Post by IAMCAPER on Sept 9, 2004 23:18:45 GMT -4
The following article is actually part 1 of a 3 part story that ran in the Toronto Sun in 1999. Because of the length of the first part of the article it will be broken into two parts. I hope you enjoy!
Part 1 - Blood and Guts
If you've seen the 1995 movie Margaret's Museum, stop reading now, because this is, in many ways, the same story minus "the snot-nosed sleeper" Margaret played by Helena Bonham Carter.
New Waterford, Cape Breton Island, after more than a century of coal mining, lost its last working pit this week the Phalen mine that slopes 5-6 km under the Atlantic Ocean.
In its heyday, the town was home to six collieries that criss-crossed every which way about the town proper ending up at the shore and into the sea.
Coal made this town and in the process it took some of its sons in return for the black gold. In all, more than 300 men and boys were entombed, gassed or crushed in the pits.
In its biggest haul, the infamous No. 12 pit, on a muggy July day in 1917, denied 62 miners one more glimpse of daylight when a horrific explosion ripped through the mine. Three more -- draegermen (rescuers) -- didn't make it back to the surface after a brave attempt to find survivors.
My dad, Johnny Fortune -- a retired coal miner -- lost his brother Joe to the pits. It was in the No. 14 colliery -- only a stone's throw from No. 12 -- that Joe, in 1930, joined 65 who went before him. He was just 16. His father, my grandfather, Jerome, a safety examiner for the mine, was said to have taken the death stoically.
A very religious man, Jerome -- who had survived 54 years in the pits searching the deeps for traces of the deadly methane gas while clutching his walking stick (given to senior miners as a sign of office) -- took solitude in his faith and in his belief; a son lost to the mine was the way the life should unfold. It was the price of coal and in those days no one really argued that issue.
My Uncle Joe may have been one of the lucky ones -- he died clean, not like others of my family who were carved, scared and broken by their years going underground.
DEATH FOR PROFITS
When there were four and five mines going at full tilt, Dominion Coal (DOSCO) was "The Company" that ran New Waterford with a tyrannic grip. In theory, The Company's plan for the town should have served the people well: It provided work, homes and stores for the miners. But as John Mellor, in his informative book The Company Store, described it: "Cape Breton mining towns were North America's last existing feudal systems."
The Company, without exaggeration, was heartless, despotic and downright evil.
It often refused credit at its stores to miners who didn't toe the line, and it could evict anyone at anytime from their Company homes. For dirt, they often evicted whole families in mid-winter. A miner squints in the afternoon sun after finishing up his Saturday shift in the deeps, 5 km under the Atlantic Ocean.
FIGHTING BACK
In desperation, Cape Breton miners organized in the early part of this century by joining the United Mine Workers of America, and The Company, in retaliation, turned the screws a notch.
It countered a miners' strike in 1925, by cutting off the power and water supply to New Waterford. The federal and provincial governments ignored the pleas of the town's mayor for compassion.
Townfolk still talk about June 11, 1925, when The Company's mounted police force charged down the main street, striking out at any citizen, young or old in its way. News of this bullying tactic reached the miners, who then gathered more than 3,000 strong near Waterford Lake, the location of the power plant.
For the first time, the striking miners were determined to fight back. In a clash against The Company's mounted force, the miners overtook the mercenaries in a few minutes. But after the dust had settled, William Davis, a miner and a father of 10, lay dead -- a bullet through the heart -- and several others of his group lay wounded.
With Davis' death, The Company had added another atrocity -- murder -- to its long list of crimes against humanity.
My mom's mom, Rose White, iron-willed and the mother of 11 (six sons, five daughters), didn't rely entirely on the whims of The Company for the welfare of her family. When her husband, Jack, a very decent man, was not off fishing or digging coal, he would run rum and "Nana," as I called her, in difficult times would bootleg it.
My grandfather bought kegs of the spirits from foreign cargo boats moored off the coast. Rose and Jack's big house strategically stood alone on the New Waterford shore overlooking a tiny inlet that protected the local fishing boats from the North Atlantic swells.
The Mounties turned a blind eye to Rose's activities because of the number of little Whites bounding about.
