Overview

Western Canada's early coal miners arrived on the frontier from faraway parts of the world and quietly made a lasting contribution to our economic, political, and cultural development. The focus of this narrative is on the timespan that starts with the usage of native coal for fuel by the Hudson's Bay Company's employees at Edmonton House in October 1798 and finishes with the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. Although they were thousands of kilometres apart, the Canadian coal industry was closely linked to the British industry for much of its history. Modern mining equipment, practices, and laws were imported from the British Isles by the colonists. Its territory in the northwestern portion of the North American continent was largely neglected by the British government after the Hudson's Bay Company was founded in May 1670. Then, without consulting the Aboriginal nations, during the nineteenth century the British decided to garrison Western Canada and fully assimilate it into their empire. Its destiny would be determined in London and later Ottawa. Coal was one of the untouched natural resources that acquisitive European colonists were keen to exploit. Small amounts of bunker coal were excavated on Vancouver Island by the resident Kwakwaka'wakw and burned to fuel Royal Navy ships before the first professional colliers arrived from Scotland in September 1849. Coal mining would become a leading employer and vendor of fuel in the new British colonies, territories, and provinces as this region was occupied by foreigners. Colliery owners prospered while life could be wretched for their employees. Unknown numbers of workers were killed, maimed, and sickened. Sudden failures of the coal pillars propping up a mine's roof sent deadly projectiles flying in all directions. Drilling, cutting, blasting, and handling coal produced fine dust, which was explosive and caused lung disease. An explosive gas, firedamp, was liberated from the coal seam as it was exposed. Violent explosions of firedamp and coal dust brought too many fragile lives to a merciless finale. A slow, agonizing death from miners' phthisis was the fate of countless colliers. British colonists quickly marginalized the Indigenous population wherever they wished to exploit the natural resources. The arrival of Asian and Eastern European workers in the coalfields was greatly resented by many of their British co-workers. In addition to their financial capital and coal mining expertise, the British proprietors, managers, and miners brought some of their less-desirable traditions with them. Great Britain's industrial woes arrived in Western Canada with the throngs of immigrants from the home country and its colonies. Racial, cultural, and class strife were soon pervasive in the developing coalfields. Colonizers from Great Britain, continental Europe, Central Canada, Atlantic Canada, the United States, and Asia were drawn to Western Canada. Third Edition, 120 photographs.

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