. There was Lauchie the Pouch and Lauchie the Sawyer. Danny Mink has no fur coat but there is wool on John Skin the Goat. One thing I've often wondered is why they call Hector “Old Hundred?” Hungry Malcolm had enough to eat. Raspberry Vinegar was old and sweet. Alan the Fiddler and Jimmy the Slim, Lazy Hector and Old Black Jim… Danny Barra had only one big toe, but how about Jimmy the Bottomer and poor Cheap Joe? Chain Lightning and Flew the Hat, John the Sinker and Shoot the Cat… One request I would like to make, these names in vain you must not take. For one to know them, you must be a surmiser, and after reading be none the wiser! (*This is an abridged version of a poem read by community historian Jim St. Clair during his column “Then and Now” on the daily radio program Information Morning on CBC Radio 1 in Cape Breton.)

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Our Sponsors The production of “Pit Talk: The Legacy of Cape Breton’s Coal Miners” was made possible by a group of sponsors who provided financial, editorial and in-kind support. Their generous contributions and understanding of the project’s significance made this tribute to the miners’ legacy possible.

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Acknowledgements I was deeply moved by the many individuals who took the risk of speaking in public to share their thoughts, stories and photographs about the legacy of Cape Breton’s coal miners. Many others, upon hearing of the project, came forward. Thanks to all of you for the time and content you entrusted to me, as well as your appreciation of the importance of this project. Many of you gave time and information while living with health problems. Your courage fuelled this project. Some gave more than others. The late Ned MacDonald, founder and curator of the Coal Miners Museum in Inverness, spent two winter days with me in January 2010, and gave full access to its entire archive of photographs. Within weeks of his generous act, he died suddenly at a public meeting while serving the cause of provincial museums. His legacy of community service to Nova Scotians lives on in this book. The Sydney Mines Storytelling Sessions is a living record of audio, video and photographic community history. Cyril Aker gave countless hours to combing this record and credit goes to him and Claire Andrea or sharing content about coal mining history with this project. DEVCO provided full access to its photographic archive, along with frequent assistance in tapping into the living memory of its former staff. Among the people who provided leadership in this effort were Ross McCurdy, Debi Walker, Gerard Shaw and Gerald Lamey. Their commitment and suggestions provided key editorial direction at important times. The Men of the Deeps, especially soloist Nipper MacLeod, contributed stories and live music at our public storytelling sessions. Nipper’s ability to play the right song at the right time evoked the sharing of many memories. Schwartz Warehouse Showroom lent us furniture to create a comfortable environment for this sharing. The Beaton Institute of Cape Breton University was tireless in its support. Catherine Arsenault, Jane Arnold and Gerardette Brown found the best photos to illustrate emerging themes. They have been entrusted to hold all the raw materials gathered for this project. Cape Breton media outlets appreciated the need for this book and spread the word. This encouraged many contributions, particularly of nicknames. I remain grateful to CBC Cape Breton producer Don Munro and Information Morning host Steve Sutherland. The Cape Breton Post, Inverness Oran and The Coast radio station in Glace Bay were particularly helpful. Life and its unpredictable events intervened often to delay the production of this book. Yet I was fully supported by the talented staff of ICON Communications. Terry Smith’s unflappable leadership and marketing ability, Chad Aucoin’s brilliant graphic artistry and Kelly Deveaux’s production assistance came to bear when I was overwhelmed. Alison Brown of Cape Mabou efficiently transcribed dozens of hours of recordings so that we have text of the contributed stories. Cape Breton culture is better for your efforts. Our coal miners have begun to receive their due, while many of them are still with us, thanks to all you have given. Ian McNeil

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Photo Credits Dozens of individuals submitted photographs to this legacy project and gave permission for their publication. Renowned Cape Breton photographer Owen Fitzgerald gave permission to use many photographs from his personal archive, including the one on the cover of Pit Talk. (Pages 2, 8, 11, 12, 16, 22, 24, 35, 62, 65, 66, 73, 93, 96, 106, 109, 110, 112, 114, 118, 123, 127, 131, 132, 133, 135, 137-139, 144, 147, 150- 152, 154-156, 158-161) The late Ned MacDonald of Glenville gave full access to photographs in the archives of The Inverness Miners Museum, and permission to print them in this book. Murdock Smith of Sydney shot many of the photos used in the chapter â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Legacy of Unity,â&#x20AC;? particularly the Davis Day section, which was photographed on June 11, 2009. The Sydney Mines Storytelling Session provided photographs and permission to use them in this book. Mathieu Noble contributed a school project from a mapmaking course, a map of underground workings on page 48. ICON graphic artist Chad Aucoin shot some photos for this project at The Miners Museum in Glace Bay. Ray J. MacLellan of Crew Productions provided images, mainly headshots, from video he recorded at our public storytelling sessions in Glace Bay, Sydney Mines and New Waterford. David Kaufman did the photograph of Linden MacIntyre in the foreword (Page 2). The Beaton Institute of Cape Breton University provided access to the following photos: - P. 19 Mabou Mines Coal Co. Building (ca. 1905), unknown, 83-6352-13652, public domain - P. 20 Port Hood Coal Mines, 1909, unknown, 84-922-15022, PD (public domain) - P. 26 Cape Breton, (ca. 1890), unknown, 78-1198-2948, PD - P. 26 (bottom) NS Steel & Coal Co. Piers, 1902, postcard, 76-23, PD - P. 43 (L)Album Souvenirs of CB, 1912, Bert MacLeod Collection, 77-1245-1379, PD - P. 44 Coal Engine Under Bridge, Charlotte St., Sydney, 1893, unknown, 77-167-301, PD - P. 56 Watching Road Race, Senators Corner, Glace Bay, 1908, 84-782-14882, PD - P. 64 Miners at Caledonia, 1895, unknown, 80-5-4185, PD - P. 67 New Waterford Dominion #14 Colliery, (ca. 1910), unknown, 80-852-5032, PD - P. 74 Coal Office, Sydney, 1925, unknown, 77-73-207, PD - P. 77 Bob Muir, 1959, unknown, 77-405-539, Copyright - P. 88 Glace Bay Street Hockey (c.1955), Abbass Studios Ltd., 87-62-16593, Copyright - P. 89 Glace Bay Miners Hockey Team (c. 1950), Abbass Studios Ltd, 87-32-16564, Copyright - P. 91 CB Colliery League Umpires, 1937, unknown, 81-825-5905, PD - P. 101 Barbara Frum, CB Mine, Owen Fitzgerald (1981), OF001, Copyright