All of Rose's six sons tried the mines at one time or another, but it was only Martin and Hector who made it their life's work.
Reports say that after 10 years in the pits, there's almost a 100% chance of developing black lung (silicosis) to some degree.
My uncle Hector White was a gentle, hard-working family man who spent most of his youth and adult life underground. He looked a lot like actor Gary Cooper, tall and thin, with a crooked grin that on one side curved up towards his steely blue eyes.
Hector was twice ravaged by the pits. Years before black lung took its toll, his handsome face was torn apart by a runaway slab of coal sling-shot during a routine detonation. After a horrific battle with silicosis, the coal dust that settled in his breathing organs claimed victory over the rest of his body.
Fast forward to 1967, the year that DEVCO, a Crown corporation, took control of Cape Breton's coal mines.
After an eight-year absence, I flew to the Island and landed at Reserve Mines Airport, a few kilometres from New Waterford.
It was an early Sunday morning, and as I was getting off the plane, Air Canada cargo workers were unloading a coffin -- not a good omen, I thought at the time.
As my cab headed towards town, a heavy fog rolled in off the Atlantic (appropriate, I thought, remembering the lifeless passenger, supine in a pine box, who had disembarked with me). Rather than going straight to my Aunt Agatha's (my dad's sister) place on Ninth St., I got off on Plummer Ave. -- New Waterford's main drag.
Standing on the corner of Plummer Ave. (named after the one-time president of Dominion Coal, J.H. Plummer), I looked down Ninth St., toward the Atlantic.
Then, the unpaved surface of Ninth Ave. was peppered with coal chips and the air was stagnant with the smell of coal dust. Plummer, a Toronto businessman, would have been proud that coal still held its deadly grip on a town founded to mine it as cheaply as possible.
I remember thinking then, while looking at the drab clap-board Company houses lining Ninth St., that death had consumed this town. The coal chips were the legacy of more than a century of child labour, meager wages, brutality and death for profits.
Fast forward again to 1990. On a trip to Cape Breton to show off my wife and three kids, a new New Waterford laid before us awash in new homes and remodeled old ones. The town was experiencing a mini-boom. Miners were investing in the town in hopes that the prosperity would last.
Part 1 - Blood and Guts
If you've seen the 1995 movie Margaret's Museum, stop reading now, because this is, in many ways, the same story minus "the snot-nosed sleeper" Margaret played by Helena Bonham Carter.
New Waterford, Cape Breton Island, after more than a century of coal mining, lost its last working pit this week the Phalen mine that slopes 5-6 km under the Atlantic Ocean.
In its heyday, the town was home to six collieries that criss-crossed every which way about the town proper ending up at the shore and into the sea.
Coal made this town and in the process it took some of its sons in return for the black gold. In all, more than 300 men and boys were entombed, gassed or crushed in the pits.
In its biggest haul, the infamous No. 12 pit, on a muggy July day in 1917, denied 62 miners one more glimpse of daylight when a horrific explosion ripped through the mine. Three more -- draegermen (rescuers) -- didn't make it back to the surface after a brave attempt to find survivors.
My dad, Johnny Fortune -- a retired coal miner -- lost his brother Joe to the pits. It was in the No. 14 colliery -- only a stone's throw from No. 12 -- that Joe, in 1930, joined 65 who went before him. He was just 16. His father, my grandfather, Jerome, a safety examiner for the mine, was said to have taken the death stoically.
A very religious man, Jerome -- who had survived 54 years in the pits searching the deeps for traces of the deadly methane gas while clutching his walking stick (given to senior miners as a sign of office) -- took solitude in his faith and in his belief; a son lost to the mine was the way the life should unfold. It was the price of coal and in those days no one really argued that issue.
My Uncle Joe may have been one of the lucky ones -- he died clean, not like others of my family who were carved, scared and broken by their years going underground.
DEATH FOR PROFITS
When there were four and five mines going at full tilt, Dominion Coal (DOSCO) was "The Company" that ran New Waterford with a tyrannic grip. In theory, The Company's plan for the town should have served the people well: It provided work, homes and stores for the miners. But as John Mellor, in his informative book The Company Store, described it: "Cape Breton mining towns were North America's last existing feudal systems."
