- Why Mining Matters
- Jobs
- Safety
- Environment & Operations
- FAQ
- Links
- Fun Stuff
You are here
Gowrie Mine
River Hebert
Joggins 1904 Fire
Port Hood 1911 Flood
Lamp Cabin Memorial Park
Drummond 1873 Disaster
1872 Accidents
Springhill’s Novaco Mine
1860's Accident
New Glasgow's Linacy Mine
1913 Drummond Fires
1908 Princess Fire
Albion Mines 1913 Fire
DOSCO Miner
Cape Breton's TNT
The McCormick and Turner families
Payday Drunk
John Croak’s Victoria Cross
Atlantic Slag Company
Sydney Cement Company
1914 Coal Mine Cost
Dominion No 2
Canary in a Coal Mine
Draegermen
James Dinn
Pit Ponies
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1877 Accidents
Allan Shaft 1912
William Fleming
The Story of Peat
T. G. MacKenzie
Trenton Steel
1930 Stats
MacGregor Mine Explosion
MacGregor Flood
Torbanite Products Limited
Abraham Gesner and Kerosene
1860 Prince of Wales Visit
Dominion No 5
The Royal William and Stellarton Coal
Tom Pit
Terminal City
1875 Accidents
Cannons in Coal Mines
Princess Mine Explosion
Dominion No. 26
A Tale of Two Mines
Franklin Colliery
Robert J. Grant
Springhill No. 1
Mother Coo
Submarine Mines
Barrachois Mine
Fundy Coal Seam
Dominion #14
Dominion #12
Dominion No 4
Child Labour
Joggins Colliery
Safety
Bootleggers
Richmond County
Mabou Mines
Stellar Coal
English Slope
Maccan/Jubilee
The Foster Pit Fire and the Poop Solution
Thomas Edison and the Chignecto coal mine
Henry Whitney and the Dominion Coal Company
Foord Pit
Hiawatha Coal Mine
Coalburn
Springhill Disasters
St. Rose-Chimney Coalfield
Stellarton, Dorrington Softball Complex
How Does Coal Form?
Drummond Coal Mine
Sydney Coalfield and the Princess Mine
Port Morien, 1720
Port Hood
General Mining Association
Thorburn
WWII and Nova Scotia Coal
Nova Scotia's First Railway
Samuel Cunard
Stellarton’s Mining Connections
Sydney Mines
Point Aconi
Victoria Mines
Sullivan Creek
New Campbellton
Inverness and Cabot Links
The Ghost Town of Broughton
Tobin Road, Sydney Mines
Flint Island Coal Mine?!
What does Colliery mean?
Cottam Settlement
Allan Mine
Stellarton, Mount William
Coal was discovered in 1874 near Mount William Road in Stellarton when that area was called Smokeytown.
A 4.6-metre-deep trial pit was dug on the Hardscrabble coal seam. No other formal exploration on this coal seam is known to have occurred.
The seam reportedly saw some bootleg mining over the years. The workings were referred to locally as the Wheatley Mine.
The Hardscrabble seam was uncovered in 1992 by an excavation at the intersection Mount William Road and Westville Road.
Subsidence in the area in 1992 led to a historical slope (decline tunnel) being found. Old rails and winch remnants made clear that the site was a former mine. The slope was last worked in the late 1930s, just prior to WWII.
There are no known plans of the workings so the extent of the historical mining activity is not known.
The Acadia Coal Company did some exploration drilling in the area in 1912.
The Department of Mines and Energy explored it in 1966, part of a five-year drilling program in the Thorburn, Mount William and Foster Avenue areas to find “all possible locations at which mineable amounts of near surface coal can exist in the Pictou County coal fields….” The department concluded that the Mount William and Foster Avenue areas might be able to employ only 5-19 men. “The possibilities are not such as to encourage any substantial capital commitment in any of these ventures."
The government assessment was not optimistic about mining Thorburn either but it was eventually mined again from 1997-2000. The last of the coal was extracted, historical buildings and equipment were removed and the site was returned to nature. (See the history of coal mining in Thorburn at https://notyourgrandfathersmining.ca/thorburn).
The only coal mine currently operating in Nova Scotia is the Stellarton surface mine, which is fixing subsidence issues caused by 200 years of pick-and-shovel mining, including many bootleg mines. The mine is stabilizing the land so it can be built on, while also creating jobs for Nova Scotians and providing fuel to Nova Scotia Power. (Coal still provides over half of Nova Scotia’s electricity).
See how the Stellarton mine is being reclaimed at https://notyourgrandfathersmining.ca/how-reclamation-works