Miners of the Elk Valley Memorial Edition
Dedicated to those who lost their lives mining coal.
2 - March 30, 2017
Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
Message from the Mayor
A Balmer North Survivor’s Story
Council recognized the 50th anniversary of the Balmer North explosion, as a day that shouldn’t pass without recognition of the lives lost on April 3, 1967, along with all mine accidents before and after. With that in mind, the concept of using the anniversary to remember all lives lost in mining in the Sparwood and Elkford area was approved.
Today’s mining takes safety very seriously with Mayor Cal McDougall rigorous health and safety standards in place. The industry today is extremely safe and provides a high standard of living for our residents. Teck has led the industry with their Courageous Safety Leadership program. For all of us who enjoy the quality of life that mining supports in the Valley, we see the bronze miner statue and memorial wall as symbols of the progress in mine safety as well as paying homage to those 181 lives lost.
On behalf of Council and all our residents, I would like to thank the hard work of the Balmer North Miner’s Memorial Committee and the many that donated to the project, both in-kind and cash.
Welcome from the Committee
In January of 2016, through District of Sparwood Council’s direction, a committee was formed with the purpose of commissioning a memorial to forever remember those who lost their lives while mining in the Elkford, Sparwood and Corbin areas. The objective was to have something in place for the 50th anniversary of the Balmer North explosion which happened April 3, 1967. The explosion took the lives of 15 men and seriously injured 10 others. Its anniversary seemed a fitting occasion for the unveiling of a memorial. After many meetings and much research and work, the Committee’s objective was met.
We wish to express how honoured we are to have been involved in this very meaningful project. Advancing toward the April, 3 2017 commemoration fostered the great respect each of us already had for those who worked and currently work in our area mines to improve the quality of life of the citizens in our communities. We are grateful that the number of accidental deaths decreased significantly with the change from underground to open pit mining and, in more recent years, as safety has become the first priority at the operations. This is clearly evident when viewing the memorial wall. We are also grateful to all of those who supported the project along the way and especially to those who shared their personal experiences to ensure the sacrifices made are always remembered. Margaret McKie, Committee Chair Members: Troy Cook Alex Hanson John Kinnear Terry Melcer
Tammy Ogden Bill Savilow Sharon Strom David Wilks
Published by The Free Press (Elk Valley), 250-423-4666 Andrea Horton, publisher@thefreepress.ca Sales: Jennifer Cronin, advertising@thefreepress.ca Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited. The publisher is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. March 2017.
Corbin coal miners - white arrow is Savilow.
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Larion and Bill Savilow moving a mechanical miner out of Balmer No. 1 Mine. Photos B. Savilow
here were 10 men seriously injured on April 3rd, 1967 as they walked into Balmer’s No. 1 rock tunnel that day. Most had terrible head injuries and suffered complications later on. Earle Price eventually lost a leg. Another of those 10 men who survived that whirlwind was Larion (Larry) Savilow and this is his story. Larion Ivanoff Savilow was a veteran miner. A survivor. He came to the Elk Valley as an 18-year-old Russian immigrant and worked in Corbin for almost seven years. Conditions were tough and dangerous there and miners recall walking in ankle deep coal dust underground.
Then the big strike of April 17, 1935 (Black Wednesday) shut the place down forever. Larry got caught up in the strike protest and was arrested and spent the night in jail. He toughed it out in Corbin for two years after the 1935 strike before finally moving to Michel.
Savilow worked for thirty years at Michel at various underground mines. He was also on the Michel mine rescue team that won championships. For a time he worked together with his son Bill in Balmer North. Bill’s mother Mary worried about them being in the same mine together on the same shift and Bill had himself moved to C Seam Mine three months before the accident.
Larion was 61-years-old when he suffered that life threatening head injury in the rock tunnel. His son Bill had rushed up to the mine to help that day as he knew his dad was on afternoon shift. When he got there they put him to work driving an old panel truck hauling a couple of the badly injured men. First trip he made was with Herbie Parsons and a trip later he brought Bob Clegg to the Michel Hospital. When he got there with Parsons he overheard his father’s voice in the x-ray room. He went to him and Larion said: “Find my clothes and look in the pockets” which he did and found his dad’s Malton pocket watch. Larion said take the watch home and keep it, it’s yours. Bill did just that and has kept it ever since never once trying to wind it. The watch dial reads four minutes to 4 p.m., the time of the blast. Larion was moved to the Fernie Hospital where he and Earle Price were both given the last rites. Ultimately he was moved to a Vancouver Hospital to recover but according to his son Bill he was never the same after, eventually recovering enough from his head trauma to return home. Larion decided he could not live in Michel anymore, so close to that place that had claimed so many comrades including his dear friend and hunting partner Guido (Guy) Venzi. He moved to Fernie, never went underground again and lived another 10 years before passing suddenly at the age of 71. Bill Savilow, his son, never worked underground again either. He’d had his fill of it all. The gas, the coal Savilow’s pocket watch dust, the rock falls, the close calls, the complacent management, the stopped at 3:56. whole damn unpredictability of it all.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to making this historical project a success The Balmer North Miners Memorial Committee
Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
March 30, 2017 - 3
A statue for all miners – the Sparwood Miner’s Memorial Legacy
W
hen renowned sculpture artist Nathan Scott was commissioned by the District of Sparwood to craft a bronze statue for the community’s coal miner’s memorial he was delighted. The life-size bronze they envisioned was to honour all coal miners lost in mining accidents from the Michel/Corbin area (Fording River to Coal Mountain) including the 15 men who lost their lives in the Balmer North explosion of April 3, 1967.
When he was first contacted Scott commented: “I grew up in the Victoria area but spent 10 years in the Yukon as a gold miner, then on the Alaska Highway working in the heavy equipment industry. I drove the big trucks, ran the excavators and loaders so Sparwood is my kind of town. When he came down for a site visit he recalled: “I may have gone through here as a kid, for some reason that big truck is stuck in my mind somewhere. It’s still as big as I remember it though.” According to the artist the process usually starts with a phone call, a bunch of questions that go either way and then he comes up with the concept. Scott studies the key traits of each installation he works on and their relevance to the surrounding community. “The council in Sparwood decided on a pose and what they saw as important,” said Scott. “The miner’s lamp, lunchbox, helmet with light and battery pack. These things are very important to the coal mining industry. They did want to have more of a nostalgic look to it.” The picture he worked with was from the 1960s and it connects closely to a mining disaster that happened around that time.”
For Sparwood, Scott has created a realistic, properly proportioned sculpture. “Since I knew the clothing they had, I found a person with the same body type and dressed him up and took photos. I sculpt realistic, so I went around the model and took a bunch of photos and measurements and then went onto the sculpting,” said Scott. The Victoria, B.C. born artist had a rather unusual start to his sculpting career. He left a career in the mining industry and the gold fields of the Yukon and has been sculpting for almost two decades. Without any formal training he quickly found that sculpting was a
Nathan Scott bronze of a sailor’s reunion with his young daughter entitled “The Homecoming”. Life size clay model of statue sculpture. Photos N. Scott
“happy mistake”.
He said: “I came back from the Yukon and I had a friend of mine doing murals. I was doing commercial and residential murals for him but I am colour blind. It just was not my gig, it is two-dimensional, we did pick up a job doing a three dimensional mascot,” said Scott. “It was obvious, I have a gift for it. It came out so well. I did a little concrete fourand-a-half foot gardener and the first show I put it in I sold nine of them. It was at that point that this former heavy equipment operator with no formal artistic training realized that he had a God-given talent for sculpting. Of the sculpting process Scott said: “There is only black and white, light and shadow. The clay is only one colour, and that’s it.” Six months after the gardener statue success he had his first public commission and has done about 30 public commissions since then, all over North America. Scott says: “I have had no training whatsoever. It’s just a gift, I can’t really take much credit for it. If I’d gone to all those different schools and I’d trained in Italy, maybe I’d be able to take some credit but I really can’t.” However, Scott conceded that working with all those mechanics and
welders in the gold fields has helped him in his artistic endeavours. He’s been able to run his own foundry for the last 10 years, which allows him to cast bronze statues.
