Interview with Douglas Landry Sampsonville. June 11, 2019 and Aug 15/19 follow up
Douglas: The mine had been opened several times before that. It was opened in the 30’s and I think probably in 1918 or something like that. And I think there had been a little mining done in the 1800’s down there from what I remember people saying. 1949 of course is when it was open. My father and quite a few other people- Jimmy Fougere, Ernest (Landry) and Roderick (Fougere).
Douglas: My father was one of the first fellows to go down.
Jeanette: That’s when they were constructing the mine, right?
Douglas: That’s when they first started
Jeanette: OK
Douglas: He went down in 1949. That’s when they first opened it or started ..
Jeanette: They were just starting to build it up then.
Douglas: He was just doing labour work at first. And he had cooked, of course, at the cozy corner for years. So, they wanted a cook down there, so he started cooking there and on his days off he did some work with Jimmy Fougere because Jimmy had built some buildings down there. But he mainly cooked down there pretty well until it closed up and it closed up in 1956. He was one of the first (to come) and one of the last to leave. Because they got him to stay behind to help dismantle the valves that they were sending out, he was the last person to be employed there. In between that, he had cooked there, he did some work with Jimmy as I said, and Gertie kept house for the Michaelson’s and cooked at the mine cook house.
Gertie and Willie’s House
My mother was down with him. They had no place to stay when they first went down. When Willie A first went down to Stirling, he rented a room from Mr. & Mrs MacLeod (John G.) then he rented a small building (from Willie P. Morrison). It was just one room that was little more than 10'x12', I guess, and that’s where they stayed. I remember him saying - the first few weeks he was down there, of course it was so hard to get back and forth, the roads were bad. There weren’t many vehicles. I remember him saying he broke branches off the trees to make a mattress. Laughter.
Jeanette: On the floor of that little house?
Douglas: Well I think he had built some kind of a little bunk. Then later on maybe 53 or something he bought what was an old post office. Well the building wasn’t old. But it was a post office down either in Framboise or Fourchu. They hauled it up there, and he made a two- room house – kitchen/living room, a little pantry and a bedroom. And when he finished down there he took it up here and that was the house we first used when we got married. There was nothing fancy there in Stirling.
Jeanette: They were temporary housing.
Jeanette: Do you know who owned the land your parents were on?
Douglas: Probably Morrison’s because we were right behind the store.
Jeanette: Where is that house now?
Douglas: It made the rounds when we were through with it. The last people who had it (before it burnt down) was Nancy Sampson. It was down at the foot of the hill by Martin Sampson’s.
Jeanette: OK. Now it’s gone.
Douglas It’s gone.
The smaller house
Jeanette: and the first little place the 10’x 12’ who knows where that went. But this place was bigger right?
Douglas: Oh yes, quite a bit bigger. The first little place was right small, enough for a stove and one bunk and a table.
Jeanette: Do you know if that was down the road to the Stirling mine?
Douglas: It was right behind Morrison’s store.
Jeanette: So, they put the bigger building…
Douglas: In front of it.
Jeanette: That little building had it stayed there.
Douglas: Yes
Jeanette: Did they use it for anything?
Douglas: No, I don’t think.
When Douglas started at the mine/the buildings
Douglas: I went down there in 51.
Jeanette: I think it was just getting going in 51. Before that, they were building the buildings.
Douglas: Even in 51 they were still building. All the buildings were made of Asbestos which today wouldn’t be allowed. Editor's note:– Harvey Freeman, Architect, notes, "In terms of cement asbestos board there were several different grades which I believe would equate among other things to the hardness of the material. Douglas commented on the product being hard to cut and had to be drilled before fasteners could be installed. I believe the softer grade did not have to be drilled – just drive nails into it. I am guessing what was used at Stirling was the harder grade which would stand up to wear and tear better but harder to work with. From a reuse point of view even if metal siding was not popular by 1957 the salvage value of cement asbestos would not have been very high.
I consulted my book Materials of Architecture (1965 ) re securing corrugated siding and roofing. The product came in two weights 2 pounds per sq. ft and 4 pounds per sq. ft but both had to be drilled before installing with nails.
Flat sheet could be nailed without drilling.
here is one more bit of information that some of your readers may be interested in.
Some will ask why flat sheet does not have to be drilled and corrugated material needs to be drilled.
Flat sheet is bearing directly on the wood framing and the nail punches a neat hole without breaking the sheet. Flat sheet was used for roof shingles. The library in Wolfville was originally a railway station built in 1914. A couple of years ago we were involved in re-roofing that building. The roof had lasted over 100 years but with some TLC but the original 1/8” thickness of cement asbestos was still about 1/8” thick.
Jeanette: So, all that stuff down there- that is all smashed up?
Douglas: A couple of years ago I went down there and the place was just riddled with Asbestos. Nobody cleaned it up. (Editor's note, Harvey Freeman, Arictect, notes, "In Douglas Landry's interview the observation was made that the present site is littered with broken cement board. By 1957 when the operation was closed cement board had been replaced by metal siding for industrial buildings. It was very difficult to remove the fasteners without breaking the siding so the siding was just smashed and the wood salvaged with fasteners still in place and these fasteners pulled out with a wrecking bar– that was a very hard substance. Asbestos cement siding has asbestos in it. If you hold up a broken piece of material, you will see the fibers sticking out of the edge. They salvaged wood and lead flashing because it was easy. But there was no use for second-hand cement asbestos siding.
Jeanette: I know, and I wonder . Why would they use that for the buildings?
Douglas: It was fireproof.
Jeanette: But all the buildings down there, I think even the bunkhouses and that (had this siding on them).
Douglas: Oh, yeah. It was probably because it was easy to put up although it was hard to cut. You had to have a special saw. You had to drill it. You just couldn’t drive a nail in it. So, it was slow going. And the first buildings they built were built with KB sheeting. It was sort of a panel board, but it would withstand weather. They used it up North in the mining companies. (Editor's note: Harvey Freeman, Architect, notes, "In Douglas Landry's interview the construction of the exterior wall of the bunk houses was discussed. Cement asbestos siding was invented back in the early 1900's and was a very durable product for an industrial operation but very drafty. Adding black faced KB board behind the cement board reduced drafts to a very great extent. As Douglas says the cement board was fairly fireproof but in this location I expect that was not a great concern, It was in large sheets, went up fast, did not have to be painted and had a very long life".
Jeanette: KB sheeting?
