TRANSCRIPT

Yes. There was a fella that worked at the mine named Ed Matheson and he was quite a sharp wit anyway. There wasn't anything you could say to him that he wouldn't have an answer to. One day a couple of tourists came in, I assume they were Americans. And they walked in the mine yard, like there were no gates around the yard or anything, people could walk right in those days. And these Americans came in, shall we say, and they had the misfortune of coming across Ed in the mine yard. And they started asking about the mill, the building, the salt, how they got it up from underground and what they did with it, and all that stuff. After a while they said, "How many men work here?" Well Ed stuttered a little bit and he thought for a minute and then he said, "Dear Lord, about half of them".

Quite the character!

So was that the only job that they did in that area?

No they was the same as me, they worked seasonal quite a few worked seasonal. There would only be about maybe 40 men that worked all year round.

That was above ground and underground?

And underground to, yes. They worked steady twelve months of the year.

So that was about half of the work force then was it?

Roughly half the work force yes. So the rest of us that were only part-time we had to have other employment.