Armed with his innate talent for sculpting, Scott has created an impressive body of work. He constructed the Terry Fox sculpture on Mile “0” of the TransCanada Highway at Beacon Hill Park in Victoria. He also did the iconic bronze sculpture “The Homecoming” in Victoria’s Inner Harbour, which features a sailor’s reunion with his young daughter. It was installed in 2010 to honour the Canadian Navy’s 100th anniversary. Scott said he enjoyed working on the sculpture for the Balmer North memorial. Many of his former subjects have had to be formal or military in nature but the Sparwood memorial features an iconic working-class individual.
The face of the miner in the photo Scott used to model the sculpture was purposely obscured so the finished work would commemorate the archetypical coal miner of the day and not a particular individual. “I love what he’s wearing and what he represents,” said Scott. “I know that mining town experience.”
Creating the final product for the Sparwood memorial was a fairly drawn out process. Typically, after studying the concept and working with the client Scott begins by creating a full size clay model of the work. He pays attention to fine detail to craft as realistic a representation as possible. Once the client signs off on its final appearance the transformation from clay to bronze begins. A special mould or complete negative of the clay sculpture is made. The final molten bronze casting is done by what is called lost-wax or investment casting. Originally Nathan Scott used to send his moulds away to a bronze foundry but found that they could not keep up with his timelines so he taught himself more about foundry-work and opened his own. There he works through every complicated step with his employees.
For Nathan Scott it is a labour of love. His work reflects his love for people, young and old, interacting with their particular situations and surroundings. He gets to create works of art that people appreciate. The legacy for Sparwood is a magnificent life-like coal miner standing tall in his community and is an important historic commemoration of the men who dig for coal.
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Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
Mine disasters no stranger to Michel Creek Valley Although Balmer North 1967 disaster stands as the worst event in the history of the Michel Creek mines, there were several other incidents starting in 1904 that were very catastrophic to the mining communities there. There are many definitions of the term disaster but most would agree that even the loss of a single miner at any given time is in itself a disaster that would ripple through any community.
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he Hillcrest Miners Memorial dedicated in 2000 in Hillcrest, Alberta for Canada’s worst mining disaster in 1914 has listed on marble pillows that surround the main monument, every disaster of three men or more across Canada. On those pillows one will find five Michel events engraved that include the years 1904, 1916, 1938, 1967 and 1969.
Michel coal mines got their start around 1901 so it wasn’t long before the first of these catastrophes befell the town. Conditions in Michel No. 3 Mine were typical of most mines in Western Canada back then with coal dust and methane gas buildups always present, often at dangerous levels. In the early afternoon of Friday, January 8, 1904 a powerful explosion tore through the west side of No. 3 Mine in Michel and claimed the lives of seven men. It was to be the first of five major tragic
1902-1908: 1904 Michel disaster - 7 men lost. events to befall this valley.
Photos Pages 4 & 5 - J. Kinnear
In that year there were 41 men lost in mine accidents in all of British Columbia, 28 of which were in the Elk Valley and 12 of which were in the Michel mines. Twenty-one of the 28 were from gas explosions including a horrific incident at Morrissey Mines (Carbonado) on November 18, 1904 in which 14 miners were killed by a terrific outburst of gas. The stage had been set.
As a point of interest the average daily wage for a coal miner in 1904 was $3.75 and for Chinese and Japanese miners it was $1.31. There were 4,453 men working in British Columbia coal mines that year and together they produced 1,685,698
tons of coal. A macabre statistic generated in coal mining’s early years was tons per fatality and for this year it was 41,114 tons mined per fatality.
For the next 12 years fatalities ranged from one to six per year in Michel until disaster struck once again on August 8, 1916 at Michel’s No. 3 East Mine with another series of explosions that resulted in the loss of 12 men. An electrical storm was cited by most witnesses as being the most severe they had ever experienced; the thunder was deafening, the lightning-flashes most vivid and the rain almost torrential. It was presumed the three explosions had occurred at the height of the storm. The 1916 Ministry of Mines Report carries a very detailed overview of this disaster with some rather profound statements.
The afternoon shift fireboss, Benjamin Ball came out of No. 3 Mine at approximately 10:45 p.m. and met with the night shift fireboss Thomas Phillips and watched him test his safetylamp in the hoist house before going on shift. As Ball waited out the storm with Phillips a tremendous clap of thunder followed what he felt had been a powerful lightning hit on the gear-wheel of the hoist. Alarmed by the loud crack they fled the engine room and on returning discovered the light bulbs had burst. Phillips then said: “Ben, I am going into the mine; it is safer in there than out here tonight.” Ball left and as he crossed Michel Creek on the bridge there was yet another huge peal of thunder and it appeared to him that lightning had hit the rails and run along them. Phillips was probably one of the first of the 12 to die as lightning raced into the mine and caused sheer havoc.
This disaster occurred on nightshift when only those 12 men were assigned to the mine as compared to the day or afternoon shift where 40 or 50 men would have been working. The mine had been idle for the week before and just restarted at 7 a.m. that day. Seven of the men including Phillips were recovered fairly quickly. The damage was substantial and crews worked continuously, three shifts a day, seven days a week until the final five men were finally found, six months later, in late December and early January of 1917.
There were 28 fatalities overall in British Columbia coal mines that year but the 12 lost at Michel were the only ones reported as caused by an explosion. Mercifully there were no other men lost in 1916 in Michel. Again that coarse ratio of coal per fatality was calculated in the annual reports with the number being 130,942 tons per man lost. In the 12 years that followed this disaster, across Canada there was a myriad of equally, if not worse, losses including the 1917 explosion at Coal Creek that claimed 34 lives and occurred almost exactly 50 years to the day before Balmer North blew up in 1967. Coal mines such as New Waterford
and Stellarton in Nova Scotia lost 65 and 88 men to explosions in 1917 and 1918. It was powerful explosions again at Comox on Vancouver Island in 1923 that killed 33 and at McGillivray Mine in Coleman, Alberta in 1926 when 10 men fell victim to
1914-1917: Pillow shows Michel 1916 - The total for this time period was 345 men including the 189 in Hillcrest in 1914. the power and toxicity of a methane/coal dust blast.
Then came yet another catastrophic incident at the Princeton area Coalmont Mine, in Blakeburn, where once again a violent August lightning storm was connected to the August 13, 1930 event that unfolded there and obliterated the lives of 45 of the 46 men on shift that afternoon. It is interesting to note that, unlike the Michel 1916 incident, Coalmont’s tracks, power cables and air and water lines were equipped with lightning arresters.
That day had been very hot and the evening had become close and sultry. The air was charged with electricity when a thunder storm broke about 6 p.m. Reports were that the lightning strikes were exceptionally vivid and close. Eyewitnesses Fred Fielding and Fred Pope claimed that the most vivid electrical discharge that night occurred simultaneously with the discharge of a cloud of dust and debris from the mouth of the upper portal. This was followed by an ear splitting detonation that most people in the nearby town of Blakeburn believed was the result of a mine explosion.
The chief mines inspector, after a serious study of the event, concluded that the abrupt drop in atmospheric pressure during the storm had allowed gases built up in abandoned areas to move into areas where higher oxygen levels allowed dormant fires in the older abandoned areas to ignite the gas.
Between 1916 and 1938 Michel continued to lose between one and three men per year in singular events mostly from the ever-present and unpredictable threat of falling rock or coal. Then on July 5, 1938 a summer thunderstorm and powerful
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A part of our past, the way to our future.
Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
lightning strikes combined once again to precipitate yet another Michel disaster. Three miners were killed instantly in Michel’s “B” Mine by a dust explosion shortly after a vicious electrical discharge had hit very near the intake portal. Every miner at the inquiry testified to having witnessed “unusual electrical phenomena”. Loud crackling sounds, flashes of flame around them and huge sparks jumping from the tracks. Thomas Branch, a 30-year veteran of Michel saw a flash of light travel up one of the trackrails for a distance of about 305 feet and pass this for a distance of 15 feet before the light disappeared. Branch had observed similar phenomena 22 years earlier in 1916. The conclusion in this case was that lightning had in fact entered the mine once again. In 1916 Chief Inspector Thomas Graham’s report stated: “it would seem prudent in this portion of the province, where electrical storms are frequent and severe, that some effort should be put forth to protect the mines from entrance of lightning by means
March 30, 2017 - 5
Windsor”. Don Evans was reunited with Kutcher and Krall after putting up a battle for his life in that flood that Disney would be hard pressed to depict.
The underground ordeal of these three men and their ultimate rescue was lead by Valley legend Jazz Anderson. At one point Anderson had them drill a hole through to where he thought they were. He then instructed rescuers to insert a pipe in the hole and to blow powdered garlic through the pipe. The hope was that the airflow would carry the smell to the men and they would be drawn to it but unfortunately the pipe had broken through above them and the flow went the opposite way.
It was then that a determined Anderson decided to drive a “monkey crosscut” through to where he was certain they had to be. It John Krall, Frank Kutcher and Donald Evans recovering at Michel Hospital. was a Herculean effort that took 15 hours of blasting and hand mining without timber supports. When they broke through Anderson was first down the ladder and first to find are 19 disastrous events listed on the Hillcrest commemorative Kutcher, Krall and Evans waiting on the other side. They had pillows during this period (1938-1967) and include such events been trapped for 84 hours. There can be no greater joy for a as Nordegg, AB. 1941 – 29 men and Stellarton, N.S. 1952 – draegerman than to bring his comrades out alive. 19 men. Following that there were four events at Springhill, Nova Scotia between 1954 and 1958 that cost those mines a staggering 124 lives. What followed statistic-wise (three men or more) was a lull of nine years and then Balmer North blew up.
1937-1941: Michel - second lightning caused disaster in 1938. of rails, pipes, signal or telephone wires.” But it appears this advice went unheeded and three more men had to die before serious measures were taken at “B” Mine in Michel. Incidentally, that 1938 shift was an idle day with only five of the regular shift of 68 men working in the mine. Two fire bosses, a mechanic and two surveyors. Imagine how bad it could have been! At any rate, a protective system to arrest and ground possible lightning discharges was eventually installed. Everything including track-rails, compressed airlines and waterlines were grounded to the system. In the 29 years that followed, up to, but not including the Balmer 1967 disaster, the Michel/Flathead area mines lost 35 men including six of the nine men who were killed in Corbin Creek mine accidents during its short history. There
One would think with all the advances in mining technology that existed by then that the losses would have been reduced but they continued, albeit less frequently. Only two years passed, then on Thursday, June 19, 1969 Balmer South No. 1 Mine flooded. It was an incident in which older abandoned flooded workings were breached, and it brought about three days of terror, entrapment and anxious waiting. Three men were lost in the initial on-rush of water in Balmer South. Despite their valiant attempt to outrun that downward explosion of water Steve Tkachuk, Jerry Heath and Robert Dancoisne didn’t make it. They were found later that afternoon when rescue workers blasted their way through the entry adjacent to the main supply road the crew had been working in.
There is one more statistic on the Hillcrest pillows that speaks to the loss of life underground coming to an end at Michel. It is dated January 28, 1983 and says: “Michel Hydraulic Mine – Michel B.C. - 2 dead – cave in”. Those men were Martin Hruby and Jack Doddsley. One year later miner Joe Wenisch became the very last man to die underground in the Michel Valley. The very last entry on the pillows at Hillcrest is Westray Mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia where 26 men were lost on May 9, 1992. For the Michel Creek Valley underground mines, when Balmer North finally closed its entry in March of 1986, the days of a father, brother, uncle or son not coming home mercifully ended.
Of the 10-man crew that day, four had made it out in time, three drowned and three were still missing late Thursday night. Somewhere deep inside Balmer South, fireboss John Krall, second operator Donald Evans and mechanic Frank Kutcher were trapped. Outside, hope began to fade as one day dragged into two and then three. Papers such as the Lethbridge Herald reported disheartening headlines including “Search Continues for Bodies of Missing Miners.”
Inside was a different story. These three veteran miners had survived the initial flood and were holed up in a 12’ by 12’ notch in the entry that they would later call “our little Hotel
1958-1992: Last pillow at monument with Michel 1967 and 1969 events.
PROUD OF OUR MINING HISTORY
THANK YOU FOR TRUSTING US TO TELL IT SINCE 1898.
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Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
The day Balmer
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wo rock tunnels 1,200 feet long and 150 feet apart were driven into the Jurassic/Cretaceous formation on the north side of the Michel Creek valley in 1965 by Crowsnest Industries in order to start a new underground mine there. Their
Michel miners coming off shift. target was the world class No. 10 coal seam in Harmer Ridge, a seam that is regarded as some of the best coking coal in the world. By March of 1966 production had begun at this new mine called Balmer North and a year later modern mechanical miners had created 6 ½ miles of roadways through the top 12 feet of this forty foot thick seam. Balmer North was one of a new generation of coal mines springing up back then, mines that were part of a modern approach to mining. That approach replaced the conventional coal miner and his hand-held air pick with 37 foot long mining machines equipped with powerful motors, huge cutting heads and conveyors to transport the coal outside.
In April of 1967 there were four Joy 6 cm mechanical miners running at one time in Balmer North, two driving horizontally to the west along the strike of that seam and two driving down dip. A Joy mechanical miner can cut 10 tons of coal in around a minute and is a tremendously powerful and rugged machine. It is equipped with a cutter bar that has five voracious cutter chains that can carve into a coal face in very short order. The dust and the noise is phenomenal to observe as a 6 CM machine gnaws its way into the
compressed carbon that was originally a tropical rain forest 140 million years ago. So it was on April 3rd of 1967 that the afternoon shift teams for these four mechanical miners (No’s 764, 765, 843, 860) headed into the No. 1 rock tunnel at Balmer
Photos Michel/Natal Heritage Society
Creek valley. Those miners just starting their shift had literally climbed into the wrong end of a shotgun barrel and fate had pulled the trigger at the other end.
1 - a spark (the hammer strikes the bullet), 2 - the methane gas ignites (the bullet’s primer explodes), 3 - the gas flares violently and whips up the coal dust which explodes (the gun powder goes off) and 4 - a horrendous blast rips through the mine carrying all sorts of debris with it (the pellets charge down the barrel). Unlike a surface explosion that dissipates its energy quickly a confined underground explosion can travel long distances before it exhausts itself and maintains its power a lot longer. The resultant aftermath in that rock tunnel was horrific and deadly. When it was all over 15 miners lay dead and 10 were injured, some quite severely. The 13 men who headed into the mine that day and didn’t come out alive were John Brenner, Erich Lutzke, Hugh Hopley, Michael Bryan and Walter Parker from Fernie; Eugene Lucky, Sam Tolley,
Rotella was standing at the entrance to the mine and had just adjusted his miner’s lamp to head in when the blast hit him and blew him about 150 feet over the bank and down the slope into some low bushes. He somehow limped back up to the mine entrance to try and help after the blast. The last two fatalities, Guido Venzi and Delfie Quarin, were eventually discovered by the mine rescue teams, deeper in the mine where they had been working overtime doing repairs near No. 765 mechanical miner’s location.