Douglas: Yes. It was black on the outside. And it was like tar. It would be about ¾ inch thick. Actually, this house – the first part of this house- that’s what I used on it. You could buy it from Morrison’s (St Peter’s). You could buy it anywhere. It was a good insulation and it would last outside for years.
Jeanette: And it was black and that’s what they put on some of the older buildings?
Douglas: Yes. They didn’t cover them at that time until they started building the bunk houses and the cook house and all that stuff. My father, like I said stayed there until late 56. It was July. He was shipping out the valves and pipes that were any good and stuff like that.
Water system and the water tank
Jeanette: What would they be used for - the valves and pipes? Would it be for the water system.
Douglas: It was the piping in around the building at the mine and underground and stuff like that. There was a lot of steel pipe. Now the water tank that was there – that was one of the first things they built. That was made of wood.
Douglas: I still have a piece of it here somewhere out back and Morrison’s bought it and took it when the mine closed to St Peter’s and St Peter’s used that water tank for years.
Jeanette: Really. So, Morrison’s sold it to the town of St Peter’s.
Douglas: Well, he took it up and basically – at that time, he was one of the Councillors and the County didn’t have that much money, so he just bought it and set it up on his property. Do you remember where the old school was – the old grey school- behind it. There’s a used clothing shop there now. Sort of behind the MacAskill house - that’s where he had it set up.
Douglas: And the piping came from the (Stirling) lake and it was a wood pipe. It was all slats.
Jeanette: So, the pipes that would go into the buildings would that be those stainless-steel pipes (mentioned earlier).
Douglas. No. It would be all wood pipes. It would be as big as this table here.
Jeanette: So that would be around 1 ½ feet diameter.
Douglas: Yes. It would be all slats, groove and tongue and it was tied with – special bands- I guess. (Editor's note: Harvey Freeman, Architect, has identified this system as "Wood Stave Piping" and has provided a link for further information about this system. To view it click here on Links.
Jeanette: So, that’s what the water went through. Why wouldn’t they use (steel) pipes.
Douglas: I guess they were too expensive. (Editor Note: Harvey notes the question was asked -"why wood and not metal? The answer would be on cost vs expected life of the operation. Metal pipe would have been much more expensive in an 18" diameter."
Jeanette: You said the lake. What lake was it? I think they used two lakes.
Douglas: No. They just used the lake down by Dan Alex MacLeod’s (Five Island Lake aka Stirling Lake). They had a couple of electric pumps, pumping out (the water from the lake).
Jeanette: Yes. There was a building there. We used to call it the pump house. I can remember the foundation. When we were kids we swam there.
Jeanette: And where would the pipes go from there? Across the road …?
Douglas: And though the fields. If you drive down through the mine and on your right going down there is kind of a hill up there. That’s where the tank was.
Jeanette: On the right not farther down like all the way through the mine, past the mill I think?
Douglas That was different piping through there. Smaller pipe.
The Mill
Douglas: The part of the mine that used most of the water was the mill and that’s where they crushed the stone that came from underground. It went through two crushers. One a big jaw crusher and the other one was a ball crusher.
Jeanette: So, the big crusher. Would that be over the other side where the ore came up from the underground. Would it be crushed there first?
Douglas: Yes.
Jeanette: Then go up on the conveyor belt to the ball mill?
Douglas: Yes. And these belts were run by an electric motor. Right though the mine there were hundreds of motors. And the stuff would go up on the belt and then fall into throughs and it would be the water that would separate the different types of minerals the copper, the Zinc, whatever else
Jeanette: Lead, silver, gold.
Douglas: It was called concentration. And, of course, the tailings of that just went down below the mill site and you probably can still see …
Jeanette: The sand. Yes.
Jeanette: When the ore came up after being crushed on the other side and went up on the conveyor belt, after it went into the through, then it went into the ball mill?
Douglas: And from there, it was just a fine dust and the water separated it because of the weight of the different metals.
Jeanette: In that ball mill, was there water in it too or was it just the ore?
Douglas: It was just the ore.
Jeanette: And it got powdered and then it got separated.
Douglas: Yes.
The heating system/the houses behind the bunkhouses/the houses behind John G’s
Jeanette: So those Valves and pipes you were talking about, those were things that kind of went through the whole boiler/heating system.
Douglas: Some of the houses, well there was a boiler system at the head frame. It burnt coal. So, they’d take truck loads of coal in and dump it in the big shoot and then it would go into the boiler and the boiler heated the buildings that were there. It was steam and there was a trench going up from where the head frame is to where their houses were. Where Michaelson’s …
Jeanette: Bunclark
Douglas: Yes. And there was another one. They were heated from that. And all the bunkhouses were heated, the cookhouse, the machine shop the electrical shop. All that stuff was heated by steam. Of course, it had to be black iron pipe for steam.
Jeanette: Bardswich’s was the other house on the left-hand side
Douglas: Yes
Jeanette: There was a road just before you got to the gate, I think, and it went up behind the bunkhouses and that’s where those three houses were in a row. Does that sound right to you?
Douglas: You could get to those houses – you didn’t have to go through the gate.
Jeanette: I think so. That’s what people have been telling me. Yes, it would go up and behind the bunkhouses.
Douglas: And they built two big bunkhouses. They built a big cookhouse. They built a number of buildings.
Douglas: On the other side, there were three houses first Jimmy Fougere had the contract to build them. And then there was the manager’s house, Chisholm, his name was. And that house is still at the meadows.
Jeanette: I was trying to find it the other day, but I couldn’t find it.
Douglas: I was in Sydney the other day. I saw it. It’s a two-story house and probably the best description would be, you know where the old garage was (on the corner of the Meadows road).
Jeanette Ok. Just at the Meadows road there’s an old motel in the back and just past that going.
Douglas: Going to Sydney. It’s a different color. It used to be white when it was in Stirling.
Jeanette: Ok. they must have painted it (or sided it). It used to be white.
Douglas: It seems to me it was greenish (blue).
Jeanette: There was another boss up on the right- hand side, MacLeod. He had a bigger house too but not as big as that one though.
Douglas: And this one was quite big, and it was hauled down there. It was the Miller, MacLeod, who hauled it down.
Jeanette: Yes
Douglas: I don’t know who bought it and took it, but I know Bob MacLennan: He was the MP for this area. He was a lawyer in Sydney - Terry MacLennan’s brother, he lived there for a while.
Jeanette: You said, “Jim Fougere”; did he build all those houses like Barswick’s and Michaelson’s
Douglas: He might have worked on them because he was there early on but later on he had a contract to build three houses on the other side where the manager’s house was.
Jeanette: So, on the right- hand side, behind John G’s there.
