It’s not easy to dig back into a past that some people don’t want to remember.
But as some would prefer that any evidence of coal mining in Nanaimo would just disappear, others are looking past the scars – both physical and psychological – left behind by the industry and remembering, though not necessarily celebrating.
In short, coal mining took its toll on Nanaimo’s earliest citizens. It killed hundreds of men – good men – and left families torn. It divided workers, managers and neighbours, and made a lot of money for the elite few.
When the coal ran out, and the coal barons left for good, they left nothing behind but a gutted landscape and a community left to fend for itself.
It’s a difficult foundation to be built on, and even today, decades after the last mine closed for good, Nanaimo still bears the scars of coal mining, at least in our hearts.
We’ve abandoned our history as the coal barons abandoned us; there is little physical evidence to signify that coal mining was here.
But that’s changing. Slowly, we’re peeling back the layers of our painful heritage. Whether it’s an effort to salvage the remains of the Morden Mine, or a small remembrance at the foot of Milton Street to remember 150 dead miners, a museum exhibit or a park dedicated to miners in Extension, we’re beginning to look back, maybe just a little, to see where we came from.
That’s a good thing, because we owe it to the men who worked in the mines, the men who really built this city, and who died underground, to at least acknowledge them and thank them.
Once we do that, maybe we’ll be able to breathe again.
