Not Your Grandfathers Mining Industry, Nova Scotia, Canada

John Angus MacNeil

John Angus MacNeil was a WWI veteran and coal miner. He worked in the Inverness coal mine, which today is the site of the world-famous Cabot Links golf course, an example of how reclaimed mines and quarries can contribute to communities other ways after extraction is done.

MacNeil was born on June 5, 1883, in Inverness, Cape Breton, where he lived all his life other than the years he fought for his country overseas.

The Inverness Historical Society interviewed MacNeil when he was “going on 87” about his years as a coal miner. He recalled that the Inverness mine “was the only place where you could get employment…I worked all my life in and around the mines. I started working in the mine March, 1909. I worked there until a strike came on. The strikers wanted the recognition of the UMW [United Mine Workers]. I was two years idle then. I started working again and I worked until the war broke out. I went to war then. I spent five years in the army. From that time on, I worked in and around the mine until I retired. When I retired at seventy, I guess.”

MacNeil said he did many different jobs, “from opening and closing a door, loading coal, chuting coal and being an official in the mine.”

Asked about safety in the mine, he said. “We were very lucky at the Inverness mines as far as fires were concerned. We were very lucky also about gas. You could expect anything, you could expect falls from the roof.”

Asked about things that caused accidents in the mine, he said, “Oh, there are an awful lot of reasons. The lack of securing or timbering a place to safeguard his own life. Another situation, too, that after firing a shot to rush in before you're sure that the last blast was discharged. I remember an accident in Port Hood where the poor fellow thought that the last discharge went off, he walked in, and the second discharge went off and he was killed.”

He said accidents could happen at surface but “the workman on the surface is not about to get injured as the workman down below because the workman on the surface has God's light with him and he sees everything. Below, they got that little lamp to shine. He doesn't see anything and maybe unintentionally, the fellow underground runs into trouble he could have avoided if he had seen better.”

He said the mine owners were concerned about safety in the mine: “I would say yes, because the government of the province of Nova Scotia enacted an act called the coal mines regulation act. The minister of mines appointed a deputy minister. Well, that fellow was appointed to every district in the province. That fellow would travel the mine once a month and he was there to see if the regulations were carried out. If they weren't, he'd come to the manager of the mine and tell him so. Besides that, the mine company saw to it that the coal mines regulation act was lived up to by the letter of the law.”

MacNeil described an accident at the mine: “In the early days of the mine. At that time the coal miners was carrying loose powder. The powder was kept 100 feet below the surface. This morning they were lining up to get the powder. They had opened lights [open flame] so one fellow would say he wants 50 lbs. of powder and they would open it in the can. It appeared that one of these cans weren't closed all the way. A spark of the light went into the powder and an explosion occurred. There was ten of them burned, two of them badly burned. In fact, one of them died over it, a fellow named Mackenzie. The other fellow that was badly burned was John ‘the Piper.’ The others were more or less singed, but bad enough, you know. We were very lucky at Inverness mines overall. We were more or less clear of gas, and they maintained to keep the ventilation as good as they could. In fact, one side of the Inverness mine there was no gas at all, but on the west side they would find gas there.”

MacNeil said he thought the rent charged for one of the company/miner houses was $1.25 per month. He said they were built by the Inverness Railway and Coal Company, the company that took over the mine in 1899: “The first houses were built on Central Avenue across from the liquor store. There was ten houses built at that time. When more people started coming to work in the mines, there was an enormous demand for houses that started coming to work in the mines; there was an enormous demand for houses that they started to build what they called the Red Rows. When that was built, then started building up at River Street.”

Asked how many men were employed by the mine, he said, “Well, #1, the railroad was connected to the #1 mine. When the #1 mine opened they started the railroad. They built the railroad from the street down to Inverness. At the peak, there were 750 people on the payroll.”

The provincial government took over the mine in its latter years to keep it from shutting down. MacNeil was asked if things improved under the government’s management: “No, the mines didn't improve. I wouldn't say it was the government's fault because the mine was deteriorated so much before the government took it over. The companies that was operating the mine, they were getting the cheapest coal they could, you know. When they got away from that, that cost of a ton of coal got higher. As they got further away from the haulage way, the cost of production was getting higher. The government spent a lot of money to maintain the mine trying to keep the town of Inverness from becoming a ghost town.”

MacNeil explained the reason for a miner strike in 1933: “In 1933, that strike wasn't called off for a wage increase or anything like that. Previous to that it appeared that Inverness was going to be a ghost town, and something would have to be done. A committee went to Halifax to intercede with the government. There was a committee appointed in Halifax to form a board. This board was supposed to operate the mine on a co-operative basis. It wasn't working at all. The people were not happy with the situation. A strike was called. The strike was called to do away with the board. This was a very nasty strike. Brothers and friends who were close weren't close anymore. It was a nasty affair for a long time. In fact, I think the sting is still in the air today. The government eventually stepped in to discontinue the board. There was an election called and Angus L. MacDonald's government was put into power. They took over the day-to-day operation of the mine at a terrific cost. The cost of production was awful. The rest of the people of the province of Nova Scotia were angry because they felt the government was throwing money down the drain. The government continued to operate the mine. Finally, the government realized the operation of the mine was futile and they had to give it up. A fellow by the name of Will MacDonald from Sydney took over the top pillars of mine #1. He did operate it very successfully, getting the pillar work, extracting the pillars out of the top level. He opened out what we call #2, the little mine over there, and #5. Probably when it was all gutted out, he was losing money. He pulled out of Inverness, and he went to Port Hood for a while and opened a mine there. That was about the end of the coal mining in Inverness. That was the cause of the 1933 strike.”

MacNeil was asked if the miners got higher pay under the government’s management: “No. Well, I don't think they did. It stayed around the same because the mine was losing money. The people in the rest of the province wouldn't stand for it.”

Asked if he felt the miners accomplished anything by striking, MacNeil said, “No. It doesn't matter how much you win over the strike. The time that you lose, the money you lose you'd take a hell of a long time to get back where you were before the strike. In my mind, a strike never pays, never accomplished anything.”

Today, Nova Scotia’s mining and quarrying industry employs about 3000 Nova Scotians, mostly in rural areas, and is the highest paying resource industry in the province. Its average total compensation (wages and benefits) is over $100,000 per year.

The industry has reduced its injury rate 90% since 1997 and is committed to continuous improvement in safety. We believe the most important thing to come out of a mine is the miner.

See the story of MacNeil’s service during WWI: https://notyourgrandfathersmining.ca/john-angus-macneil

See the story of the Inverness coal mine at https://notyourgrandfathersmining.ca/inverness-cabot-links