The Company, without exaggeration, was heartless, despotic and downright evil.
It often refused credit at its stores to miners who didn't toe the line, and it could evict anyone at anytime from their Company homes. For dirt, they often evicted whole families in mid-winter. A miner squints in the afternoon sun after finishing up his Saturday shift in the deeps, 5 km under the Atlantic Ocean.
FIGHTING BACK
In desperation, Cape Breton miners organized in the early part of this century by joining the United Mine Workers of America, and The Company, in retaliation, turned the screws a notch.
It countered a miners' strike in 1925, by cutting off the power and water supply to New Waterford. The federal and provincial governments ignored the pleas of the town's mayor for compassion.
Townfolk still talk about June 11, 1925, when The Company's mounted police force charged down the main street, striking out at any citizen, young or old in its way. News of this bullying tactic reached the miners, who then gathered more than 3,000 strong near Waterford Lake, the location of the power plant.
For the first time, the striking miners were determined to fight back. In a clash against The Company's mounted force, the miners overtook the mercenaries in a few minutes. But after the dust had settled, William Davis, a miner and a father of 10, lay dead -- a bullet through the heart -- and several others of his group lay wounded.
With Davis' death, The Company had added another atrocity -- murder -- to its long list of crimes against humanity.
My mom's mom, Rose White, iron-willed and the mother of 11 (six sons, five daughters), didn't rely entirely on the whims of The Company for the welfare of her family. When her husband, Jack, a very decent man, was not off fishing or digging coal, he would run rum and "Nana," as I called her, in difficult times would bootleg it.
My grandfather bought kegs of the spirits from foreign cargo boats moored off the coast. Rose and Jack's big house strategically stood alone on the New Waterford shore overlooking a tiny inlet that protected the local fishing boats from the North Atlantic swells.
The Mounties turned a blind eye to Rose's activities because of the number of little Whites bounding about.
All of Rose's six sons tried the mines at one time or another, but it was only Martin and Hector who made it their life's work.
Reports say that after 10 years in the pits, there's almost a 100% chance of developing black lung (silicosis) to some degree.
My uncle Hector White was a gentle, hard-working family man who spent most of his youth and adult life underground. He looked a lot like actor Gary Cooper, tall and thin, with a crooked grin that on one side curved up towards his steely blue eyes.
Hector was twice ravaged by the pits. Years before black lung took its toll, his handsome face was torn apart by a runaway slab of coal sling-shot during a routine detonation. After a horrific battle with silicosis, the coal dust that settled in his breathing organs claimed victory over the rest of his body.
Fast forward to 1967, the year that DEVCO, a Crown corporation, took control of Cape Breton's coal mines.
After an eight-year absence, I flew to the Island and landed at Reserve Mines Airport, a few kilometres from New Waterford.
It was an early Sunday morning, and as I was getting off the plane, Air Canada cargo workers were unloading a coffin -- not a good omen, I thought at the time.
As my cab headed towards town, a heavy fog rolled in off the Atlantic (appropriate, I thought, remembering the lifeless passenger, supine in a pine box, who had disembarked with me). Rather than going straight to my Aunt Agatha's (my dad's sister) place on Ninth St., I got off on Plummer Ave. -- New Waterford's main drag.
Standing on the corner of Plummer Ave. (named after the one-time president of Dominion Coal, J.H. Plummer), I looked down Ninth St., toward the Atlantic.
Then, the unpaved surface of Ninth Ave. was peppered with coal chips and the air was stagnant with the smell of coal dust. Plummer, a Toronto businessman, would have been proud that coal still held its deadly grip on a town founded to mine it as cheaply as possible.
I remember thinking then, while looking at the drab clap-board Company houses lining Ninth St., that death had consumed this town. The coal chips were the legacy of more than a century of child labour, meager wages, brutality and death for profits.
Fast forward again to 1990. On a trip to Cape Breton to show off my wife and three kids, a new New Waterford laid before us awash in new homes and remodeled old ones. The town was experiencing a mini-boom. Miners were investing in the town in hopes that the prosperity would last.