Had the blast occurred minutes earlier most of those 23 men would have still been outside and probably survived. It also follows that had it occurred any later than it did more than just the 15 would have died. There were five men waiting to go on shift in the roundhouse just outside the entrance to the rock tunnel when it blew. Luck was with them this day.
The response after the explosion was swift. Mine officials and miners were able to rush into the rock tunnel almost immediately to rescue 10 of the injured men, one of whom
to continue chewing their way into that valuable coal seam. These 23 men consisted of continuous miner operators, mechanics, shuttle car drivers, facemen, a supplyman and a joy loader operator. The rock tunnel they walked down that day contained the conveyor belt that carried the 2,000 plus tons of coal, produced each and every day, to the outside. It was to be a shift just like every other shift or so they thought. According to Provincial Deputy Chief Inspector of Mines R.B. Bonar, those 23 miners were crushed by a blast that travelled 4400 feet in three seconds or 996 miles per hour. The time of the blast was exactly 3:59 p.m., a fact determined by an electrical fault that was registered at the Elko generating station some 30 miles to the west. The fault was caused by flying debris from wooden structures outside the entry that hit the conductors of the 66,000 volt power line immediately below the Balmer North entry. Power cables, transformers, timbers, chunks of coal and rock and conveyor belting were tossed about the mine by the brute energy of this deadly explosion. A toxic cloud of smoke and gas belched from the twin rock tunnels and rolled out across the Michel
Pete Rotella and Fred Hamilton - Rotella survived both Balmer North and a 1983 hydraulic mine disaster. August Wojtula, Antanas Cepeliauskas and William Cytko from Natal and Ronald Freng, Walter Gibalski and Willie DeLorme from Coleman, AB. The other 10 who were seriously injured but survived were Robert Brown, Irwin Mitchell, Herb Parsons Jr., Art Parsons, Larion Savilow, Gerald Clarke, Earle Price, William Corrigan, Robert Clegg and Pete Rotella.
died later in hospital. It seems that the cooling down of the explosion after the blast caused fresh air to be drawn into the mine which they took advantage of. Miners off shift in Michel were some of the first on the scene rushing up to the mine. Louis Janco was one of those miners. He lived a quarter mile from the mine and said: “It sounded like a thousand cases of dynamite going off.” Louis and others helped
Recognizing the men and women, past and present, who through hard work, are the cornerstone of our community.
Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
March 30, 2017 - 7
North blew up bring out some of the dead and injured from the rock tunnel. He said he knew most of the men but could not recognize any of them as they were covered in black coal dust mud. According to the chief mines inspector the advance wave of the explosion had passed
rescue crews stood by and everyone worked together in a united way.
This terrible disaster struck at the Michel Natal Sparwood community only nine days after a tragic car crash had taken the lives of seven of its own. An already numbed
April 5, 1967. Original caption “Tired and dirty rescue workers carry the body of one of the miners out of Balmer North mine in Natal, BC Tuesday.” Photo Ross Kenward/ Province
over a five foot deep water sump on its way out, atomized that water and probably helped quench the flame of the explosion. But in the process it carried forward to the tunnels a high speed mix of coal dust, water and rock dust.
Mine rescue equipment was rushed to the area and three teams formed up to immediately look for three missing men. They were joined that evening by two teams from the Sullivan Mine at Cominco. The process involved a systematic methodical procedure of re-establishing ventilation and rebuilding stoppings blown out to make their way deeper into the mine. The last two men, Venzi and Quarin, were finally recovered 14 hours later near No. 765 Miner.
The response by organizations and individuals from all around the communities was amazing. Extra doctors came from Fernie and Coleman; women from Michel and Natal helped out the nurses and supplied clothing and food. Family and friends rallied at the mine site and did what they could. Even the Civil Defence emergency truck from Nelson rushed there and eventually wound up supplying hot meals through the night. Other
conveyor belt a ready source of coal dust was always present throughout some entries despite the rock dusting.
As in most western coal mines back then there was also the threat of a gas build-up somewhere ventilation couldn’t dissipate it properly. Underground coal mining usually involves a complicated ventilation plan where fresh air is directed past inactive areas to the active ones. Air is forced up and down, over and under passageways and sometimes, as in Balmer, additional smaller fans inside were required to pull the air into the “face” where the men are working. With mechanical miners coal was mined so fast that gas released from the coal could build up rather quickly.
The official opinion offered by R.B. Bonar, in his report, was that “the short-circuiting of the air from No. 1 entry to the lower roads wherein the continuous miner (No. 843) and shuttle car were working allowed gas to accumulate in the gob area”. The gob is a mining term that refers to a totally mined out area that has then had its supporting roof rock cave as the mining retreats away from it. Bonar went on to say that in all
a mass funeral service held at the Sparwood High School auditorium on Friday, April 7th. Over 1,300 attended this joint service which eventually moved to the Natal cemetery where seven of the 15 men lost were buried side by side. One headline later read: “Died together, buried together”.
Between Thursday and Saturday the five Fernie fatalities were also buried in services as well at two of the miners from Coleman. The only one left was Willie Delorme, whose body was shipped to St. Boniface, Manitoba for burial.
It has been 50 years since that fateful day but the memories are still fresh for many. I guess the coal mining community probably thought that Balmer North would be the last bad one. Then, in 1992, the Westray tragedy reared its ugly head in Nova Scotia and the same methane/coal dust scenario killed 26 men.
The days of serious loss of life underground have mercifully almost come to a close. There aren’t many underground coal mines left in Canada these days and maybe that’s
community was then forced to endure the pain that Coal Creek B.C.; Spring Hill, NS; Hillcrest, AB; Nanaimo, B.C.; Bellevue, AB and a host of other mining communities had suffered in the past. The event that every mother or wife of a coal miner lives in fear of. That day when their man doesn’t come home from the mine. The coal mines mostly took them one or two at a time back then. A cave-in here, a bump there. They whittled away at the men slowly, inexorably, year after year, unnerving everyone with each fatality. Always hidden in the back of their minds was the thought that it had been a while and who would be claimed next.
While some were surprised that such a loss could occur in more modern mining times, others were not. There had been many complaints about gas and dangerous coal dust levels despite rock dusting which is supposed to render the coal dust incombustible. While testing of rock dusted zones revealed the same, there was an inherent problem in transporting the coal. Because of the friability and dustiness of the coal being carried by
Mass funeral at Natal Cemetery for seven of the Balmer North men. probability a fall of rock in the gob caused an incendiary spark or sparks that ignited the gas accumulated in the gob which in turn initiated the coal-dust explosion. The gathering together of community to get through this horrific event culminated in
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a good thing. Coal mines both surface and underground are vastly safer than ever before and the loss of a life is thankfully almost unheard of. But we must never forget Balmer or any of the other disasters that came about when the devil’s breath was unleashed underground.
“The strength of a town lies in its history” Proud to serve our great community
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Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
March 30, 2017 - 9
Plan of Balmer North Mine Explosion - April 3, 1967 #765 Mechanical Miner now on display at the Bellevue Mine
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Source of Explosion
No. 764 Miner
➞ Photo J. Kinnear
No. 1 & 2 Rock Tunnels
No. 765 Miner
GOB AREA ORIGIN OF THE BLAST
23 Men - 13 dead and 10 injured found here
No. 843 Miner
Walter Parker..................... 27
C.M. operator.
Robert Brown .................... 35 Irwin Mitchell ................... 38 Herbert Parsons, Jr. ........... 27 Larion Savilow .................. 61 Gerald Clarke .................... 55 Earle Price ......................... 26 Peter Rotella ...................... 37 William Corrigan .............. 37 Arthur Parsons .................. 24 Robert Clegg ..................... 38
Faceman. C.M. operator. C.M. operator. C.M. mechanic. Faceman. Shuttle car operator. C.M. operator. Shuttle car operator. Faceman. Faceman.