Jeanette: Was he from L’Ardoise?
Douglas: No, from Samsonville. He was my mother’s brother.
Jeanette: I think my father knew him.
Douglas; Oh yes he’d know him
Jeanette: Was there a Sampson fellow from L’Ardoise who built some more of those houses behind John G’s.
Douglas: Not that I know of.
The Electrician’s
Jeanette: You were an electrician. what did you do there? Did you wire all the houses and the buildings?
Douglas: I wasn’t alone. There was a bunch of us. There was an engineer and there was a supervisor. The two senior electricians were George Burke and Angus Bernard MacDonald from Port Hood. To tell you the truth, the guy; he wasn’t really the boss, but he was the guy that everybody went to when they’d have trouble at the mine with the electrical, was George Burke. He was from L’Ardoise. There was a LaForte fellow from Cheticamp. Bill Wright was the head Electrician. Angus just died here maybe 6 months ago. He was 105. Angus was a real nice guy.
Jeanette: Five electricians?
Douglas: Yes.
Jeanette: Did he, Angus, stay in the bunkhouses.
Douglas: oh, yeah and George Burke We all stayed at the bunkhouse. At first, the bunkhouse, I think I mentioned this earlier…
Jeanette: Yes, they were smaller and covered with the black siding.
Douglas: and later they had the big ones that were covered with Asbestos.
Jeanette: Between all of you, when they were building the bunkhouses and the other buildings, were you wiring them?
Douglas: Yes. I never went underground. I had an opportunity, but I was too chicken. Laughter.
Jeanette: Well, that was a good job to do above ground. There was lots of work involved in that. And when all the buildings were built, you still worked there as an electrician doing?
Douglas: There was always building going on until they decided to close it. At one point there, not long before they decided to close it, between the Miners and the workers, Construction workers, truck drivers, there were 520 people there working.
Other people who worked at the mine
Douglas: Kenneth MacEwen worked at the mine as a bookkeeper. Cecelia and Kenny MacEwen built a house down that road that Enos was on up by Murdock Dan’s.
Jeanette: Oh, around the lake.
Douglas: Gilbert Prime ran the Texico Garage across from the RCMP building St Peter’s and that’s where Malcolm MacDonald, from Sydney, who had the contract to have the ore from the Stirling Mine to St Peter’s, would repair especially big tires and springs. It was heavy work and in order to keep the trucks going, sometimes they would work to 11 O’clock 12 O’clock at night. Joe MacDonald, Harvey MacEwen and Gilbert Prime were working there sometime till midnight to have the trucks ready for the next day.
And a few of the drivers who worked for Malcolm were Percy Jackson and Phonse Cotie.
Burt MacDougall from Dundee worked at Danny Shaw’s store.
Jimmie Fougere had a contract to build a number of houses on the hill and also extra rooms on the schoolhouse with an upstairs room to stay in with a kitchen, bedroom
Melvin Sampson – staying in Stirling but was from Samsonville.
Douglas: Gus Sampson he worked there.
Jeanette: Do you know what he did.
Douglas: He was a miner. Martin Sampson worked down there. He worked in the machine shop; I believe. Enos Sampson of course which you know, he was at the gate. Then Jimmy Fougere. At first Jimmy worked as carpenter down there and then he did some contracting down there building those houses that were on the hill by MacLeod’s.
Jeanette: So, he was a private contractor for that, but he worked for the mine initially?
Douglas: Yeah. Then with him Roderick Fougere - that would be his brother, worked with him and Isaac (Fougere). They were both carpenters and they worked for Jimmy down there. And then Ernest Landry worked for Jimmy down there. And Harry Landry.
Jeanette: So they worked for Jimmy. They didn’t work for the mine.
Douglas: No not them.
Douglas: But Jimmy did work for the mine for a while. But these guys went down there after.
Jeanette: They’d be doing the construction work, building the houses and stuff.
Douglas: Yeah. And then I told you before, my father went down there. He did some labour work at first and then they needed a cook. He had cooked at the Cozy corner so they asked him to do the cooking. He was basically a pastry cook and then later when the mine closed, of course, he was asked to stay behind and ship up the equipment. There were pipes and valves and motors and big pieces of metal and anything that could be used again at some other mine, he shipped to another mine site.
Jeanette: Do you know where it went?
Douglas: No, I don’t. Something makes me think that some of it went to Quebec.
Jeanette: Right, the next place, I guess.
Douglas: And maybe some to Ontario, I’m not sure. It went outside the province anyway. He was one of the first people to be employed at the mine 1949 and was the last person to be employed when the mine closed 1956. His wife Gertie, who was my mother, also worked at the mine and she did some cooking with him when they needed extra help. And she also looked after Michaelson’s children and did her housework and there were a few other families that used to get her to look after their kids.
Jeanette: Someone was telling me, I can’t remember who, there was a Landry, that must have been Gertie. They said she’d go to their house (to look after the kids). Would that be right?
Douglas: Yeah, like the Michaelson’s and some others, she’d go up there and look after their kids. Michaelson, his wife’s name was Marta.
Douglas: My mother loved talking about the mine. If you would have talked to her about it, she would have talked to you all day. She could tell you everybody’s name.
Douglas: There were other people who worked at the mine site like Fred Digout from River Bourgeois. He was a carpenter. He worked there for Jim and Sam Fougere from River Bourgeois, he worked there for Jimmy.
Jeanette: What were they doing for him; That was a big project?
Douglas: Carpentry work.
Jeanette: So, they were the ones setting up the buildings?
Douglas: Mostly the houses and a few other buildings, yeah.
Jeanette: Do you have any idea how many houses were up behind MacLeod’s (John G’s)
Douglas: I think Jimmy had a contract for three one time and then he had another three and…He probably built nine houses up there. And he built the expansion on the school - the extra rooms and there was an upstairs in that for the teachers to stay in. And another fellow who worked down there that I didn’t mark here was Buddy Boudreau. He died just a few years ago. He lived in River Bourgeois and his brother (Austin) worked in the mine down there.
Douglas: And there was a Henry Pottie. He was known as “Big Henry Pottie” because there was two Henry Potties here in St Peter’s. He worked down in the mine.
Douglas: Alex MacDonnell from Inverness and later after the mine closed settled in St Peter’s – He had built a house on the road going from Stirling to Framboise. When the mine closed the house was moved to Meadows, Sydney Rd.
