Our guide was named Abbie Michalik. He us now almost eighty, and as I mentioned in the previous post, was born into a family which eventually had ten children. The house they lived in was built with wood gathered from the mining company, from old de-commissioned outhouses. There was no foundation or basement, so the wind went right underneath the house. Windows were single-paned, and leaked. The roof also leaked. The walls were not insulated. Children slept in two beds, one for the girls, and one for the boys. Abbie said that in the winter, they couldn't afford blankets, so they just piled their coats on top of the beds. And in the morning, there might be snow on top of the coats. To help them keep warm, his mother would heat bricks in the stove, and send them upstairs with a brick for their feet to be warm.
Abbie went into the mines at an early age, getting out of school after Grade 10. He talked about going down into the dark mine in an open cart, tied with a rope to pull it back out of the mine, and also to slow it down. But the company did not check the ropes often, and would only replace it after it actually broke. One day, the rope broke on the way down into the mine. His dad told him to jump, which he did, and he was safe. His cousin, who was also in the cart, jumped, but went under the wheels of the cart and was killed.
The mine face he went to was about eight miles out under the sea. It took about ninety minutes to get there (time they were not paid for). Once they got there, the job of the young boys was to stay at one of the section doors to make sure they stayed closed, so the air would circulate properly. There were of course rats down there, but his father told him not to kill the rats, since they acted often as early warnings if there were a methane gas build-up (if the rats ran ahead of you, you were safe; if they ran away, you should too). And the rats cleaned up after your meal and after the washroom breaks.
As he got older, Abbie was able to work on getting the coal into the carts. Each cart held over a ton of coal, and you made all of seventy cents for it, if it made it to the surface. If it dumped, you made nothing. And if your tag fell off the cart (or someone replaced it with their's) you didn't get paid.
During Abbie's time in the mine, he survived an explosion, a cave-in, an accident with the cart. He lost relatives and friends to accidents. And he witnessed many changes in the ownership and management of the mines. He was unionized through the United Mine Workers, an American union. He had seen his father who went through the incredible struggles of the 1910's and 1920's, when they were trying to unionize.
The mine that we went into was not big. It began at the Museum at over six feet high, but by the time we were in the main walkways, it was down to about four and one-half feet. It was cool, and damp with water on the ground. And it was dark (he turned the light out briefly to impress us). And at one place, we stopped and sat down around a garden under lights. Abbie talked about one German miner who asked the bosses for permission to start a garden in the mine. The company said okay, but he had to provide the boards, and the soil (his fellow miners helped bring it in). He succeeded in growing veggies in the dark of the mine, with the lights as we saw.
He was proud of the work he had done. He continues to work at the Museum because he feels it is important to pass on these lessons, and to encourage young people to stay in school. He remembers the times he has lived through, and is grateful for what he now has.
As mentioned, it was a truly impressive visit.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Louisbourg
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