Died from injuries— Injured—
No. 860 Miner
Transformer bank on No. 3 Main entry showing force of the explosion
Famous Mitchell photo of blast billowing out into Michel Creek Valley
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Occupation C.M.1 mechanic. C.M. mechanic. Shuttle car operator. C.M. operator. Faceman. Joy loader operator. Faceman. Faceman. Supplyman. C.M. mechanic. C.M. mechanic. Faceman. C.M. mechanic. C.M. mechanic.
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Name ................................. Age Guido Venzi....................... 58 Delfie Quarin..................... 38 Erich Lutzke ...................... 38 John Brenner ..................... 46 Michael Bryan................... 64 Hugh Hopley ..................... 36 Ronald Freng..................... 31 Walter Gibalski ................. 53 Willie De Lorme ............... 19 William Cytko ................... 41 August Wojtula ................. 42 Anton Cepeliauskas .......... 65 Samuel Tolley ................... 53 Eugene Lucky ................... 27
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Wreckage of fan house outside No. 2 Portal
➞
Casualties Killed—
2 Mechanics found dead here
Photos courtesy of Crows Nest Industries
10 - March 30, 2017
M
Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
THE LOST MEN uch has been written about the Balmer North Mine Disaster of 1967. There is a detailed report in the 1967 Annual Ministry Of
Mines Report and the inevitable inquest was held and reported on as well as extensive newspaper coverage by The Free Press, the Lethbridge and Calgary Herald’s and even the Vancouver Sun. Most analysis provides the harsh details of this tragic event but nowhere does one find a more in-depth look at those 15 men lost in that brutal moment in time.
What follows is a brief glimpse into the lives of these men, who were all members of continuous mechanical miner crews. They walked into that mine on the afternoon shift on April 3rd and had their lives ended in an instant . They were coal miners who lived, loved and were loved. They were fathers, husbands, sons, and comrades. Hopefully, understanding a bit of their life stories will help humanize what, for the most part, appears to the rest of the world as yet another mining disaster statistic. Here, then, are pieces of their life story.
1. John Avery Brenner:
a miner for two years. Ron is buried in the Coleman Union Cemetery.
John Brenner was a continuous miner operator that had over twenty years of experience. He was born in Coronach, Saskatchewan on January 21, 1921 to George and Grace Brenner who were of German descent and originally from Michigan. Germans are the largest ancestral group in Michigan and represent over 26 million descendants (about 22 per cent) of the state’s population. George was 46-years-old when he died and was married to Lydia Gellner with whom he had two daughters. John is one of five Balmer men buried at St. Margaret’s Cemetery in Fernie and lies alongside his wife who passed away in 2002.
7. Wladuslaw “Walter” Gibalski:
Walter was born October 25, 1913 in Lutter, Ringelheim Germany to Polish parents Walter and Pauline Gibalski. Ringelheim is in Lower Saxony with its capital being Hannover. Walter came to Canada in 1937 at the age of 23 and had been a coal miner for 18 years. He was a faceman on one of the crews. Miner faceman ran stoppers (rock drills) bolting the roof as they progressed inwards and also timbered as needed.
8. Hugh B.O. Hopley:
2. Michael Jeffrey Bryan:
Mike Bryan was born on November 1st, 1902 in Austria to Polish parents William and Dokna Ukrainiec. Bryan came to Canada in 1927 and eventually married Antonina F. (Annette) Motyka by which he had three children and one stepson. Bryan was 64-years-old, one year away from retiring, before he passed. His son Jeffrey Bryan from Vancouver signed his death certificate. Antonina passed away in 1980 and is buried in St Patrick’s Cemetery in Lethbridge. At the Holy Family Church in Fernie Father Barnes referred to Michael Bryan as: “the dean of the victims…..a good man whose wife recovered from serious surgery some months ago only to have her husband predecease her.
3. Antanas Cepeliauskas:
Antanas was born in Lubayas, Mariampol, Lithuania on March 22, 1902 and came to Canada in 1928 as a young man. During the 1920s and 30s thousands of Lithuanians, fleeing oppressive Tsarist Russian police, came to Canada finding work in the railways, mines and factories. Tony’s wife’s maiden name was Domicele (Diana) Gacevicute and together they had one son also called Antanas (Tony). It was Tony Jr. that signed Antanas’s (Tony Sr.) death certificate. Tony Cepeliauskas was a faceman on his crew and had 28 years of mining experience. Tony Jr. became a teacher and is buried in the North Vancouver Cemetery (1988) along with his mother Diana (2009). Tony is buried in the Elk Valley Cemetery along with six others.
4. William Cytko:
William was born on August 25, 1925 in Poland to Russian parents John and Dominika Cytko. Bill came to Canada when he was four in 1929 and was 41 when he died of a fractured skull as did the other 12 men who were walking down that
Lucy Cytko, wife of Balmer North victim Bill Cytko (second from right) and four of his five children (Sharon, Maryanne, John and Bill) walking to the prayer service April 6th. Missing is daughter Joanne. The service had over 1300 people in attendance at the Sparwood High School auditorium. ©Vancouver Sun
deadly conveyor tunnel on afternoon shift. He was married to Luchia (Lucy) Tombosso for twenty-one years and they had five children. He had been a miner for 23 years and was a continuous miner mechanic. Bill said to his wife Lucy the night before he died that: “it’ll blow up some day.” And it did. Lucy remarried and passed in 2011 and both now lay in Elk Valley Cemetery.
5. William Joseph Delorme:
William was born on September 1, 1947 in Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba. His father Alfred was born in Quebec and his mother Aurora was born in France. He was a supplyman and had been a miner for three years which means he started when he was sixteen. Bill was only 19-years-old and is the only one of the 15 men not buried in the Pass and Elk Valley communities. Willie’s body was shipped to St. Boniface, Manitoba for burial. His brother Dennis signed his death certificate.
Hugh was born July 16, 1932 in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England and came to Canada in 1952 at the age of 20. Hugh was a miner for 12 years and was running a Joy loader at the time of his death. Joy loaders were used in Balmer to assist in moving coal from the mechanical miner to the shuttle car. Hugh’s wife Margaret signed his death certificate and he left behind in Fernie four children including a son Randal who was only 18 months old at the time. Hugh was buried in St. Margaret’s in Fernie on Saturday, five days after the blast.
9. Eugene William Lucky:
Eugene was born in Coleman, Alberta on Christmas Day in 1939 to Czechoslovakian parents John Stephen and Helen Ilona Lucky. Eugene was 27-years-old and had only been married to Marilyn Mader for two years. Eugene was well known as the band leader for the Natal band called the Lucky Dots and played accordion. He was a continuous miner mechanic and had been at the job only two years. He left behind a threemonth-old son. Eugene along with his sister Pauline Martha Pisoni and his mother and father are all buried in the Michel Cemetery.
6. Ronald Kenneth Freng:
Ronald was born on March 12, 1936 in Provost, Alberta. His nationality is listed as Norwegian and he was the son of Clifford and Bernice Freng. Ron’s wife was Lillian Frances Sadoroszney. Freng was a shuttle car driver and had only been
Eugene Lucky in happier times.
Photo Betty Dodds
Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
March 30, 2017 - 11
OF BALMER NORTH 14. Guido (Guy) Venzi:
Quarin Family Portrait
Guy was born on March 27, 1909 in Italy to Caesar and Clautilda (Baglioli) Venzi and arrived in Canada in 1912 at the age of four along with two sisters and a brother. Guy lived in Natal his whole life except when he saw service in the Army and was eventually discharged as a sergeant. Guy Venzi was an avid outdoorsman and curler and was married to Agnes Wright. Guy’s parents returned to Italy in 1933 with their youngest daughter and never returned to Natal. They never saw Guy and his siblings again. Guido Venzi had a remarkable 44 year history as a miner which means he started work at age 14. He is buried along with his other six workmates in Michel Cemetery.
