Gallagher, Dan, Mining

Nanaimo Historical Society Fonds
Series 2 Sound Recordings
Tape 42

Transcribed by Lois Park: April 2008

Dr. Daniel Gallagher on Mining - April 15, 1980

If I don’t use a mic, can you all hear me?
Okay that’s good. We’ll set up the projector now and I have about 50 slides and I’ll go through them quite quickly. Some of them I will focus in on a little bit more and I think we’ll have a little bit of fun tonight. It is going to be very informal and then when I’m finished I’ll ask for questions and indeed maybe about half way through I’ll ask for questions and if someone is bursting to say something to me, just interrupt me okay.
[Very noisy, probably setting up the projector]
The deal is to try and research out the story through documents, and many memories and partially through the artifacts and then put the story together as best we can and hopefully encourage other areas to save larger machinery. And, later on in my talk, I’ll mention something a bit more in this vain and what perhaps Nanaimo might be able to do, or for that matter this part of Vancouver Island, in terms of preserving the, shall we say the technology and part of the social history of coal mining through the museum, through the historic sites and through other means.
I feel a bit like taking coals to Newcastle, coming here, I really do, no pun intended. I guess there is a little pun intended there. Because Nanaimo has such an excellent reputation for being concerned with its history and now when I say Nanaimo I don’t mean all of Nanaimo. People who are in Nanaimo that have been concerned with their history have an excellent reputation, okay. I know this city like many cities, most cities in British Columbia and indeed in western Canada takes a rather cavalier attitude towards its history. It is so busy it thinks making history that it fails to look back.
And for more settled locales, even in eastern Canada, there is a much bigger emphasis on it, that is the preservation of the history. But it is groups like this one and through the museum, through the coal mining group and I can go on and name others that have contributed so much and are still contributing so much to preserving this part of the island’s history.
Anyhow, let’s just take a look at this coal industry and what I found about it and I should say too that the period that I really focused in on was from 1849 through to 1891. And the reason that I did that was nobody had ever really made a systematic study of the whole industry. That’s logical because that weren’t really that many people who were dealing with history, B.C.’s history and there have been so many subjects that they thought were more important particularly in the political side. I think we are beginning to see now that the politics of B.C. have been exhausted, certainly examined thoroughly, certainly the gold rush and fur trade days have and the colonial period.

What happened to these other communities and what kinds of activities were going on are the sorts of questions that were of special importance to me. And living on Vancouver Island, working here, having lived here for many years, I spent five years in Comox for instance, close by Cumberland and have an idea what happened there.
It seemed to me that the coal industry really deserved a very thorough look at it and I didn’t have that firm of an understanding of it to begin with. I had a general idea but I felt that I wanted to probe into as deeply as I could and find out what made it tick and beyond that what impact did it have on Vancouver Island and ultimately British Columbia. The reason that I cut off in 1891 was that the study would have been too big to go beyond that for what I wanted to do at that time, although I have plans to go on. Secondly, [pause] my initial date was going to be 1912-1914, the strike, that seem to be very ambitious to try and deal with the strike, it is a subject worthy of it’s own major history and indeed that will be done. Then I thought, well, I can step back a little bit further and I thought 1889, that’s when Robert Dunsmuir died and that’s when the Vancouver Coal Mining and Land Company was re-organized to become the new Vancouver Coal Mining and Land Company. Well, two other things happened between 1889 and 1891. First of all, the Cumberland field came into it’s own, not as big as Nanaimo in those days but it was starting to roll by 1891 and the other thing which was just my own choosing as land mark was that was the first time a million tons of coal were produced in any one year on Vancouver Island. I thought, well okay, that’s a good enough reason to shut it down there for this study. So that’s how far I went.
But let’s just take a look at some of the things, some of the highlights that I found about it.
Okay, very quickly this is where coal is found in British Columbia right now. These are the major coal formations of the 1970’s, this right now and this isn’t actually just coal but these are the formations. Here you have the Nanaimo group here, the Comox field, Susquash near Port Hardy, Similkameen around Princeton where you will be going to your convention, Merritt, Hat Creek which BC Hydro is developing for a thermal hydro plant, the Crowsnest Pass where Kaiser is taking out so much coal its going up here through Robert’s Bank to Japan. The [Baryan?] Lakes coal field, [Takwa?], Ground Hog and Peace River. There is a tremendous amount of coal here but it isn’t of the same high grade, as you will find down in these areas and Grave Island coalfield. And it is this area here which is the earliest to be worked and the one that was virtually exhausted, it still exists, there is still coal in this area as you know and up through Comox, [P??] area and so forth.
Now, here are the early coal licenses locations and you can see, very quickly here, I’ll just explain this, if I can get it focused. Okay, these are all 1885 through to 1889 in the Kootenays, 83, 84, 87, 1865 to 1887 each one of these dates means another [?] for coal. 1848, there is the earliest one, Fort Rupert. 1883, all of the 1883, 1862 down here in Barkley Sound, 1852, of course, Nanaimo and little earlier then that when it was found here, of course, as you know. 1864 in the Comox area through 1872, now these are, and Saanich Peninsula 1889, Burrard Inlet 1865 and, see when the gold economy collapsed in 1860’s, it was believed that coal because it was coming on stream, as we would say today, was going to be the new source of wealth for British Columbia. And indeed, between 1884 and 1904, coal was British Columbia’s most valuable product and by the year 2000 it likely will be again…most valuable mineral.

