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Tributers
E. Percy Brown and the Brookfield Mine
Barachois
Nova Rich Mines
Shad Bay Treasure Hunt
Montague 1937 Accident
Father Lanigan’s “Prospect”
George V. Douglas
The Stewart Brothers
Goldboro
Moose River's Touquoy Mine
Camerons Mountain
Jim Campbells Barren
Stanburne's Puzzling Gold Mine
Pockwock
Beaverbank Lake
Banook Mining Company
Deep Gold Mining
Wellington
Arsenic and Gold
Dynamite
War of Words
King of the Klondike
Oliver Millett
Kempt Gold Mining Company
Carleton
The Memramcook Fiasco
Love and Gold in Oldham
Montague 1893 Disaster
Central Rawdon Consolidated Mines
Cochrane Hill
Amateurish Early Gold Mining
Sable Island Gold
The Sea Wolf
Trueman Hirschfield
Alexander Heatherington
Prospector Joe Cope
Killag Quicksand
George W. Stuart
Wellington
Billy Bell
Cooper Jim Mine
South Branch Stewiacke
Walter Prest
Lake Charlotte
Acadia Powder Mills Company
The Ovens Anticline
Moose River Anticline
Avon Mine Explosion
Montague
Waverley Claims Dispute
Avon River
Moose River Disaster
Mooseland Scam
New York and Nova Scotia Gold Mining Company
Rosario Siroy and the South Uniacke Gold District
Blockhouse
Killag Gold District
Miller Lake
Baron Franz von Ellershausen
Mooseland: Nova Scotia’s first Gold Discovery
United Goldfields of Nova Scotia
Pleasant River Barrens Gold District
Lochaber Gold Mining Company
Rawdon Gold Mines
MacLean Brook
Gold in Clayton Park?!
Forest Hill
Meguma vs. Placer Gold
Uniacke
Voglers Cove
Gold River
Moosehead
Goldenville
Westfield
Indian Path
Harrigan Cove
Centre Rawdon
Nova Scotia’s Gold Mining History
WWII Gold
Middle River Gold District
Early Gold Discoveries
Halifax 1867
Paris Exhibition 1867
Mining and Tourism
An Act relating to the Gold Fields
Molega Gold District
Brookfield Gold District
Gays River
Halifax Gold
Caribou Gold District
Renfrew Gold District
Oldham Gold District
Whiteburn Gold District
Country Harbour Mines
Waverley Gold District
Robert Henderson and Klondike Gold
George Mercer Dawson
Cow Bay Gold District
Lake Catcha Gold District
Wine Harbour Gold District
Halifax 1867
Nova Scotia's early gold miners, 100-150 years ago, didn't take proper care of the environment. But no one did back then. It was a different time and mining is totally different today.
To put it in perspective, consider author and mining agent Alexander Heatherington's description of life in Halifax in 1867 during Nova Scotia' s first gold rush:
Garbage is "put into boxes or barrels in front of the house until cleared away by the wind, or the city scavenger."
Sewage ran untreated into the harbour through drains that "probably on account of the cost of cutting through the rocky ground, are only from eighteen inches to three feet in depth, a fact of which one is unpleasantly reminded in dry warm weather on passing near the open gratings."
Halifax, which was only four miles long by two and a-half broad, had "numerous dirty, unpainted, and irregular shanties which now disfigure it."
Only Granville, Hollis, and Pleasant streets were paved with stones or bricks.
Regarding the Public Gardens, he said "The military and naval bands perform there at times, but it contains nothing to make it otherwise permanently attractive."
"There are not half a dozen private gardens in the town worth visiting, the majority being shabby and neglected."
The Halifax Commons "contains no shaded avenues, fountains or parterres. Much of the ground is swampy, and although mostly used for cricket and drill exercise, it seems, too, a kind of morgue for cats, dogs, and hoop-skirts."
The path round the Citadel's moat had been "a favourite promenade," but the public had been kept out since "the threatened Fenian invasion."
The city was lit with gas lamps that were "generally so dirty that the light reflected from them merely serves to make darkness visible."
Halifax hotels were so shabby that "they are all excelled by any second rate hotel in the United States..." They charged between "a dollar-and-a-quarter to two dollars for transient boarders."
Travel was by horse-drawn carriages, not cars, and streetcars had only been established two years earlier (over the opposition of many who objected to the change.)
In other words, environmental standards, and most things, were different then.
Misconceptions about modern gold mining stem from that era - from historical mining practices that we agree were not good enough. No industry took proper care of the environment 100-150 years ago. From this description of Halifax, it’s clear that society in general didn’t take care of the environment then.
Mining today is a sophisticated, science-based business that takes excellent care of the environment while providing essential materials we all use every day.
Learn more at https://notyourgrandfathersmining.ca/modern-gold-mining