Gelinda, Nillo, Delfie, Dorino, Silvio and baby Mary Quarin.
In loving memory of my dear husband Guy. Photo Pat Goulden of findagrave.com
10. Erich Herman Albert Lutzke:
Erich was born in Wangerin, Pommern, Germany on December 18, 1928 to Willi Otto Herman and Minna Hart Lutzke. Wangerin is now called Wegorzyno, Poland as the German population there was expelled by the Polish after World War II when their border was moved west. Erich came to Canada in 1953 and was married to Gisela Mallok. Like Freng, Erich was a shuttle car operator and had been a miner for 10 years. He left behind his wife and an eighteen-month-old son and is buried in St Margaret’s along with his mother and father.
11. Walter Parker:
Courtesy of Michel/Natal Heritage Society
Walter was born in Coal Creek on November 12, 1939 to Joseph and Margaret Parker. His father Joe went to work in the mines when he was 16 and moved on to the Michel mines after Coal Creek shut down in 1958. Joe had worked the day shift on April 3 at Balmer North and was in the wash house when he: “heard something had gone wrong at the beginning of the next shift.” Joe said in an interview: “Balmer North was loaded with gas - I didn’t like it myself. You could hear the gas coming out of the coal. It’s a wonder it didn’t blow up before it did.” Walter was only 27 and had been mining for 11 years which meant he also started mining at sixteen. He left behind a wife Bertha (Hutchinson) and four children. Fourteen of the 15 that were lost are listed as “instant”. Walter died three hours after the blast in hospital.
12. Delfie Quarin:
Delfie was born in Natal to parents Silvio and Gelinda (Depaoli) Quarin on September 3, 1928. Delfie quit school after grade nine and went to work in the mines for the next 30 years. Delfie and Guido Venzi were dayshift mechanics held over that fateful day to change a hydraulic pump on a bridge conveyor in Balmer North. Unlike the other 13 men the cause of death for Delfie and Guy was listed as instant suffocation. Delfie was married to Carolyn (Lipoviski) who had lost her first husband several years earlier to illness. They had two children. Delphie is buried in Michel along with his parents Silvio and Gelinda and three siblings Lina, Dorino and Nillo.
13. Sam Tolley:
Sam was born in Fernie on February 13, 1914 to John and Anne (Burton) Tolley, originally from England. Sam was once a trapper but moved to mining and was considered a veteran with 27 years experience. Sam was married to Susan Latasy and they had three daughters. Sam was also a continuous miner mechanic and was 53 years old when he was killed. Mechanized miner mechanics fixed tracks, hydraulic hoses, gear boxes and motors on the machines, installed water and air lines and venting tubing as well as oiling and greasing the Joy miner, a machine that could cut 10 tons of coal in 60 seconds. Susie Tolley, who passed in 1997, now lies alongside Sam in the Michel Cemetery.
15. August Adolph Wojtula:
August was born on May 27, 1924 in Hillcrest, Alberta to Martin and Anna Wojtula. Wojtula is a Polish surname as was the true name of Pope John Paul II (Karol Josef Wojtyla). Archie as he was called had lived in Natal for 20 years and was married to Olga Wakulchik. He was 44 years old, had three children and had been a coal miner for 25 years. Mine tragedy was no stranger to this man as he lost his father in an accident in the Hillcrest Mine in 1930 when he was six-years-old. His sister Caroline’s husband Fredrick Petrie was killed in Hillcrest in 1939. Going back further we find that there were 10 in the Petrie family and that Fredrick had three brothers killed in the Hillcrest Mine Disaster of 1914 that claimed 189 men. One of the surviving Petrie brothers married Kate Anderson whose husband Robert died in Hillcrest in 1914 and another brother John married Ellen Murray who had incredibly lost her father and three brothers to this 1914 disaster.
The whirlwind that burst from the Balmer North rock tunnels that day left behind 14 widows and over 30 chidren without a father. Seven men were buried together in the Elk Valley (Michel) Cemetery, five in Fernie at St Margaret’s, two in Coleman at the Union and Catholic cemeteries and one, 19-year-old Willie Delorme, was buried in St. Boniface, Manitoba.
Remembering our Brothers who have gone before us
Their light shall always shine United Mine Workers of America
12 - March 30, 2017
Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
In Memory of those men who lost their lives
T
his commemorative list is restricted to the date, name and age of the coal miner. While the locations of each fatality are not listed here they were recorded in the research
and encompassed all coal mines from Elkford to Coal Mountain only. These include fatalities at the surface mines of Teck Fording River (FRO) , Greenhills (GHO), Line Creek (LCO), Elkview (EVO) and Coal Mountain Operations (CMO). The majority of the losses occurred in the Michel Creek Valley at various underground mines such as A North, A South, A West, Balmer North, Balmer South, Balmer No. 1, C Seam and the earlier No. 1, 3, 4,
1901
1906
May 15 Henry Price - 22
December 24 Richard Eccleston - 16l
May 27 Walter Ridings - 41 September 26 John Nuzzi - 23 December 24 Michael Zagara
January 31 John Pagura - 20 April 13 Fred Kubale - 14 May 20 Ernest DeLuca - 19 August 29 Gris Romano - 18 November 19 John Symatuik - 28
1903
1904
January 8 Burkett Dean - 28 Thomas Evans - 26 William King - 32 William McAllister - 40 David Roberts - 30 John Sale - 28 Richard Thomas - 27 January 9 George Blake - 26 March 18 Vincenzo Carbone - 28 March 23 William Anthony - 48 July 14 John Micone - 36 July 27 Robert Lee - 46
1905
November 16 Alfred Davies - 27
1906
March 27 Joseph Kraft - 25 August 4 John Bagu - 38
1907
1908
July 3 James Fergusson - 29 October 6 Mike Palko - 46
1909
April 2 Albert Krzus - 32 April 10 George Bilinski - 26 Aug. 21 Mike Povich - 20 December 3 Stephen Kotrez - 33
1910
February 18 Peter Buskovich - 27 February 28 John Ferfan - 19 April 7 Giovanni Pozzi - 20 May 11 Johann Rosian - 23
5 and 8 Underground Mines. It also includes 10 names from the Corbin Coal Company and any contractors lost while working at any of these mines as they were being constructed or coal was being mined. A qualifier to the list that was applied was that the fatality occurred as a result of the mining process. Miners who passed from natural causes at the mines, or where injuries received were a contributing factor late on, were not included. The Balmer North committee invites anyone who feels that a name has been missed that qualifies under these guidelines to contact us about its addition.