Of course, the coal industry was more important then the forest industry in the 1880’s and through 1890’s. The forest industry, as we know it, is only a relatively recent phenomenon of this century. Now, this isn’t all a geography lesson and maps, we’ll get to this but I just thought I’d ...
okay here is Vancouver Island’s early coal finds: 1835 Beaver Harbour, Quatsino Sound 1883, Comox 1864, Wellington 1869, Nanaimo 1852 and other 1876 major East Wellington and South Wellington 1882, Cowichan 1864, Saanich 1869, Sooke 1864, Barkley Sound 1862.
Only two of these areas were major producers, one is this one, of course, and the other is Comox.
Now, here is the coal industry from 1860 to 1970 and I guess we go on to 1980 now. Now, what you have here are the number of short tonnes produced each year. So, for instance, here is one million short tonnes, two million, three million short tonnes produced in British Columbia. The solid area here is Vancouver Island and this is all of British Columbia, including Vancouver Island, and it takes off here is where they opened up the East Kootenay coal fields again in the Crowsnest Pass in 1969 and it just goes way off the chart but you can see that Vancouver Island was definitely the first and it wasn’t until 1889, 1898 I beg your pardon, when we began coal mining in the East Kootenays.
Now this is a very dramatic chart, in this sense, you have a very fast rise to the industry and very fast decline on Vancouver Island spanning about a hundred and thirty years. Now, it’s the amount on this scale of a chart would be insignificant for the earlier years. Okay, so we can say 1860 here, I’ll come back to that a little bit later. Here you have the sort of tentative [?], there is a major recession going on here in the 1860’s, you know from your own understanding and readings of history that was the year of the union of the two colonies of 1866 because of the serious economic depression after the gold rush.
And the coal industry really wasn’t going anywhere. But in the 1870’s, it starts to pick up and then it rises very, very sharply. [Carrying?] on these dips and bumps and so forth were often caused by major strikes. Up we go and here is a recession again, it was felt everywhere along the west coast of North America and thereby ate into the coal profits here. Up it goes until it peaks 1910-11 on Vancouver Island. In 1905, oil was discovered in California and that started the beginning of the end of the for Vancouver Island’s coal industry in terms of it’s foreign markets.
Here is that crippling strike of 1911, 1912, 13, 14. Up it goes again with a wartime high, down as there is a recession after the war, starts to climb up again and then this very swift decline. Interestingly enough, it is in the later half of the great depression where there is an upsurge of interest in but it is on its way down. Another little peak here just toward the end of the war and then finally tapers off and you people, many of you of course, witnessed this latter half of the decline of the industry.
I’m not going to talk about that. It’s sort of a cop-out, as they say these days, you people know more about that then I do. I am going to talk about this first part in here tonight. Why was it such a dramatic rise, what happened, what influence or impact did it have on the community in sort of general terms. And I want talk about some of the more colorful personalities as well. Okay.
Now, here we are going to take a look at the very earliest finds in Beaver Harbour and Fort Rupert and these are the various pits, the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and somewhere around here and seventh. Very difficult to try and mine. First of all the coal was terrible, and it had just a handful of miners who were not supported by the Hudson’s Bay Company very well at all. And I will talk just a little about that in a moment.
Native peoples around here for the most part, helping to stack the coal on the beach. There is a fellow named [Aspinall?]l, you may have heard of him, who was a smooth Yankee trader who had his own steamship line working off the North West Coast of America. Contracts out with the Hudson’s Bay Company for them to supply him with coal. The Royal Navy also needs coal. James Douglas figures “well here is how I can make a real deal” what I will do is get them to put up the money before hand and then I will develop the mines and then we will sell the coal and, of course, because we are the only real sources of supply north of Peru and most of the coal at this time incidentally is also coming around as ballast from England, I can charge up to that limit”.

