Miners from the Campbell River area and NDP MLA Claire Trevena met on Saturday to commemorate their fallen brothers on Miner’s Memorial Day at Sequoia Park.
The attendants laid flower wreaths at the base of a memorial cairn, celebrating the lives of those, past and present, who lost their lives while providing for their families. This cairn was initially placed by CAW workers in the wake of the May 1992 accident at Westray Mine in Nova Scotia.
The Myra Falls mine in Campbell River last saw a fatality in 2006, while Quinsam Coal saw the death of two miners in 1998. Miner’s Memorial Day was conceived after a burst rock killed four workers in Sudbury in 1984. Vancouver Island’s history of coal mining in the late 19th and early 20th century claimed the lives of many, and a ceremony was also held in Cumberland in commemoration.
The worst mining accident in BC history occurred at a Nanaimo coal mine in 1887, where 153 miners perished in an explosion