Interview with John Angus MacNeil on Mining Disasters

Q. When did you work in the mine?

A. Oh, dear. I worked all my life in and around the mines. I started working in the mine March, 1909. I worked there until a strike came on. The strikers wanted the recognition of the UMW. I was two years idle then. I started working again and I worked until the war broke out. I went to war then. I spent five years in the army. From that time on I worked in and around the mine until I retired. When I retired at seventy I guess.

Q. What kind of work did you do in the mine?

A. Well, I don't everything in the coal mine that you can call for from opening and closing a door, loading coal, chuting coal and being an official in the mine.

Q. Could you explain what happens when there is a bump?

A. I don't know if I'm right or wrong. There's an area of coal and they extract that coal, you see. They leave pillars on both sides of the extraction. The weight on the portion where they extracted the coal causes the upheaval of the bottom to explode and that causes the bump. I'm only giving you my own theory of how a bump occurs.

Q. In your opinion, what would be the miners biggest fear concerning disasters?

A. We were very lucky at the Inverness mines as far as fires were concerned. We were very lucky also about gas. You could expect anything, you could expect falls from the roof.

Q. Were you around when any accident occurred in the mines?

A. Well, of course, when the accident did happen I wasn't, but I investigated it.

Q. What are some of the things that cause accidents in the mine?

A. Oh, there are an awful lot of reasons. The lack of securing or timbering a place to safeguard his own life. Another situation too that after firing a shot to rush in before you're sure that the last blast was discharged. I remember an accident in Port Hood where the poor fellow thought that the last discharge went off, he walked in and the second discharge went off and he was killed.

Q. Do you know of any surface accidents?

A. Of course I tell you the workman on the surface is not about to get injured as the workman down below because the workman on the surface has God's light with him and he sees everything. Below, they got that little lamp to shine. He doesn't see anything and maybe unintentionally, the fellow underground runs into trouble he could have avoided if he had seen better.

Q. Were the mine owners concerned about safety in the mines?

A. I would say yes, because the government of the province of Nova Scotia enacted an act called the coal mine's regulation act. The minister of mines appointed a deputy minister. Well, that fellow was appointed to every district in the province. That fellow would travel the mine once a month and he was there to see if the regulations were carried out. If they weren't he'd come to the manager of the mine and tell him so. Besides that, the mine company saw to it that the coal mines regulation act was lived up to by the letter of the law.

Q. Can you relay any incidents that anybody got hurt in the Inverness mines?

A. Oh yeah. In the early days of the mine. At that time the coal miners was carrying loose powder. The powder was kept 100 feet below the surface. This morning there were lining up to get the powder. They had opened lights so one fellow would say he wants 50lbs. of powder and they would open it in the can. It appeared that one of these cans weren't closed all the way. A spark of the light went into the powder and an explosion occurred. There was ten of them burned, two of them badly burned. In fact, one of them died over it, a fellow named Mackenzie. The other fellow that was badly burned was John the piper. The others were more or less singed, but bad enough you know. We were very lucky at Inverness mines overall. We were more or less clear of gas and they maintained to keep the ventilation as good as they could. In fact, one side of the Inverness mine there was no gas at all but on the west side they would find gas there.