Well, he over played his hand. The Navy said ‘to heck with you we won’t have anything to do with you and [Aspinall?l just abandoned him. So by this time, they are pretty well committed to Fort Rupert and they have an apparatus there and there is all sorts of trouble there. The miners, the first contingent of miners, some of them deserted, some of them were put into irons, and it was just a sorry tale all around.
And really what my view is, that not only was the coal bad but the Hudson’s Bay Company inexperienced as it was and generally inexperienced, total lack of experience with coal mining just simply didn’t know how to handle it. And mismanagement, more than anything else, almost killed the coal industry on Vancouver Island before it got started. Really got started.
Okay, this is just one of the earliest photos. Here is a naval officer from one of the ships with a couple of [?]petty officers, probably with some of the native people at Fort Rupert who were employed on piecework basis in order to stack the coal. The native people felt that somehow they, this wasn’t quite fair, the coal should really belong to them, and they would sell it to the Hudson’s Bay Company.
And there was a lot of trouble going back and forth in those days about it, and I think there is a good article in the Beaver of several years gone by that explains just what happens at Fort Rupert. But, nonetheless, it started up in 1849 and by 1852, they, the Hudson’s Bay Company had pretty well abandoned it because, of course, they were down in Nanaimo by that time.
Now here is old James Douglas. Square toes Douglas they called him. But you know he has also been called the Father of British Columbia. A really complex man and he did understand coal because he forced himself to learn it. He went up to the coalfields here in Nanaimo and actually worked for a while, not really as a miner but worked in the sense of familiarizing himself with all the operations. He had a tremendous number of other jobs to concern himself with too, and by 1858, 59, 60 when the gold rush occurred and was really in its full bloom, full flower he was truly distracted and he had a province, he had a, well I don’t even know what you would call it, he had a colony, two colonies to build and to keep away the Americans who he felt were very likely going to attempt to take it over and he had British justice and order to bring to this tremendous region and I am not going to try and repeat the [?] to you tonight. Because, you are more than familiar with it than I am sure.
The point here is that the coal industry which he had seen to have so much promise before gold came in, was virtually swept aside along with his fur trade in order to cope with gold. But coal continued to build steadily in spite of sort of being off the beaten track. Now, remember there is very, very little steam machinery in British Columbia at that time, in the 1860’s, very, very little.
Where most of the coal was being sold is for export to the San Francisco market, which was developed in the 1850’s by the Hudson’s Bay Company after they finally understood that they [couldn’t be as a market as they had been?]. And it was being used for the rising number of steamers on the Pacific, the eastern Pacific along the shores of North America. So the coal was not going through the normal economy or economic channels of British Columbia at that time like the gold was. It was just being [?] off, it was a tidewater coal supply, ships were coming to the docks here, loading per meter.
Now, just stepping back to Fort Rupert for a moment. Captain McNeil, Master of the Beaver, part of the problem. He knew a fellow named [Birkingsall?], who was his clerk. You have to understand that Fort Rupert is really a way at the end of the line and the isolation felt not only by the miners but by sailors and by labourers and traders at that distance surrounded by hostile natives all because of the higher raiding parties and so forth caused discipline to break down very quickly within the Fort, this new fort and the miners were having to work with just picks and shovels really. Out there in this open pit trying to prove this coal and the coal wasn’t there so the frustration was, good coal wasn’t there, the frustration must have been very high and there resulting goal, [Birkingsall?] his subordinate was left in charge, he over reacted to the Muirs and as a consequence, McNeil along with [Birkingsall?] were found to be unequal to the task of running the Fort.