Douglas: If you talk to Jerry or Donnie (Alex’s sons). Jerry is always interested in it (the mine). I’m not sure what he remembers. What Jerry remembers is that his mother sent him and Donnie to Danny Shaw’s store to get a cabbage. She just wanted a small cabbage. They went into the bin where the cabbages were and there was no small one, so Donnie peeled all the leaves off it to make a small cabbage. He said there were leaves all over the place. Their house was moved to the Meadows there on the Sydney Highway.
Jeanette: Oh, who’s house?
Douglas: The MacDonnell’s house. Jerry can tell you. I don’t think it’s not very far from where the manager’s house is in Sydney.
Jeanette: That’s interesting. How big a house would it be?
Douglas: I don’t think it was very big. They had a lot of kids. There had to be a few bedrooms in it. I knew where they lived but I can’t picture the house right now. I think it was white. And, of course, the managers house that you know about was that big two storey house and that was hauled to the Meadows and it is still there. Dan Alex MacLeod moved it and he probably moved MacDonnell’s house too because I think he was the only guy who did that stuff.
Douglas: There were other MacDonnell’s from Port Hood up that way and there was a Walker man from Inverness who worked down there. And there were Timmons from Pleasant Bay. I remember them.
Jeanette: The Walkers, do you know what he did? I think in the end he was in one of the Company houses helping finishing things off.
Douglas: He was a miner - Duncan.
Jeanette: Yeah, that’s the same guy I’m talking about.
Douglas: Yeah. He could have been one of the last ones, but I know the last person there was my father because he was there all by himself.
Douglas: Burt MacDougall from Dundee worked at Danny Shaw’s store.
Jeanette: OK. You were saying Raymond and Ross’s father worked at the mine, Kenny Angus Ferguson.
Douglas: Yeah
Jeanette: I didn’t know that. And what did he do there?
Douglas: I don’t know if it was laborer or carpenter. He used to fish in the spring and…
Jeanette: And then he’d go work in the mine (after that)?
Douglas: Yeah
Douglas: There was a Goyetche from Isle Madame. There weren’t too many people from Isle Madam working there.
Jeanette: I wonder why? Because they all fished?
Douglas: I don’t know and Louisdale; There was nobody from Louisdale.
Douglas: There was a few from River Bourgeois: Buddy Boudreau, and his brother Austin Boudreau (mentioned above).
Jeanette: Were they miners?
Douglas: No Buddy worked with Jimmy, but Austin was a Miner and when he finished in Stirling he went to Sudbury, Ontario and he still lives there.
Jeanette: (Doug is saying that there was a guy from Big pond.) What was his name?
Douglas: White. He lived behind the Garage – it’s torn down now. It was MacNeil’s store then. He lived somewhere in behind there. (Editor's note- This man is Con White. He has been identified by his son Fred White. Con White lived on the Glengarry road in Big Pond. He was a cage operator at Stirling in the 50s)
Jeanette: There were no women working down in the mine, right?
Douglas: No, not in them days.
The truck drivers/Equipment Operators
Douglas: Yes. And there was a Westlake. He drove a truck. He was from Gabarus, I think.
Jeanette: Was he hauling the ore or working on maintenance.
Douglas: More or less maintenance.
Jeanette: There were two trucks that belonged to the mine and there were five trucks that belonged to Malcolm S. MacDonald. He had bigger trucks and the mine trucks were smaller.
Douglas: How Malcolm’s trucks were - back then, trucks aren’t big like they were today. They were just single wheeled trucks.
Jeanette: And his were just single wheels too?
Douglas: Yeah.
Jeanette: The mine trucks were a little smaller than that.
Douglas: They had a Mack there but that never left the site. And they had a bulldozer and they had a shovel and the front-end loader. And He went by the name of Johnson. He often operated the dozer and ...
Jeanette: Oh, Norman Johnson. He operated the crane and the shovel.
Douglas: Yes.
Jeanette: I interviewed his sister Diddy the other day. She used to work in the post office.
Jeanette: So, all that equipment, how was it maintained. Did they have a building where they had …?
Douglas: Well they had a machine shop and a sort of a garage. It was in the same building. It was just the guys working there, mechanics that would work on it.
Wages
Jeanette: And you were saying about the wages.
Douglas: The wages were always a little more than the union wages
Jeanette: Because they didn’t want them to start a union I guess.
Douglas: Yeah. Wages for a laborer was 90 cents an hour. On the highways the wages for a laborer was 70 cents so they were paying 90. In Sydney, union wages for carpenters, electricians, bricklayers were a dollar.. They were paying a dollar and ten cents (at the mine).
Jeanette: A little bit more, sort of as an incentive.
Douglas: Yeah.
Jeanette: You were telling me the miners - they got quite a bit of money because they got paid ..
Douglas: I don’t know. They got paid by the tonnage. They’d get a bonus besides that. They’d get paid twice a month. I think probably the 15th and probably the 30th. Compared to the others, they made big money. And some made real big money for back then.
Jeanette: And I think you were telling me they could work as many hours as they wanted.
Douglas: Yeah
Jeanette: So, they got a check for the regular and a check for their overtime and then they got a check for there bonus.
Douglas: Yeah. But working in Stirling, we were the same. We could work 8, 10, 12 hours a day but there was no such thing as time and a half.
Jeanette: So, no overtime (pay) then?
Douglas: No. The way the checks were, you got a check and each check would be a certain amount of money. Something makes me think it was 150 dollars or something like that and when you exceeded that, you’d get a check for the balance. But the miners, whenever they were getting their bonuses, they’d get three checks because it exceeded the (maximum) amount of the two checks.
The road conditions
Douglas: Some things that stick out more than others – well, one winter, we had absolutely no snow, not enough to make a snowball. That was 1951.The roads were terrible. You couldn’t get in and out. And they were just building the road from L’Ardoise to Stirling at that time. We went out the eight miles (stretch) and in the spring you wouldn’t dare go out in a car alone. You’d make sure somebody else came with you because you’d need lots of help to get through the mud puddles.
Jeanette: Would that be the trucks taking the ore up or you getting home?
Douglas: Well us getting home. But the trucks were hauling out of that road. And that year there was no snow and the next year there was so much snow that the ploughs that day couldn’t open the road over at Big Pond mountain. Norman Johnson had to go with the bulldozer. He spent three days getting the road open from Stirling to Big Pond.
Jeanette: Why did you have to have the road open to Big Pond because the ore was going to St Peter’s (through Framboise and Grand River)?
Douglas: But the managers and all that; they wanted to go to Sydney.
Jeanette: Most of the big trucks (carrying ore) went up through Framboise and Grand River, didn’t they?
Douglas: They dumped the stuff in the box cars in St Peter’s. It was all shipped up by train.
