Chapter V: Isle of Iron, Men of Steel  (continued)

The 'fair play' that miners desired was 15 cents per hour to put them on par with workers in the Dominion's new steel plant in Sydney, Nova Scotia. The companies refused to bargain, forcing miners to form their first union, the Wabana Workers and Labourers Union. Organized labour soon became disorganized anarchy. The men prohibited coal boats from unloading and threatened St. John's longshoremen who arrived to fill an ore carrier. When police arrested the strike leader, the miners' fury heightened. Peace finally prevailed on July 23 with the signing of the "Treaty of Kelligrews" at Mrs. Walsh's Hotel in Kelligrews. At daybreak on July 24, Conception Bay thronged with boats of men returning to work for 11 cents and 12½ cents per hour.

The Wabana Workers and Labourers Union dissolved after July, but its brief reign prompted the construction of a court house for Wabana that September. Over the years the building was used more in times of celebration than in times of strike. One particularly vigorous evening took place during the annual Wabana Ball. The dance hall's design allowed individuals in an elevated position to fling full bottles of beer into the milling crowds on the dance floor below. Not all missiles missed their marks. Private feuds raged for several hours before the magistrate's arrival and his threat to read the Riot Act returned a semblance of civility to the ball. More than one man saw the inside of the court house that night.

Strikes and festive affairs notwithstanding, amiable relations existed between the miners and management (and between the Scotia and Dominion companies). Until the 1920s, miners could work 'six-month shifts' whereby men who fished in the summer and mined in the winter replaced those who mined in the summer and lumbered in the winter. Young boys worked the year around as ore cobbers or as 'boilers', boilers being responsible for keeping tea pots full for thirsty miners. Supplementing the Bell Islanders were ex-miners from Tilt Cove, Little Bay and Pilleys Island, together with a United Nations of Nova Scotians, Chinese, Russians, Germans and Hungarians, the last of whom had the unusual habit of ceasing work at the first indications of rain to sit under umbrellas until the shower passed.

Bell Island miners at opening of No. 3 Slope, about to descend for the 6:00 p.m. shift. Candles on hats are to light their way underground. Foreman Arthur House (extreme right) later became manager of the Aguathuna limestone quarry. (V/2.) (33Kb)

[N.B. Gail Weir at the Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives (CNS) argues this picture is not of Bell Island miners at the collar of No. 3 Slope at all, but of coal miners at the opening of #3 Colliery, Steels Hill at Glace Bay, NS, in 1901. As evidence she uses a photographer named Owen Fitzgerald of Nova Scotia who submitted a manuscript of photos of Cape Breton to Breakwater Books some years ago in hopes of getting it published. The CNS later obtained Breakwater's papers including Fitzgerald's manuscript. Included in the manuscript is the above photograph which he credits to University College of Cape Breton. The caption reads, "opening of #3 Colliery, Glace Bay, Steels Hill, c. 1901." Wendy Martin, the author of Once Upon a Mine, had obtained the picture from the widow of Arthur House. Arthur House had worked in Cape Breton and then on Bell Island before moving to Aguathuna to manage the operation there. Somewhere along the way, says Weir, the facts got confused. Vince Walsh coordinator NL Heritage Web Site Nov, 2004]

Most Bell Island miners regarded the initial seven years of operations as pleasant enough; they laboured out of doors, and the ore was easily accessible. However, in 1902 the whole atmosphere and appearance of the mines altered, for in that year surface exposures of the Lower and Middle Beds ran out and mining descended underground.

The move underground brought alterations to mining procedures. Empty ore cars carried men down to the mine face where they worked by the light of candles and seal oil lamps as shovellers, drillers, blasters or face cleaners. During the day shovellers loaded a required minimum of 10 carloads, or 17 tons, of ore while drillers bored holes for dynamite. Both drillers and shovellers became caked with a red crust formed by rock dust mingled with sweat and mine water. As the drillers and shovellers left work in the evening, blasters reported to place and ignite the dynamite that loosened the rock. Early next morning came the face cleaners-brave men who cleared ceilings and walls of rock debris before the shovellers and drillers arrived.

One of the more unique aspects of the underground operation was its use of horses. The animals rarely saw the light of day after their initial descent, but received adequate attention in return for hauling ore cars to the base of the hoisting slope and the waiting locomotives. A horse's name sometimes revealed its origin: "Tilt Cove Tim", for example. They lived in subterranean stables, supplied fertiliser for vegetable gardens and, if they survived long enough, spent their retirement grazing in near-blindness upon the island meadows.