History in Glace Bay

PROLOGUE TO THE BLOG

We just want you to know that, at the fiddlers performance at the Big Pond Festival last night --



-- Kathy won the 50/50 (called the "split ticket" locally) worth $130!  However, you need to understand that the only reason she won, was that, as she purchased her tickets, she committed that, if she won, she would donate her winnings back to the Big Pond Fire House, which is the beneficiary of the festival proceeds.  Sure enough, that commitment was what it took.

This is not the first time.  Since winning a boat tour lottery on Moosehead Lake in Main in 2012, Kathy has won these lotteries SIX TIMES (out of perhaps 10 tries).  We're sure it is because of her charitable plans for the proceeds.  Pay it forward!

Now, on to our main story.

INTRODUCTION

Out here in the Canadian Maritimes, weather is always a factor.  Today was forecast to be questionable, so we picked some activities we had listed that could be undertaken rain or shine.  Consequently, we toured two museums in Glace Bay that reveal some interesting aspects of Cape Breton history.

MINERS MUSEUM

Our first stop was the Cape Breton Miners Museum, in Glace Bay, an old coal mining town perched on the North Atlantic Coast near Sydney, Nova Scotia.  The museum presents the Ocean Deeps Colliery at a now-closed coal mine that descends TWO MILES under the Atlantic Ocean, following a coal seam that that been mined since the French extracted coal for nearby Fort Louisbourg in the early 1700's.  In 1826, England had taken over Nova Scotia and the Duke of York granted rights to mine the area to a British syndicate that sunk shafts in this area.  The first large mine here opened in 1861.  In 1894, the government gave exclusive mining rights in this area to Dominion Coal Company, which consolidated 12 prior mining operations and eventually operated 16 collieries in the area, accounting for 40% of all of Canada's coal output.

(You might recall that Dominion operated a steel company in North Sydney, where our ferry departed from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland, and also operated the limestone/gypsum mine in Port au Port, near Stephenville, Newfoundland, where we recently hiked the Gravels Walking Trail.)

The last mine closed around 2010, and this mine was redeveloped as a tourist historic attraction known as "Ocean Deeps Colliery":

The museum offers a unique tour of the coal mine, with a narrative stressing the personal history of the miners, led by a retired coal miner who worked here.  Our tour guide, Eric Spencer, gave us an introduction before leading us down into the mine:

Everyone had to don a hard hat (low ceilings) and a poncho for the drippy mine shaft ceilings:

Eric demonstrated the used of coal mining equipment in the early part of the 20th Century:

He told many stories of individual miners he had known, and of miners who had an impact on the miners' lives.  One unique story is of a miner who started a garden underground in recent years, using a fluorescent light.  The garden has been maintained still:

Much of the history related to coal miner strikes and mine disasters from the late 1800's through 1979.  By the time we finished the tour, we felt we had gained some understanding of the hard life and risks the miners took.

MARCONI NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

Another interesting historic venue in Glace Bay is the Marconi National Historic Site, which preserves the first site in Nova Scotia where, on December 17, 1902, Guglielmo Marconi successfully transmitted wirelessly to a station in England, after having succeed in receiving a signal from the same English station on Signal Hill at St. John's, Newfoundland in December 1901.

Marconi's station in Nova Scotia was located on Table Head in Glace Bay:

The site has been given national historic status in Canada and is administered by Parks Canada.  The visitor center exhibits the history of Marconi's efforts and displays a model of his original wireless station, which Kathy admires in the photo below:

The site itself only retains the foundations of Marconi's antenna bases and station:

One bonus of visiting the Marconi site is that it has Canada National Parks Red Chairs!  Kathy was so excited by this, that she immediately plopped down into one of the Red Chairs, with an unobstructed view (if one could see) eastward to England:

Once Kathy calmed down, we took a proper "Red Chair Photo," with Marconi and a description of his feat behind us and reflected in the visitor center window:

While we also wanted to visit the Cape Breton Heritage Center, also in Glace Bay, it was closed, and we had to return to our campground without the third museum.  By the time we got home, a storm system had started dumping rain on the area, so we retired inside our motorhome to enjoy some food and drink and prepare this blog entry.

Here's hoping that tomorrow's weather will grace our journey down to the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site, which has lots of history and more Red Chairs!