Jeanette: I came across a book “All Aboard” by William Calder. Murdock Morrison also told me about that process as he worked there (See Murdock Morrison’s interview for details).
The first bunkhouses
Jeanette: You were showing me a picture of a car beside the house you lived in.
Douglas: The mine had been opened several times before that. It was opened in the 30’s and I think probably in 1918 or something like that. And I think there had been a little mining done in the 1800’s down there from what I remember people saying. 1949 of course is when it was open. My father and quite a few other people- Jimmy Fougere, Ernest (Landry) and Roderick (Fougere).
Douglas: My father was one of the first fellows to go down.
Jeanette: That’s when they were constructing the mine, right?
Douglas: That’s when they first started
Jeanette: OK
Douglas: He went down in 1949. That’s when they first opened it or started ..
Jeanette: They were just starting to build it up then.
Douglas: He was just doing labour work at first. And he had cooked, of course, at the cozy corner for years. So, they wanted a cook down there, so he started cooking there and on his days off he did some work with Jimmy Fougere because Jimmy had built some buildings down there. But he mainly cooked down there pretty well until it closed up and it closed up in 1956. He was one of the first (to come) and one of the last to leave. Because they got him to stay behind to help dismantle the valves that they were sending out, he was the last person to be employed there. In between that, he had cooked there, he did some work with Jimmy as I said, and Gertie kept house for the Michaelson’s and cooked at the mine cook house.
Gertie and Willie’s House
My mother was down with him. They had no place to stay when they first went down. When Willie A first went down to Stirling, he rented a room from Mr. & Mrs MacLeod (John G.) then he rented a small building (from Willie P. Morrison). It was just one room that was little more than 10'x12', I guess, and that’s where they stayed. I remember him saying - the first few weeks he was down there, of course it was so hard to get back and forth, the roads were bad. There weren’t many vehicles. I remember him saying he broke branches off the trees to make a mattress. Laughter.
Jeanette: On the floor of that little house?
Douglas: Well I think he had built some kind of a little bunk. Then later on maybe 53 or something he bought what was an old post office. Well the building wasn’t old. But it was a post office down either in Framboise or Fourchu. They hauled it up there, and he made a two- room house – kitchen/living room, a little pantry and a bedroom. And when he finished down there he took it up here and that was the house we first used when we got married. There was nothing fancy there in Stirling.
Jeanette: They were temporary housing.
Jeanette: Do you know who owned the land your parents were on?
Douglas: Probably Morrison’s because we were right behind the store.
Jeanette: Where is that house now?
Douglas: It made the rounds when we were through with it. The last people who had it (before it burnt down) was Nancy Sampson. It was down at the foot of the hill by Martin Sampson’s.
Jeanette: OK. Now it’s gone.
Douglas It’s gone.
The smaller house
Jeanette: and the first little place the 10’x 12’ who knows where that went. But this place was bigger right?
Douglas: Oh yes, quite a bit bigger. The first little place was right small, enough for a stove and one bunk and a table.
Jeanette: Do you know if that was down the road to the Stirling mine?
Douglas: It was right behind Morrison’s store.
Jeanette: So, they put the bigger building…
Douglas: In front of it.
Jeanette: That little building had it stayed there.
Douglas: Yes
Jeanette: Did they use it for anything?
Douglas: No, I don’t think.
When Douglas started at the mine/the buildings
Douglas: I went down there in 51.
Jeanette: I think it was just getting going in 51. Before that, they were building the buildings.
Douglas: Even in 51 they were still building. All the buildings were made of Asbestos which today wouldn’t be allowed. Editor's note:– Harvey Freeman, Architect, notes, "In terms of cement asbestos board there were several different grades which I believe would equate among other things to the hardness of the material. Douglas commented on the product being hard to cut and had to be drilled before fasteners could be installed. I believe the softer grade did not have to be drilled – just drive nails into it. I am guessing what was used at Stirling was the harder grade which would stand up to wear and tear better but harder to work with. From a reuse point of view even if metal siding was not popular by 1957 the salvage value of cement asbestos would not have been very high.
I consulted my book Materials of Architecture (1965 ) re securing corrugated siding and roofing. The product came in two weights 2 pounds per sq. ft and 4 pounds per sq. ft but both had to be drilled before installing with nails.
Flat sheet could be nailed without drilling.
here is one more bit of information that some of your readers may be interested in.
Some will ask why flat sheet does not have to be drilled and corrugated material needs to be drilled.
Flat sheet is bearing directly on the wood framing and the nail punches a neat hole without breaking the sheet. Flat sheet was used for roof shingles. The library in Wolfville was originally a railway station built in 1914. A couple of years ago we were involved in re-roofing that building. The roof had lasted over 100 years but with some TLC but the original 1/8” thickness of cement asbestos was still about 1/8” thick.
Jeanette: So, all that stuff down there- that is all smashed up?
Douglas: A couple of years ago I went down there and the place was just riddled with Asbestos. Nobody cleaned it up. (Editor's note, Harvey Freeman, Arictect, notes, "In Douglas Landry's interview the observation was made that the present site is littered with broken cement board. By 1957 when the operation was closed cement board had been replaced by metal siding for industrial buildings. It was very difficult to remove the fasteners without breaking the siding so the siding was just smashed and the wood salvaged with fasteners still in place and these fasteners pulled out with a wrecking bar– that was a very hard substance. Asbestos cement siding has asbestos in it. If you hold up a broken piece of material, you will see the fibers sticking out of the edge. They salvaged wood and lead flashing because it was easy. But there was no use for second-hand cement asbestos siding.
Jeanette: I know, and I wonder . Why would they use that for the buildings?
Douglas: It was fireproof.
Jeanette: But all the buildings down there, I think even the bunkhouses and that (had this siding on them).
Douglas: Oh, yeah. It was probably because it was easy to put up although it was hard to cut. You had to have a special saw. You had to drill it. You just couldn’t drive a nail in it. So, it was slow going. And the first buildings they built were built with KB sheeting. It was sort of a panel board, but it would withstand weather. They used it up North in the mining companies. (Editor's note: Harvey Freeman, Architect, notes, "In Douglas Landry's interview the construction of the exterior wall of the bunk houses was discussed. Cement asbestos siding was invented back in the early 1900's and was a very durable product for an industrial operation but very drafty. Adding black faced KB board behind the cement board reduced drafts to a very great extent. As Douglas says the cement board was fairly fireproof but in this location I expect that was not a great concern, It was in large sheets, went up fast, did not have to be painted and had a very long life".