1910
May 19 Joseph Farano - 24 July 4 Giovanni Ciddio - 23
1911
February 18 Miron Onconsky - 24 August 7 Salvatori Vetri - 36
1912
April 2 Joseph Perfitto - 28 April 15 John Wisniowiski - 20 May 15 John Crippen - 39 September 30 Martin Stancik - 35 December 23 John Karlywich - 31
1913
1916
Thomas Evans - 51 Josef Mikus - 36 Mike Marmol - 33 Peter Herpka - 25 Samuel Dmytriv - 35 Thomas Jr. Hampton - 31 Thomas Phillips - 39
September 5 John Matachuk - 37
1918
April 20 Louis Kulyney - 44 August 31 Steve Stowban - 31
July 14 Philip Bloha - 29 February 14 Mike Danyluk - 26 April 24 William Dunn - 55 July 13 Frank Broniskoski - 24
1920
April 17 Louis Nagy - 41
1924
March 15 Robert Proudlock - 49
March 12 Humphrey Evans - 25
July 17 Joseph Burns - 49
October 9 Antonio Zarini - 23
September 3 Abraham Brown - 63 October 1 William Wanhilla - 39 October 3 Thomas Ratcliffe - 49
1915 1916
August 8 Andro Ficon - 32 Oscar DiVolter - 25 Daniel Hall - 22 David Davis - 37 George Kometz - 51
“Honouring those who lost their lives through mining in the Elk Valley� We will remember those who have paid the ultimate price and vow to continue to fight for the rights of our members
Safety is Ours - USW 9346
1931
1917
March 3 Benjamin Bloomfield - 19
1914
1930
March 18 Giovanni Martin - 37 April 30 Steve Barsodi - 39 September 2 Joseph Szakel - 29
1926 1927
1928
August 27 Martin Sramik - 29
1932
1933
December 23 Andrew Chala - 22
1934
April 10 William Jenkins - 46 May 14 William Mitchell - 60 November 2 Loies Hamon - 20
1936
August 31 Thomas Kenda - 35
1937
December 9 Ralph Gregory - 41
1938
January 7 Bror Eskilsson - 34 March 12 Robert McFegan - 49
Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
March 30, 2017 - 13
working in the Elk Valley coal mines 1938
April 5 Andro Laskoda - 64 July 5 William Cartwright - 42 Edward Morrison - 61 John Phillips - 42
1952
August 27 Vindice Petracco - 26
1953
1940
June 10 Peter Gyargy - 50 September 3 Edmond Lowe - 36
1941
September 27 Joseph Caravetta - 65
1942
November 16 Edward Hunter - 44
1943
January 21 Andrew Paskovich - 58 June 21 Donald Winters - 26
1945
June 20 Jacob Manser - 52
July 7 Ius Annibali - 42 November 21 Ignace Makuch - 56 March 30 Joseph Urban - 63 June 17 Giovanni Martino - 32 February 20 Sidney Weaver - 40 June 4 Joseph Gydosic - 30 June 14 Harold Travis - 32
1946
December 4 Pasquale Anselmo - 68
1949
February 15 Michael Kulcsar - 47
1950
March 5 William Dutka - 55 November 19 Andrzej Niestiuk - 50
1951
February 16 Ruggero Berdusco - 24 June 11 Paul Stratton - 36 June 25 Marco Borsato - 60
1954 1955 1956
1957 1959
January 15 Aldo Cossarini - 20
1961
May 3 Juozas Serksnas - 52 May 24 Edward Sweeney - 35 June 2 Joseph Jarolim - 61 June 6 Stanley Kabat - 61 December 5 John Rastocnik - 40 December 11 Ronald Saad - 36
1963
February 6 Luigino Berdusco - 47
1964
September 10 Brian Bernardo - 20
1965
February 18 John Grabowski - 40 September 22 Ben Komenac - 43
1966
March 16 Victor Caldwell - 60 September 26 Joseph Sr. Stachurski - 59
1967
1970
February 5 Josef Wenisch - 50
February 10 Peter Seida - 34 October 1 Ferdinand Van Heddegem - 35 October 1t Steve Marchuk - 44
August 9 David Nohels - 45
1971
1972
January 13 Antonio Colosimo - 43 April 3 John Brenner - 46 Michael Bryan - 64 Antanas Cepeliauskas - 65 William Cytko - 41 William Delorme - 19 Ronald Freng - 31 Walter Gibalski - 53 Hugh Hopley - 35 Eugene Lucky - 27 Erich Lutzke - 38 Walter Parker - 27 Delfie Quarin - 38 Samuel Tolley - 53 Guido Venzi - 58 August Wojtula - 42
September 12 Francesco Commisso - 40 December 13 Roy Smith - 44
January 8 John Gladstone - 53 May 15 Joseph Gibos - 45 June 1 Alan Fergusson - 56 Louis Caron - 54 June 19 Robert Dancoisne - 26 Gerald Heath - 28 Steve Tkachuk - 55
January 26 James Hollowink - 32
1969
1970
February 23 Jacob Wolfe - 55 September 22 Raymond Moorman - 26
1984
October 1 Peter Hildebrandt - 46
1987 1990
June 26 Timothy Jasper - 27
1991
March 26 Terance Miller - 37
1992
1974
April 27 Kenneth Wong - 40 May 11 Ron Regular - 41 August 22 Bogdan Zebrak - 45
1975
November 22 David Fenton - 44
1976
September 6 Aldo Kalin - 41 Stan Clarkson - 46
1977
January 15 Rob Vigne - 42
1978
May 1 Nathan Regular - 27
1981
October 20 Terry Twast - 55
1973
June 7 William Szliske - 21 March 14 Guido Filipuzzi - 47 December 14 Fergus McKenzie Jr. - 20 Bhim Raj - 27 April 27 Keith Firth - 26
November 3 George Henderson - 44 January 7 Jasminder Thind - 30 June 30 Peter Budzen - 61
1983
January 7 Harry Makeiv - 48 January 28 John Dodsley - 48 Martin Hruby - 59
1993 1996 2002 2003 2005 2008
July 21 Dennis Gravelle - 46
2014
March 16 Myles Lorenz - 59
Remembering the 15 Miners at Balmer North who went to work on April 3, 1967 and never came home. May the Eternal Flame of every deceased Miner’s lamp burn brightly in our memories forever. The United Steelworkers Local 7884 will continue to fight for the Living and Mourn for the Dead.
14 - March 30, 2017
O
Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
WORKER’S HELL — n July 30, 1905 Spokane entrepreneur D.C. Corbin finally got
to see what his business partner E.J. Roberts had been hounding him about. When he beheld the 85 yard thick seam of high-grade bituminous coal exposed near the base of one of Mount Taylor’s lower peaks he reportedly said: “Well, I’ll be damned.” That amazing monster pod of coal referred to by many as “The Big Show” down in the Flathead Valley was Corbin’s ticket to re-establishing himself in the railroad business after losing his first railway effort in 1898 to J.J. Hill. Corbin incorporated the Spokane International Railway (SIR) in 1905 with the intent of hooking up with CPR’s B.C. Southern Railway that ran close to the Corbin site. By 1908 D.C Corbin had the 73 kilometre-long Eastern B.C. Railway (EBC) built from the Fabro siding on the McGillivray Loop to the mine site. He incorporated the Corbin Coke and Coal Company (CC&C) and established a very isolated mining camp for the miners there. Production that year was 4,111 tons of coal with 43 employees. It was shipped that September to the furnaces of the Inland Empire before winter snows shut the operation down. The heavy snowfalls up the Flathead would prove to be problematic for the Corbin mine for many years after, isolating the town and the mine for many months. It also didn’t help that there was no road into the mine.
According to Michael Saad author of “Corbin: A Short and Bitter Existence” (The Forgotten Side of the Border), the company brought in a hydraulic monitor to see if it could blow off the thin layer of rock and soil which overlaid the measures on Some of the train crew on line. the western flank of Coal Mountain. Though that method of overburden removal proved impractical, the experiment had nonetheless opened No. 3 Mine, the famous “Big Showing.” In March of 1913 a fire began in the depths of No. 1 Mine which could not be extinguished and the mine was eventually permanently sealed. That spring they chose to try strip mining in the Big Showing using a large steam-shovel working 800 feet above the town site. Coal was loaded into gondolas behind the shovel and in 1917 their combined production from the strip mine and No. 4 Mine was 98,000 tons of excellent, gasfree steam coal for the U.S. markets.
View of coal miner’s shacks at Corbin – circa 1910. As the mine increased production, Corbin took over as President of CC&C and the mine added new equipment. Coal was hauled out of entries with Porter air locomotives and then transferred to the plant, using two secondhand Shay locomotives, where it was cleaned and then dumped into gondolas. It was then hauled to the Fabro siding at McGillivray Loop by one of the EBC’s two brand new Montreal Locomotive Works 2-8-0 steam engines. In 1910 they produced 10,500 tons a month and it was full speed ahead after that. By 1912 CC&C employed 173 men to mine the 122,000 tons that it shipped that year. Because of the nature of the deposit, however, the company suspected that the costs of production could be significantly reduced.
