'It was a hard life': Cumberland remembers over 300 lives lost to mines, on 40th memorial weekend

Cumberland remembers over 300 lives lost to mines, on 40th memorial weekend

Vancouver Island miners in early 1900s were "four-times more likely to die" than anywhere else, says historian

It was the day after Valentine’s Day in 1901 when a series of three explosions engulfed a network of mining tunnels in Cumberland, B.C., in flames.

Sixty-four men and boys descended into the mine that day — none returned.

This weekend, they will be among more than 300 miners remembered for losing their lives in the Cumberland mines.

The community is hosting the 40th Miners Memorial Weekend from June 11-15.

Dawn Copeman, an educator and historian with the Cumberland Museum, said it’s one way to bring the community's significant history back to the present.

"Letting people know this person lived here, this person died here, they died in the mines," she said.

She says a total of 321 miners died over the decades, and about 60 of their graves are in Cumberland, where people can lay flowers this weekend.

Cumberland’s roots are in coal mining.

The Union Coal Mining Company developed coal deposits where Cumberland is today and established the mining settlement of Union.

The Dunsmuir family later took over those operations and rapidly expanded operations in the area. In order to support its growing population, Union was renamed Cumberland in 1891 and became a city in 1898.

But what makes Cumberland the choice for an annual memorial is its tragic history of fatal mining incidents.

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"It was the most dangerous in all of the British Commonwealth when they were established," Copeman said.

"You were four times more likely to die in the mines on Vancouver Island than any place else in the world."

The deadliest of these incidents occurred on Feb. 15, 1901, when the lives of 64 men and boys were lost to three explosions in the No. 6 mine.

When all rescue efforts were exhausted, the city had to flood the mine to stop the flames from spreading.

The book Boss Whistle, by Lynne Bowen, contains memories from coal miners on Vancouver Island and their families. One passage describes the moment on Aug. 30, 1922, when a miner’s daughter, Margaret Cameron, found out her father had died.

"We kids had just got home from school. [My mother] heard the noise of the accident, the bang and she looked up and said, ‘There’s your father, he’s gone.’ And that was it," Cameron told Bowen. "They brought my father home in a coffin. His big dark mustache was burned right off his face."

The second-deadliest incident was on Feb. 8, 1923, when a gas explosion in the No. 4 mine killed 33 miners.

It was the dangerous working conditions in Cumberland that helped drive one of the biggest labour disputes in the history of the province.

It started in Cumberland on Sept. 17, 1912, and spread across Vancouver Island as workers in Ladysmith and Extension joined up.

Over the next two years, 213 protestors were arrested by police. Despite the outcry from workers, the company, Canadian Collieries — which bought out the Dunsmuir's mining company — did not meet the demands of the strikers.

It wasn’t until 1938 that the Cumberland mines were finally unionized. The last mining operation in the community closed in 1966.

"It was a hard life. You had to look out for each other and support each other," Copeman said. "Thirty or 40 per cent of the people who currently live in Cumberland have some connection with mining through their ancestors."

This year, the event began with a live concert from Juno-winning musician Maria Dunn on Thursday.

There will be history walking tours, musical celebrations from workers and educational workshops running daily until Monday.

The annual grave marking tradition will take place on Saturday, first at the Cumberland Municipal Cemetery at 10:30 a.m., and then at noon at the Nikkei No Haka Japanese Canadian Cemetery and the Chinese Canadian Cemetery.

Arden McLeod, from Vancouver, is an associate producer with CBC News. He has a passion for community storytelling, local news, and reflecting the values of B.C. He graduated from the British Columbia Institute of Technology's broadcast and online journalism program. You can reach him at Arden.McLeod@cbc.ca.

With files from All Points West