Jeanette: KB sheeting?
Douglas: Yes. It was black on the outside. And it was like tar. It would be about ¾ inch thick. Actually, this house – the first part of this house- that’s what I used on it. You could buy it from Morrison’s (St Peter’s). You could buy it anywhere. It was a good insulation and it would last outside for years.
Jeanette: And it was black and that’s what they put on some of the older buildings?
Douglas: Yes. They didn’t cover them at that time until they started building the bunk houses and the cook house and all that stuff. My father, like I said stayed there until late 56. It was July. He was shipping out the valves and pipes that were any good and stuff like that.
Water system and the water tank
Jeanette: What would they be used for - the valves and pipes? Would it be for the water system.
Douglas: It was the piping in around the building at the mine and underground and stuff like that. There was a lot of steel pipe. Now the water tank that was there – that was one of the first things they built. That was made of wood.
Douglas: I still have a piece of it here somewhere out back and Morrison’s bought it and took it when the mine closed to St Peter’s and St Peter’s used that water tank for years.
Jeanette: Really. So, Morrison’s sold it to the town of St Peter’s.
Douglas: Well, he took it up and basically – at that time, he was one of the Councillors and the County didn’t have that much money, so he just bought it and set it up on his property. Do you remember where the old school was – the old grey school- behind it. There’s a used clothing shop there now. Sort of behind the MacAskill house - that’s where he had it set up.
Douglas: And the piping came from the (Stirling) lake and it was a wood pipe. It was all slats.
Jeanette: So, the pipes that would go into the buildings would that be those stainless-steel pipes (mentioned earlier).
Douglas. No. It would be all wood pipes. It would be as big as this table here.
Jeanette: So that would be around 1 ½ feet diameter.
Douglas: Yes. It would be all slats, groove and tongue and it was tied with – special bands- I guess. (Editor's note: Harvey Freeman, Architect, has identified this system as "Wood Stave Piping" and has provided a link for further information about this system. To view it click here on Links.
Jeanette: So, that’s what the water went through. Why wouldn’t they use (steel) pipes.
Douglas: I guess they were too expensive. (Editor Note: Harvey notes the question was asked -"why wood and not metal? The answer would be on cost vs expected life of the operation. Metal pipe would have been much more expensive in an 18" diameter."
Jeanette: You said the lake. What lake was it? I think they used two lakes.
Douglas: No. They just used the lake down by Dan Alex MacLeod’s (Five Island Lake aka Stirling Lake). They had a couple of electric pumps, pumping out (the water from the lake).
Jeanette: Yes. There was a building there. We used to call it the pump house. I can remember the foundation. When we were kids we swam there.
Jeanette: And where would the pipes go from there? Across the road …?
Douglas: And though the fields. If you drive down through the mine and on your right going down there is kind of a hill up there. That’s where the tank was.
Jeanette: On the right not farther down like all the way through the mine, past the mill I think?
Douglas That was different piping through there. Smaller pipe.
The Mill
Douglas: The part of the mine that used most of the water was the mill and that’s where they crushed the stone that came from underground. It went through two crushers. One a big jaw crusher and the other one was a ball crusher.
Jeanette: So, the big crusher. Would that be over the other side where the ore came up from the underground. Would it be crushed there first?
Douglas: Yes.
Jeanette: Then go up on the conveyor belt to the ball mill?
Douglas: Yes. And these belts were run by an electric motor. Right though the mine there were hundreds of motors. And the stuff would go up on the belt and then fall into throughs and it would be the water that would separate the different types of minerals the copper, the Zinc, whatever else
Jeanette: Lead, silver, gold.
Douglas: It was called concentration. And, of course, the tailings of that just went down below the mill site and you probably can still see …
Jeanette: The sand. Yes.
Jeanette: When the ore came up after being crushed on the other side and went up on the conveyor belt, after it went into the through, then it went into the ball mill?
Douglas: And from there, it was just a fine dust and the water separated it because of the weight of the different metals.
Jeanette: In that ball mill, was there water in it too or was it just the ore?
Douglas: It was just the ore.
Jeanette: And it got powdered and then it got separated.
Douglas: Yes.
The heating system/the houses behind the bunkhouses/the houses behind John G’s
Jeanette: So those Valves and pipes you were talking about, those were things that kind of went through the whole boiler/heating system.
Douglas: Some of the houses, well there was a boiler system at the head frame. It burnt coal. So, they’d take truck loads of coal in and dump it in the big shoot and then it would go into the boiler and the boiler heated the buildings that were there. It was steam and there was a trench going up from where the head frame is to where their houses were. Where Michaelson’s …
Jeanette: Bunclark
Douglas: Yes. And there was another one. They were heated from that. And all the bunkhouses were heated, the cookhouse, the machine shop the electrical shop. All that stuff was heated by steam. Of course, it had to be black iron pipe for steam.
Jeanette: Bardswich’s was the other house on the left-hand side
Douglas: Yes
Jeanette: There was a road just before you got to the gate, I think, and it went up behind the bunkhouses and that’s where those three houses were in a row. Does that sound right to you?
Douglas: You could get to those houses – you didn’t have to go through the gate.
Jeanette: I think so. That’s what people have been telling me. Yes, it would go up and behind the bunkhouses.
Douglas: And they built two big bunkhouses. They built a big cookhouse. They built a number of buildings.
Douglas: On the other side, there were three houses first Jimmy Fougere had the contract to build them. And then there was the manager’s house, Chisholm, his name was. And that house is still at the meadows.
Jeanette: I was trying to find it the other day, but I couldn’t find it.
Douglas: I was in Sydney the other day. I saw it. It’s a two-story house and probably the best description would be, you know where the old garage was (on the corner of the Meadows road).
Jeanette Ok. Just at the Meadows road there’s an old motel in the back and just past that going.
Douglas: Going to Sydney. It’s a different color. It used to be white when it was in Stirling.
Jeanette: Ok. they must have painted it (or sided it). It used to be white.
Douglas: It seems to me it was greenish (blue).
Jeanette: There was another boss up on the right- hand side, MacLeod. He had a bigger house too but not as big as that one though.
Douglas: And this one was quite big, and it was hauled down there. It was the Miller, MacLeod, who hauled it down.
Jeanette: Yes
Douglas: I don’t know who bought it and took it, but I know Bob MacLennan: He was the MP for this area. He was a lawyer in Sydney - Terry MacLennan’s brother, he lived there for a while.
Jeanette: You said, “Jim Fougere”; did he build all those houses like Barswick’s and Michaelson’s
Douglas: He might have worked on them because he was there early on but later on he had a contract to build three houses on the other side where the manager’s house was.