In 1918 Daniel Corbin died, 18 months after CPR took controlling interest in the SIR. His New York associates took over the mine but kept his son Austin Corbin involved. Production varied year to year as new mines were tried out but always the heavy falls of snow that habitually choke
Steam powered shovel working the Big Showing at Corbin.
Proud members of our community built with hard work Ever grateful for the sacrifices made by others who will never be forgotten And will ever be remembered with the Statue and Memorial Wall
one of the 2-8-0 steam locomotives used on the EBC Photos Pages 14 & 15 - Michel/Natal Heritage Society
Michel Creek’s upper valley hampered the work of that big shovel. With the post-war recession and the development of the California oil fields reducing the demand for coal, in 1921 CC&C ceased operations at the Big Showing, dismantled the equipment and brought it all down to Corbin.
Strikes, markets and mining conditions continued to plague CC&C for years. In 1924 Spokane money bought out the New York interests and renamed the mine Corbin Coals (CC) with Austin Corbin II as second president. Austin Corbin II regained control of his father’s company in 1926 when he became its sole president, relocating CC’s headquarters to Spokane. From July 26th through to mid-November that year the Big Showing was worked again doubling production to 119,000 tons. A new tipple with wet-washery was built and then a drier added to improve their final product. In 1928 a disastrous fire in July started in the drier and burned the tipple
Disastrous Corbin tipple fire July 3, 1928 .
Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
March 30, 2017 - 15
THE CORBIN STORY to the ground. It was rebuilt by December and in 1929 the mine had 191 men working and produced 168,000 tons. Corbin mortgaged the Coal Mountain property to the hilt to build that brand new tipple.
By 1933 two underground mines, No. 4 and No. 6, were in full production, and Mammoth Collieries Ltd. was created as a wholly owned subsidiary to recommence operations in the Big Showing with an expensive new gasoline shovel and a fleet of white trucks to run the coal from the pit to the tipple. By that time however, Corbin workers could no longer suppress their ancient grievances.
Miners Lost at the Corbin Mine
1. Giovanni Ciddio – July 4, 1910 2. Joseph Perfitto – April 2, 1912 3. John Wisniowiski – April 15, 1912 4. John Karlywich – December 23, 1912 5. William Wanhilla – October 1, 1927 6. Thomas Ratcliffe – October 3, 1927 7. Martin Sramik – August 27, 1928 8. John Matachuk – September 5, 1931 9. Louis Kulyney – April 20, 1932 10. Steve Stowban – August 31, 1932
It all boiled over in 1935 with confrontations and a strike that led to the infamous Black Wednesday incident on April 17th with a dozer being used to clear strikers off a road to allow replacement labour at the mine. A donnybrook broke out and several on both sides were injured including some of the miner’s wives. Nine strikers were eventually sentenced to terms of three to six months in jail and 13 were fined.
It spelled the end of this controversial camp as Austin Corbin shut down the mine for good that May. In 1939 the rails were torn up and in 1942 - 849 tons of scrap metal was taken from the Corbin Mine for the war effort.
Several minor attempts were made to restart the mine or extract more of the coal through the following years but it wasn’t until 1978 that Byron Creek Collieries brought it back to life with new rails and new infrastructure. Three years later Esso Resources took over the mine and in 1994 sold it to CP Fording Coal Ltd. Teck Coal brought the operation into its fold in 2008 creating a five mine consortium that continues to this day. Ironically Coal Mountain has run out of economically mineable coal and its operation will cease this year ending more than 109 years of extracting the black gold from the Flathead.
Corbin coal miners ready for work. Eventually labour issues boiled over after many years of indifference by the company. What follows is an extract from the website: crowsnest-highway.ca, a wonderful documentation site that studies all history along Highway 3. In the Corbin section we find this comment: “The arch-typical capitalist, D.C. Corbin seems to have held nothing but contempt for his workers. From the very beginning of the Coal Mountain operation, life was hell in the little town that the Corbin Coke and Coal Company (CC&C) slapped up to house its workers. By 1910 600 people lived in the little hamlet with no power, no plumbing and no independent businesses whatsoever. Just cottages, a company store and a mountain of coal was all there was to Corbin. The only way in, besides the Government of B.C. trail over Tent Mountain from the Flathead Valley, was the Eastern British Columbia Railway (EBC), and it, not equipped with snow removal equipment, shut down when the drifts blocked its tracks. In the early days, seeing no need to work his mine through the winter and stock-pile coal, Corbin shut the entire operation down from November to March. He expected, however, that workers would stay over-winter at the Mountain and present themselves for rehire when spring cleared the railroad tracks. For the privilege of staying, however, each man paid a dollar a day in rent, but was responsible for his own food. Here is what Michael Saad said in “A Short and Bitter Existence,…”the first winter that this arrangement was tried,
One of two shey (gear driven) locomotives used at Corbin.
Injured wives of miners in the 1935 Black Wednesday incident.
1908-‘09, the situation got so desperate that a train carrying provincial aid had to be dug through the drifts and into the settlement. The CC&C declined to assist in the rescue mission, and Corbin may not have been surprised when in 1910 his men welcomed organization by District 18 of the United Mine Workers of America.” The story of the unionization of the Corbin workers is a complicated one with a company that stood against any demands for decent wages and working conditions. Corbin miners tried first the United Mine Workers of America, then formed the Corbin Miners’ Association and aligned itself with the Mine Workers Union of Canada. Austin Corbin’s company refused any negotiation with them and the credo was, accept lowered wages, extortional store prices and terrible living conditions or hit the road.
The sacrifice they made, the lives they gave Ever remembered in our history
Rough access finally built into Corbin in 1928.
16 - March 30, 2017
Miners of the Elk Valley, Memorial Edition
The Vancouver Sun - April 4, 1967
W
ord of the Balmer disaster spread quickly throughout Canada and the media responded from many different areas. The Lethbridge and Calgary Herald and the Fernie Free Press provided important and comprehensive coverage of all aspects of the tragedy. Investigation updates, profound family stories and towards the end, moving imagery of the funerals. The media coverage of the Vancouver Sun April 4th edition was outstanding with six pages of powerful imagery and dozens of articles that provided a comprehensive overview of the Balmer story as it unfolded. Below are the comments that ran with The Vancouver Sun’s final edition to the left. 1 WEARY Arnold Webster of Natal grabs welcome cup of coffee after a long night’s search for trapped miners.
2 ROBERT BONAR, provincial mines inspector, flew from Victoria to scene of disaster and ordered full investigation into the tragedy.
3 VETERAN MINER, Louis Janco helped bring bodies from mine. He said explosion sounded like 1,000 cases of dynamite going off.
4 RESCUE TEAM carries body of one of last two victims recovered
1
2
from explosion-racked Natal coal mine at dawn today. Fifteen miners died and 10 were injured in B.C.’s worst underground disaster since 1930. Machine at mine entrance is huge fan to draw dangerous methane gas from one of two shafts at Balmer North mine. Rescuers worked in vain hope of finding last two workers alive.
3
Arnold Webster - Mine, Fireboss and Safety Coordinator
4 Photos Brian Ken
Arnold Webster, started working in Coal Creek in 1932 at the age of 17 as a boy driver. Arnold told coal miner photographer Lawrence Chrismas in an interview in 1984: “In those days you worked only one or two days a week- I was paid $3.15 a day.” Arnold served in the Second World War and afterwards went right back into the mines. He started fire-bossing in 1950 and became a pit boss at Coal Creek in 1952. In 1958 when Coal Creek shut down Arnold went to Michel. He was a fire boss at Balmer North when it blew. He eventually became an underground safety coordinator at Michel until his retirement. Arnold said in the interview: “It‘s hard to be safe for someone else. The biggest part of the job is going underground, observing conditions and trying to correct the men who were doing things the wrong way. Arnold Webster passed in March of 2011 at the age of 96.
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