British Columbia’s mining heritage worth its weight in gold

I just finished reading The Lively Ghost of Howe Sound, a history of the Britannia Mine, once the largest copper producer in the British Commonwealth.

A previous owner had used, as a bookmark, an editorial from The Northern Miner, dated April 15, 1996. Entitled “Our Mining Heritage: An Industry In Itself,” it’s an eloquent argument that our mining heritage is something to be treasured and is worth quoting:

“Some of the more popular tourist destinations in rural Canada are former mine sites. Barkerville, a small British Columbia town which keeps alive the spirit and colour of the historic Cariboo gold rush, is one such attraction.

“Another is Dawson City, in the Yukon, where tourists can enjoy a hand of poker and a few cold ones at Diamond Gertie’s, or pan for gold at one of the historic placer mining sites.

“Farther south in British Columbia,
visitors pore through the famous mining museum in Rossland that celebrates the heyday of the LeRoi gold mine. And each year, hundreds of tourists drive a short distance north of Vancouver to visit the Britannia Mining Museum, a former copper producer where thousands of men and women once worked and thrived.

“Ontario also has a rich mining heritage, which is best displayed in communities such as Cobalt, Timmins and Kirkland Lake. And Quebec’s mining past is no less impressive. A new museum opened last year at the site of the past-producing Lamaque gold mine in Val d’Or and has attracted more than 10,000 visitors to date.

“In fact, Canada’s history is so intertwined with mining that almost every part of the country features some historical landmark related to the industry. This is also true in the United States, particularly in the west. Nevada’s Carson City is characterized by its mining heritage, and much of the state’s gaming industry reflects a gold-rush theme.

Americans have a greater appreciation of their history
“Utah has a popular museum at the site of the Mercur gold mine, a historic producer still being worked, and many rural parts of California have tourist attractions that hearken back to the days of its famous gold rush. Even a football team, the San Francisco 49ers, attests to the state’s mining past.

“All this goes to show that our mining heritage is worth preserving. We agree with the Ontario Prospectors Association, which recently expressed concern that too many old mills and headframes are being torn down across Canada. ‘There are times when sites should be considered as historical landmarks, and tteated as such,’ the association noted in its recent newsletter.

Mining built Canada
“We agree. By preserving our mining past, we can learn how the industry contributed to nation-building and helped bring about our high standard of living.

“Mining companies can play a key role in preserving historic structures. Rather than destroying historic equipment and buildings, the industry should work with local heritage societies to ensure that some artifacts are preserved in museums.

“Mining communities should keep in mind that tourists are drawn to the color and adventure that typified the boom towns of yesteryear. Hotels, restaurants and community halls can do a lot to reflect this theme by providing the kind of ambience that will attract tourists and provide competition to franchise eateries.

“Our mining past is a national treasure which ought to be preserved. (My italics.) In addition to serving as an educational tool, museums and monuments can provide economic benefits to local communities by drawing tourists.

“No other industry has as much color, adventure and human drama as mining, and these qualities are as evident today as they were 100 years ago.“(My italics.)

Hear! Hear!
That fine editorial in The Northern Miner, written 22 years ago, is as true today as it was then.

But the instances where our mining heritage has been saved and preserved are, alas, few and far between. Over the past 150 years, most of it has vanished, often the result of indifference. Few Canadians, particularly politicians, have shown any real interest in saving examples of our industrial past, and not just mining.

Here in the Cowichan Valley, it was a several years-long struggle to convince various levels of government that the semi-derelict Canadian National Railways Kinsol Trestle (https://www.cvrd.bc.ca/1379/Kinsol-Trestle) was worth saving. Today, restored, it’s as an essential link in the Trans Canada Trail and receives 100,000 visitors annually—100,000 visitors year-round, in all weather.

The Kinsol Trestle is the crown jewel of the Cowichan Valley and worth every penny it cost to “rehabilitate” it.

But we haven’t succeeded in saving Morden
That’s one time we “historical purists,” as the Times-Colonist called us at the time, won. Farther north, at South Wellington, we’ve not been so successful.

There, the century-old Morden Colliery tipple/headframe is slowly, steadily deteriorating and bound to some day collapse. A pioneering work of reinforced concrete, it’s the only one left standing of Vancouver Island’s fabled coal industry.

For 86 years coal was the Island’s economic backbone and it was coal that founded 10 Island communities, the best known of which are Nanaimo, Ladysmith and Cumberland. Tens of thousands of miners supported their families through their work underground. An estimated 1000 died on the job, victims of cave-ins, explosions, gas, rock-falls and dozens of other causes.

And an unknown number who survived their work careers died years later of black lung and from injuries suffered on the job. Coal mining on Vancouver Island was notoriously dangerous work and poorly paid.

At the very least we owe it to them to remember them!

And Morden Colliery Provincial Heritage Park (https://www.mordenmine.com/) offers us an ideal opportunity to do so.

That’s right, it’s a provincial heritage park. But the imposing six-storey-high structure has never had a dime put to its maintenance. And, because its construction was cutting-edge technology, it has built-in flaws that will ultimately bring it down unless steps are taken to preserve it.

Several studies have shown this is possible at a cost estimated to be half of what it cost to renovate the Kinsol Trestle. But successive provincial governments have shown no interest and the years continue to take their toll…

Unions were no help
Nor, despite numerous approaches, could Labour see its potential to not just honour the mining industry and the miners of all Vancouver Island, but, more topically, to remind visitors of the deplorable work conditions of days gone by. Working conditions that unions fought long and hard to improve.

Not even the fine memorial that the Friends of the Morden Mine installed a few years ago is safe. The marble bench, meant for visitors to sit on while they mused about Morden Colliery’s story has been stolen.

No doubt it, like the fire bricks stripped from the boiler chimney base several years ago, is adorning some creton’s garden. It took years of fundraising and saving for FOMM to come up with the funds to erect this memorial.