Calgary: Digging Drumheller history

Calgary Herald: Digging Drumheller history

Drumheller is heralded around the globe as the Dinosaur Capital of the World, a title proudly displayed on the town's website.

www.drumhellermining100.com.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology and its vast collection of fossils dating back hundreds of millions of years is a big draw for the 400,000 visitors who descend upon the small community northeast of Calgary every year.

But unbeknownst to many, including the town's own residents, there would be no Drumheller if it weren't for its once-booming coal mining industry.

For more than five decades, the 139 registered mines in the Badlands produced nearly 57 million tons of coal to heat countless homes in Alberta and across the country. It also drew thousands of people from all over the world to the sleepy town.

"We've forgotten our identity in Drumheller," said Mayor Terry Yemen. "Dinosaurs are cool, but don't forget about our coal mining history. Even (geologist Joseph) Tyrrell (after whom the famed paleontology museum is named) didn't come looking for dinosaurs -he came looking for coal."

To pay tribute to the town's mining heritage, Drumheller has brought back the Mayday Miners' Festival, which coincides with the 100th anniversary of coal mining in the town.

Traditionally held on May 1, the festival gave hard-working miners a day off and a chance for them to enjoy picnics, ice cream, games and speeches.

Residents will have a chance to enjoy those same festivities today and Sunday in Drumheller and nearby East Coulee.

A highlight of the festival will be the Miners' March through downtown Drumheller, which in the past featured the throngs of miners who picked, shovelled and risked their lives working underground.

"There were hundreds of men in the parade, walking in their nice town clothes, pants pressed, wearing a tie and carrying signs naming their union or their mine," said Linda Digby, executive director of the Atlas Coal Mine National Historic Site.

"It was a procession of pride. And families will be here again to march in honour of the miners in their family tree."

Drumheller was once a small, isolated community with 50 people.

But after early settler Samuel Drumheller kicked off the coal rush by registering one of the first commercial mines, in 1911, mines began popping up left and right.

The boom was facilitated by Canadian National Railway, which laid tracks through the town, and drew thousands of people, mainly from Europe, to the Badlands.

It was a busy, exciting, rough-andtumble place, said Bob Moffatt.

"If you didn't find the fight on one corner interesting, there was usually another one in the alley half a block away," said the now 75-year-old.

Fed up with school, Moffatt started a career in the mines at age 16, eventually working his way up to the role of pony driver, responsible for carting loads of coal out of the mines.

Moffatt said he earned a decent living, making about $14 a day as a driver. But he aspired to be a miner, like the men four generations before him, who were bringing in $25 to $30.

Several brushes with danger led him to think twice about that path.

On one occasion, Moffatt got tangled up while trying to control one of his ponies, nearly losing a leg.

He also narrowly escaped a phenomenon known as "the squeeze," where walls within the mines would start narrowing from top to bottom as the floor of the soft rock would rise.

Records show that falling rocks from the squeeze, as well as methane gas explosions and machinery-related incidents, claimed the lives of about 175 people in the Drumheller Valley coal fields, Digby said.

By the late 1940s, the mining business was on the decline. After the Leduc oil strike, families began switching over to natural gas, seen as a cleaner, more convenient fuel.

Mining families fled as sites rapidly shut down, turning boom towns into ghost towns, Digby said.

The last site, Atlas Coal Mine -now a national historic site -shipped its final load of coal in 1979.

Moffatt fled with the masses, abandoning the mines in 1960 to take up power engineering and later fire training, rising to the ranks of deputy fire commissioner for Alberta in charge of training.

The town's coal mining past was soon forgotten -but Moffatt says he hopes this weekend's festival will change that. For a complete listing of festival events, visit www.drumhellermining100.com.