The Price of Coal

On the way from Shediac to our destination of Parrsboro today, we stopped at the small town of Springhill, a place famous for coal mining disasters.  A small museum explains the best known and most recent one of 1958.  One can even go down into the very upper part of a mine to get a small inkling of the terrible work conditions that the miners endured.  Our guide had worked for eleven years, from the age of 16 to 27, in this mine.  His father was a miner who died of black lung disease at the age of 62.   The entrance to this mine has been considerably enlarged and shored up to enable tourists to safely be escorted into it.  The miners spent most of their work days bent over at the waist because the ceiling was so low.  Conditions were miserable and it wasn't exactly a high paying job.  Now all the mines are shut down in the town and it is slowly dying.  The mines are filling with water: people can't get insurance on their houses because of the danger that they might collapse into the ground.  Never go to work in a coal mine!!