Glace Bay

The day after visiting Louisburg, we headed to nearby Glace Bay. This was another site I’d missed on my first visit to Cape Breton Island, many years ago – but the main attraction may not have been there then, or would have been much less developed. The Miners’ Museum was started in the 90s as one response to problems in the coal mining industry. It is privately owned and operated and does a remarkable job of providing information and exhibits about the industry, the geological factors that go into creating coal, the lives of the miners, their families and communities, and both local and international political and historical events that contributed to the rise and eventual fall of the industry in the region.

The highlight of the museum, especially for the kids, was the ability to take a tour of the underground mine. They don’t take you very far in, but you do descend down one of the entry tunnels – maybe far enough to take under the ocean floor, as the literature says, though I’m not sure of that – and into the side tunnels where the miners would have worked. You get to see how hard it must have been to move around with all the low ceilings – that’s one time it helped to be short! – and to always be in the dark except for the light from your headlamp. Once upon a time they used candles – imagine how dangerous that was, what with the potential for explosive methane gas to leak from places, not to mention that coal also burns!

They even have a pony down there! Well, it’s plastic, but it serves to demonstrate the type of horse that was once used to pull the mining carts loaded with coal – strong and sturdy animals who often spent their entire lives underground, cared for by a stable-hand who would do his best to make them comfortable and treat them well. When the last horses were taken out of the mines, once rail cars started to be used exclusively, they brought them up at night and put them in a dark stable so their eyes could adjust gradually and they wouldn’t be blinded by sudden exposure to the light of day.
Another interesting feature was the underground garden. One of the miners apparently started a small garden plot in one of the underground areas, lit it well and tended it carefully, hauling down water. It provided (and still does!) a bright spot in that dark, cool, grey world.

I was surprised to learn that Glace Bay is one of the largest communities in Nova Scotia outside Halifax, with almost 20,000 inhabitants even today. It was a booming centre of trade and industry in its heyday, and it is still going strong despite the closure of coal mines.