Jeanette: So, on the right- hand side, behind John G’s there.
Jeanette: Was he from L’Ardoise?
Douglas: No, from Samsonville. He was my mother’s brother.
Jeanette: I think my father knew him.
Douglas; Oh yes he’d know him
Jeanette: Was there a Sampson fellow from L’Ardoise who built some more of those houses behind John G’s.
Douglas: Not that I know of.
The Electrician’s
Jeanette: You were an electrician. what did you do there? Did you wire all the houses and the buildings?
Douglas: I wasn’t alone. There was a bunch of us. There was an engineer and there was a supervisor. The two senior electricians were George Burke and Angus Bernard MacDonald from Port Hood. To tell you the truth, the guy; he wasn’t really the boss, but he was the guy that everybody went to when they’d have trouble at the mine with the electrical, was George Burke. He was from L’Ardoise. There was a LaForte fellow from Cheticamp. Bill Wright was the head Electrician. Angus just died here maybe 6 months ago. He was 105. Angus was a real nice guy.
Jeanette: Five electricians?
Douglas: Yes.
Jeanette: Did he, Angus, stay in the bunkhouses.
Douglas: oh, yeah and George Burke We all stayed at the bunkhouse. At first, the bunkhouse, I think I mentioned this earlier…
Jeanette: Yes, they were smaller and covered with the black siding.
Douglas: and later they had the big ones that were covered with Asbestos.
Jeanette: Between all of you, when they were building the bunkhouses and the other buildings, were you wiring them?
Douglas: Yes. I never went underground. I had an opportunity, but I was too chicken. Laughter.
Jeanette: Well, that was a good job to do above ground. There was lots of work involved in that. And when all the buildings were built, you still worked there as an electrician doing?
Douglas: There was always building going on until they decided to close it. At one point there, not long before they decided to close it, between the Miners and the workers, Construction workers, truck drivers, there were 520 people there working.
Other people who worked at the mine
Douglas: Kenneth MacEwen worked at the mine as a bookkeeper. Cecelia and Kenny MacEwen built a house down that road that Enos was on up by Murdock Dan’s.
Jeanette: Oh, around the lake.
Douglas: Gilbert Prime ran the Texico Garage across from the RCMP building St Peter’s and that’s where Malcolm MacDonald, from Sydney, who had the contract to have the ore from the Stirling Mine to St Peter’s, would repair especially big tires and springs. It was heavy work and in order to keep the trucks going, sometimes they would work to 11 O’clock 12 O’clock at night. Joe MacDonald, Harvey MacEwen and Gilbert Prime were working there sometime till midnight to have the trucks ready for the next day.
And a few of the drivers who worked for Malcolm were Percy Jackson and Phonse Cotie.
Burt MacDougall from Dundee worked at Danny Shaw’s store.
Jimmie Fougere had a contract to build a number of houses on the hill and also extra rooms on the schoolhouse with an upstairs room to stay in with a kitchen, bedroom
Melvin Sampson – staying in Stirling but was from Samsonville.
Douglas: Gus Sampson he worked there.
Jeanette: Do you know what he did.
Douglas: He was a miner. Martin Sampson worked down there. He worked in the machine shop; I believe. Enos Sampson of course which you know, he was at the gate. Then Jimmy Fougere. At first Jimmy worked as carpenter down there and then he did some contracting down there building those houses that were on the hill by MacLeod’s.
Jeanette: So, he was a private contractor for that, but he worked for the mine initially?
Douglas: Yeah. Then with him Roderick Fougere - that would be his brother, worked with him and Isaac (Fougere). They were both carpenters and they worked for Jimmy down there. And then Ernest Landry worked for Jimmy down there. And Harry Landry.
Jeanette: So they worked for Jimmy. They didn’t work for the mine.
Douglas: No not them.
Douglas: But Jimmy did work for the mine for a while. But these guys went down there after.
Jeanette: They’d be doing the construction work, building the houses and stuff.
Douglas: Yeah. And then I told you before, my father went down there. He did some labour work at first and then they needed a cook. He had cooked at the Cozy corner so they asked him to do the cooking. He was basically a pastry cook and then later when the mine closed, of course, he was asked to stay behind and ship up the equipment. There were pipes and valves and motors and big pieces of metal and anything that could be used again at some other mine, he shipped to another mine site.
Jeanette: Do you know where it went?
Douglas: No, I don’t. Something makes me think that some of it went to Quebec.
Jeanette: Right, the next place, I guess.
Douglas: And maybe some to Ontario, I’m not sure. It went outside the province anyway. He was one of the first people to be employed at the mine 1949 and was the last person to be employed when the mine closed 1956. His wife Gertie, who was my mother, also worked at the mine and she did some cooking with him when they needed extra help. And she also looked after Michaelson’s children and did her housework and there were a few other families that used to get her to look after their kids.
Jeanette: Someone was telling me, I can’t remember who, there was a Landry, that must have been Gertie. They said she’d go to their house (to look after the kids). Would that be right?
Douglas: Yeah, like the Michaelson’s and some others, she’d go up there and look after their kids. Michaelson, his wife’s name was Marta.
Douglas: My mother loved talking about the mine. If you would have talked to her about it, she would have talked to you all day. She could tell you everybody’s name.
Douglas: There were other people who worked at the mine site like Fred Digout from River Bourgeois. He was a carpenter. He worked there for Jim and Sam Fougere from River Bourgeois, he worked there for Jimmy.
Jeanette: What were they doing for him; That was a big project?
Douglas: Carpentry work.
Jeanette: So, they were the ones setting up the buildings?
Douglas: Mostly the houses and a few other buildings, yeah.
Jeanette: Do you have any idea how many houses were up behind MacLeod’s (John G’s)
Douglas: I think Jimmy had a contract for three one time and then he had another three and…He probably built nine houses up there. And he built the expansion on the school - the extra rooms and there was an upstairs in that for the teachers to stay in. And another fellow who worked down there that I didn’t mark here was Buddy Boudreau. He died just a few years ago. He lived in River Bourgeois and his brother (Austin) worked in the mine down there.
Douglas: And there was a Henry Pottie. He was known as “Big Henry Pottie” because there was two Henry Potties here in St Peter’s. He worked down in the mine.
Douglas: Alex MacDonnell from Inverness and later after the mine closed settled in St Peter’s – He had built a house on the road going from Stirling to Framboise. When the mine closed the house was moved to Meadows, Sydney Rd.
