Forest Hill 1899
Nova Scotia’s early gold rushes took place in the 1800s, so it’s no wonder miners did not take care of the environment. They lacked the sophisticated science, technology and environmental awareness we have now. See what life was like at the mines back then:
An article in the December 14, 1899, edition of the Halifax Herald described a reporter’s visit to the gold mines in Forest Hill, Guysborough County.
Gold was discovered in Forest Hill in 1893. According to the article, “The discovery of gold was purely accidental, being at first unearthed by the runner of a wood sleigh removing moss from a rock and disclosing to view the much sought after ore.”
Mining in Forest Hill began in 1895 and an area that had been backwoods was transformed by the end of 1896 into an active mining district with three mills, two or three stores, a schoolhouse, and a population of 200-300.
But the site, like most of Nova Scotia back then, was still a wilderness where life was primitive and difficult.
As the reporter put it, “This camp is located in a wilderness and is ten miles from the nearest house. The means of access to it are of the meanest kind; the road is admitted to be the worst in the province; it is not only boggy but full of boulders. This ‘shanty settlement of the wilderness’ as it is generally known, is at the best of times most difficult to reach, but when endeavoring to make it in an inky dark night, in a violent rain storm accompanied by thunder and lightning, one is apt to come to grief, which is the experience I met with.”
To get to Forest Hill, the reporter left Heatherton, Antigonish County, “in the old yellow stage coach at four o’clock in the afternoon” and travelled 26 miles to Guysborough. The horse-drawn stagecoach’s movement was “rather that of a ship, the rolling effect being anything but pleasant.”
He spent the night at a house and set off early the next morning with a guide on the next leg of the trip. “The weather being dirty, I strapped my bicycle on the back of the vehicle.”
After Ogden, they passed through “a country of few houses – a desolate and unfruitful stretch of land of many miles extent.”
They eventually took shelter from a rainstorm at the last house before the Forest Hill mining camp. Later, as evening approached, they set off on horseback to travel the final 11 miles: “The road bed was so bad that trotting was out of the question.”
As they rode, “There was a crash of thunder and a flash of lighting followed by heavy rain.” The reporter described the thunder as “the roar from Heaven’s artillery…We were glad when our journey was at an end, and to find comfortable quarters at the residence of Raymond Keating, Forest Hill.”
It took a day and a half to travel from Heatherton to Forest Hill, a distance of about 30 kilometres as the crow flies.
Keating’s house may have been a relief after the challenges of his journey, but the reporter’s description of Forest Hill, after seeing it in daylight, makes clear how primitive the mining camp was: “Forest Hill is a settlement of about fifty shanties, or houses so-called, shut out from civilization. Under the roofs of these gingerly constructed domiciles resides many kind, respectable and law abiding people. This cluster of unique appearing houses certainly constituted an ideal mining camp, resembling the illustration of the ‘hamlets of Klondike.’”
The reporter visited almost all the houses: “Two small rooms generally held the entire family…Isolated in their forest home, all seemed to be happy. Some of these crude residences contained a family of seven, others less. There was a cleanliness and neatness about all of those humble homes not found in many a better constructed house in Halifax. These houses of the forest are constructed of poles laid six inches apart, covered with shingles on the outside. On the inside, there is a covering of whitened thick paper. In the entire village there is not a chimney, a stove pipe protruding from the roof or side answering the purpose. There was a large wood stove in every house. When nightfall arrives the miners repair to their homes and later the violin is heard, and ‘a dance is on’ in several of the hamlets.”
Miners without families lived in log huts, mostly with just one room, about 6X10 feet.
The photo below shows the Forest Hill mining camp in 1911, a dozen years after the article was written.
According to the article, “Forest Hill has a small school house, but no church, those professing religion, as they all do, having to travel about twelve miles to worship, over a road that is a disgrace to the government….Five years ago there was nothing but wild game rambling in a dense forest, where the mining properties are at present located.”
The reporter “inspected the several mining properties, and went down steep shafts to the bowels of the earth on a ladder of almost endless rungs, and watched the miners at work n the long tunnels shut out from light of day. It was an interesting sight to witness the men with lighted candles plying their vocation in the seemingly endless underground passage, unearthing the precious metal, the discovery of which has brought Forest Hill prominently before the mining public.”
“A miner’s life is not an easy one,” he wrote. “He commences work at 7 o’clock in the morning working till 6 o'clock in the evening with an hour for dinner at 12 o’clock. The blasting is all done with dynamite, fired by fuse. In the evening Forest Hill reverberates with the sounds produced by the explosions, similar to the reports from heavy artillery. For a time the settlement is enveloped in smoke which issues from the various shafts in immense clouds. This is a sign that ‘day’s work is done’ and the miner repairs to his humble cottage to be entertained in many instances by song, story and instrumental music until he retires, to be awakened by the shrill sound of the mill’s whistle summoning him to his duties.”
In contrast with those simple times, modern gold mining is a sophisticated, science-based activity that takes excellent care of the environment. It also provides a material that we all use every day – it is in the device you are reading this on.
Learn more about differences between historical and modern gold mining at https://notyourgrandfathersmining.ca/modern-gold-mining
In the mining industry, we often say new mines are often found next to old mines because historical sites worked with basic tools and little science can today be mined profitably and environmentally-responsibly with modern science and engineering. That is why almost all the activity in Nova Scotia’s gold sector is at historical gold mines like Forest Hill’s that still have the potential to return to production and create jobs.