John Muir. Now this is John Muir 1849, that’s when he came, I am sure John Muir didn’t look like that in 1849. But he was a Scottish coal miner recruited by the Hudson’s Bay Company in England along with his two sons and nephew and so forth and came out as family contingent of miners to prove the coal at Fort Rupert and to start it up. Now, John Muir had been used to what would then be called modern collieries in England and Scotland. Very long and difficult journey over here in 1849, lands in Fort Victoria, and then on up to Fort Rupert and expecting the colliery and all he is finding is picks and shovels and a beach and Indians loading coal up and so forth and so he spent most of his time doing two things. A - trying to keep his own family in check who were very rebellious by this time and B - trying to find the coal and had very, very little success. He eventually, he came down to Fort [Victoria?], well let’s put it this way, his off spring rebelled and deserted him and this is after having been in irons and they, he was lucky he didn’t leave, he fulfilled the terms of his contract. Douglas still had enough respect for him that he brought him down to Nanaimo and had him do some work there. He didn’t see eye to eye with Boyd Gilmour, who was a subsequent arrival and another oversman, about where the coal lay in Nanaimo and how best to get it out. Muir also ended up in Sooke and went into the saw mill business, his sons materialized again and they find coal and try and develop it in the Sooke area and nothing, actually Beachtown, nothing really comes of it there.
So the Muirs have an interesting part in the history of Vancouver Island’s coal but it is a minor role.
Now, just very quickly this is the hierarchy of the Hudson’s Bay Company. And you can see, how would you like to work for some thing like this. Just very quickly. The Hudson’s Bay headquarters in London is calling so many of the shots, then you have the Columbia District headquarters in Fort Victoria with the Chief Factor being James Douglas. Then you have Fort Rupert, you have the Chief Trader William McNeil and the Chief Clerk Thomas [Birkingsall?] and then somewhere down here are the coal miners. You have [?], John Muir, coal miners, and an apprentice here, I think it is a seven-year-old nephew or something. He was sort of just on the list, another name so they could get more money. Tradesmen and labourers from the Hudson’s Bay Company and native Indian labour. Now, the problem was this fellow was really overwhelmed and he had this whole weight of the bureaucracy to have to contend with. So that these people were not making the policy and nobody understood, none of their superiors understood what coal mining was about and they were getting no help from these people and, in fact, this group tended to be hostile.
Now, it got so bad that Dr. Helmcken was sent up in order to make an investigation of the problems there and the morale problems and discipline problems and he made his recommendations, and indeed if you want to read the recently published, unless you have already, the recently published memoirs of John Sebastion Helmcken as published by UBC Press, and I believe they were edited by Dorothy Blakey-Smith, and they are really quite fascinating. They should be at the public library here and I am sure some of you have it at home.
Now, down to Nanaimo, we are going to jump ahead a little bit here. This is the Vancouver Coal Mining and Land Company land purchase in 1862. Now, here you have Nanaimo harbour, a native village here, and here is the earlier mines, Newcastle Island down here, Cameron Island down here, this is part of the Indian Reserve here.
Now the Hudson’s Bay Company, these were the early sites from 1852 through to 1862 of the mining they were doing. James Douglas was very shrewd; he understood what was going to happen ultimately to this territory. He knew that the Crown would want it and so what he did on behalf of the Hudson’s Bay Company, he purchased this acreage, even though they had exclusive trading rights, he purchased this acreage because he felt that this is where the coal lay under. And in fact, he proved himself wise because in 1862, when the Hudson’s Bay Company finally faces reality, and knew that it couldn’t possibly contain the tremendous commercial drive that was going on because of the gold rush and thereby was going to have to abandon it’s free trade, it’s exclusive trading rights.
Actually, I am getting a little bit ahead of myself. They knew that earlier, by 1860. It still had purchased several [?], one of which was this coal bearing lands and it decided that it was going to retrench and stick to the retail, wholesale trade, and particularly in furs.