Looking into the blackness of the deep that is Ocean Beach Colliery, Wish Donovan takes you on an underground tour at the Miner’s Museum in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. A tour that is dark, damp and at times dismal as your back creeks from being hunched over. You can feel what it is like to be a miner in the early 1900’s.

There were at one time about 57 collieries in Glace Bay, Wish says, with the most popular being Caledonia, 26, 20, 24, and six.

The Museum first opened it doors in 1967, Wish says. Now it encompasses an underground tour and Miner’s Village. Wish has been a tour guide for the last 20 years and a coal miner for 30 years.

The Hardship Endured

First you faced the dark void down below as you enter the cart that takes you down.  No light save for a portable lamp that hangs around your neck to light your way. Then there are the gases produced by the coal. It is always important to keep doors closed to the tunnels you enter for the flow of air. One way to test for gases is to place a canary in a cage. If the canary is standing straight and looking at you are singing, you are safe, Wish says, but if the canary is flipped on its back and not making any noise, best to get out of there as fast as you can. The canary is later replaced with newer technologies. There are two shafts, one that takes you in and another for fresh air to enter. This mine starts off at five and a half feet high, Wish says, and almost 4 and a half feet at its lowest. Could you ever get used to this tight, cramped space?

Hard Labour

The Miners buy all their own equipment, Wish says, and get paid 17 cents for every box of coal hauled out. This does not include the digging they must do once they reach the face. The face, Wish says, is the location of a wall of coal. If you can get to the face, he says, you can make a lot of money. Black lung however kills many young miners. The prospect for money to be made may be high but the risk of death was also of a large amount.

The first coal mine in Glace Bay was built by the French, Wish says, in 1720. The French sailors from the Fortress of Louisbourg saw the coal inside the cliffs, Wish says, dug it out and the coal fueled the heat at the fortress. He also says that the site of the first French commercial coal mine in North America is in Port Morien which is on the outskirts of Glace Bay.

“The biggest time and the most important time,” Wish says, “was during the second World War. Everything was steam operated and you needed steam for that, so during the second World War there was a big demand for Cape Breton coal.”

There are twelve coal seams under the water, Wish says, and coal mines in the area mine the top five seams. A coal seam is a layer of coal underneath the water, Wish says, and sometimes you can see them inside the cliffs.

The Company Store

The Company Store was usually the only store in town, Wish says, where you could get your food and clothing at coal company prices. Often, Wish says, the prices were very high and the miners who made very little money would charge things on a store account. They couldn’t leave, Wish says, until they paid the money back to the store. This produced a lifetime of workers indebted to the company because of the check off system of pay. Miners had things like medical and other costs taken off their pays. This resulted in as Wish has noted very small pays for the Miners and large bills to the company store.

This season The Miner’s Museum saw 8 to 10,000 visitors who booked a mine tour. Chances are Wish Donovan told the story of Glace Bay’s mining history many times. Mining is not dead, Wish says, there are still coal generated operations around the world today. So, demand is great for a little Cape Breton coal.