Wednesday, July 5 - Hope the Americans had some cause, any cause, to celebrate yesterday, with the Donald in charge. Glad to be away from t.v. for the past 44 days. We haven't watched two minutes since we left home, and it's been truly a terrific break.

This blog is way behind. And so much to report. We were on Bell Island when last we wrote, so to continue... The mine museum/tour was excellent. The displays were very well presented and documented, including info obtained from Germany about the U-Boat captain who sank two of our ships during WWII. Of interest also is a series of black and white photos of miners taken by Karsh in 1954, when he was invited by the mine owners to come for a photo shoot. But the main feature was a guided tour of the mine by an former miner, whose father and grandfather worked down below. Each worked well into his 70s, the grand-father until he was 79 as an engineer, the father until he was 75 doing hard work.

These were tough men. During the 80 years that the mine operated, with hundreds down in the shafts, just over 100 deaths occurred. Pretty good odds when compared to coal mines. The shafts have high ceilings, supported by pillars of rock, with little need of wooden beams that were so subject to problems. Also the shafts are very high, probably 20 feet, as opposed to coal mine shafts, and relatively clean, compared to the coal dust that did so much damage to miners. Each job had terrific challenges, with workers starting at age 11 in many cases. The 11 and 12 years olds sorted chunks of rock that weren't suitable for loading. The 13 and 14 year olds looked after the horses, which were housed in the shafts to pull the mine carts. The 15 and 16 years olds graduated to become gofers. And finally they would become shovellers, having to load 18 tons of ore a shift over their 12 hours. With time they could graduate to other jobs, some more dangerous than the back-breaking work of loading carts. Six days a week they worked. Like I said, these were strong, tough men.

Death occurred when occasional loose rock fell from the ceiling of the shaft, the back side, as they called it, because the men had their back to the ceiling much of their shift, or when the explosive used to break up the ore blew at the wrong time. Sometimes a cart being towed by winch to the surface would break loose, with no hope for anyone caught in its path as it crashed down to the bottom.

Our guide, Ed, didn't work in this mine, as it had closed by the time he was of age. So he worked in Labrador, where he was caught in a machine, nearly killed, and paralyzed for several years. You'd never know it to look at him. Toughness and determination got him back to full use of his body. Tough like his predecessors, but gentle of speech, and kindly.

I also spoke to Doris, who volunteers in the coffee shop. We had a great old chat, as she is a retired teacher of 35 years, and was involved in skills development programs aimed at providing young people the knowledge needed to make a go of it, since the mine was no longer there to employ them. Many of those who went through the program went on to other parts of Newfoundland, or to Ontario, while only a few could stay to find work on the island. Tough, when a community is reliant on a single industry, like our northern Ontario towns built around pulp and paper mills. As mentioned, the population has gone from 18,000 to about 3,000.

I'll post this, for fear of losing it. Next edition...St. John's. More later. Stay tuned.