Douglas: If you talk to Jerry or Donnie (Alex’s sons). Jerry is always interested in it (the mine). I’m not sure what he remembers. What Jerry remembers is that his mother sent him and Donnie to Danny Shaw’s store to get a cabbage. She just wanted a small cabbage. They went into the bin where the cabbages were and there was no small one, so Donnie peeled all the leaves off it to make a small cabbage. He said there were leaves all over the place. Their house was moved to the Meadows there on the Sydney Highway.
Jeanette: Oh, who’s house?
Douglas: The MacDonnell’s house. Jerry can tell you. I don’t think it’s not very far from where the manager’s house is in Sydney.
Jeanette: That’s interesting. How big a house would it be?
Douglas: I don’t think it was very big. They had a lot of kids. There had to be a few bedrooms in it. I knew where they lived but I can’t picture the house right now. I think it was white. And, of course, the managers house that you know about was that big two storey house and that was hauled to the Meadows and it is still there. Dan Alex MacLeod moved it and he probably moved MacDonnell’s house too because I think he was the only guy who did that stuff.
Douglas: There were other MacDonnell’s from Port Hood up that way and there was a Walker man from Inverness who worked down there. And there were Timmons from Pleasant Bay. I remember them.
Jeanette: The Walkers, do you know what he did? I think in the end he was in one of the Company houses helping finishing things off.
Douglas: He was a miner - Duncan.
Jeanette: Yeah, that’s the same guy I’m talking about.
Douglas: Yeah. He could have been one of the last ones, but I know the last person there was my father because he was there all by himself.
Douglas: Burt MacDougall from Dundee worked at Danny Shaw’s store.
Jeanette: OK. You were saying Raymond and Ross’s father worked at the mine, Kenny Angus Ferguson.
Douglas: Yeah
Jeanette: I didn’t know that. And what did he do there?
Douglas: I don’t know if it was laborer or carpenter. He used to fish in the spring and…
Jeanette: And then he’d go work in the mine (after that)?
Douglas: Yeah
Douglas: There was a Goyetche from Isle Madame. There weren’t too many people from Isle Madam working there.
Jeanette: I wonder why? Because they all fished?
Douglas: I don’t know and Louisdale; There was nobody from Louisdale.
Douglas: There was a few from River Bourgeois: Buddy Boudreau, and his brother Austin Boudreau (mentioned above).
Jeanette: Were they miners?
Douglas: No Buddy worked with Jimmy, but Austin was a Miner and when he finished in Stirling he went to Sudbury, Ontario and he still lives there.
Jeanette: (Doug is saying that there was a guy from Big pond.) What was his name?
Douglas: White. He lived behind the Garage – it’s torn down now. It was MacNeil’s store then. He lived somewhere in behind there. (Editor's note- This man is Con White. He has been identified by his son Fred White. Con White lived on the Glengarry road in Big Pond. He was a cage operator at Stirling in the 50s)
Jeanette: There were no women working down in the mine, right?
Douglas: No, not in them days.
The truck drivers/Equipment Operators
Douglas: Yes. And there was a Westlake. He drove a truck. He was from Gabarus, I think.
Jeanette: Was he hauling the ore or working on maintenance.
Douglas: More or less maintenance.
Jeanette: There were two trucks that belonged to the mine and there were five trucks that belonged to Malcolm S. MacDonald. He had bigger trucks and the mine trucks were smaller.
Douglas: How Malcolm’s trucks were - back then, trucks aren’t big like they were today. They were just single wheeled trucks.
Jeanette: And his were just single wheels too?
Douglas: Yeah.
Jeanette: The mine trucks were a little smaller than that.
Douglas: They had a Mack there but that never left the site. And they had a bulldozer and they had a shovel and the front-end loader. And He went by the name of Johnson. He often operated the dozer and ...
Jeanette: Oh, Norman Johnson. He operated the crane and the shovel.
Douglas: Yes.
Jeanette: I interviewed his sister Diddy the other day. She used to work in the post office.
Jeanette: So, all that equipment, how was it maintained. Did they have a building where they had …?
Douglas: Well they had a machine shop and a sort of a garage. It was in the same building. It was just the guys working there, mechanics that would work on it.
Wages
Jeanette: And you were saying about the wages.
Douglas: The wages were always a little more than the union wages
Jeanette: Because they didn’t want them to start a union I guess.
Douglas: Yeah. Wages for a laborer was 90 cents an hour. On the highways the wages for a laborer was 70 cents so they were paying 90. In Sydney, union wages for carpenters, electricians, bricklayers were a dollar.. They were paying a dollar and ten cents (at the mine).
Jeanette: A little bit more, sort of as an incentive.
Douglas: Yeah.
Jeanette: You were telling me the miners - they got quite a bit of money because they got paid ..
Douglas: I don’t know. They got paid by the tonnage. They’d get a bonus besides that. They’d get paid twice a month. I think probably the 15th and probably the 30th. Compared to the others, they made big money. And some made real big money for back then.
Jeanette: And I think you were telling me they could work as many hours as they wanted.
Douglas: Yeah
Jeanette: So, they got a check for the regular and a check for their overtime and then they got a check for there bonus.
Douglas: Yeah. But working in Stirling, we were the same. We could work 8, 10, 12 hours a day but there was no such thing as time and a half.
Jeanette: So, no overtime (pay) then?
Douglas: No. The way the checks were, you got a check and each check would be a certain amount of money. Something makes me think it was 150 dollars or something like that and when you exceeded that, you’d get a check for the balance. But the miners, whenever they were getting their bonuses, they’d get three checks because it exceeded the (maximum) amount of the two checks.
The road conditions
Douglas: Some things that stick out more than others – well, one winter, we had absolutely no snow, not enough to make a snowball. That was 1951.The roads were terrible. You couldn’t get in and out. And they were just building the road from L’Ardoise to Stirling at that time. We went out the eight miles (stretch) and in the spring you wouldn’t dare go out in a car alone. You’d make sure somebody else came with you because you’d need lots of help to get through the mud puddles.
Jeanette: Would that be the trucks taking the ore up or you getting home?
Douglas: Well us getting home. But the trucks were hauling out of that road. And that year there was no snow and the next year there was so much snow that the ploughs that day couldn’t open the road over at Big Pond mountain. Norman Johnson had to go with the bulldozer. He spent three days getting the road open from Stirling to Big Pond.
Jeanette: Why did you have to have the road open to Big Pond because the ore was going to St Peter’s (through Framboise and Grand River)?
Douglas: But the managers and all that; they wanted to go to Sydney.
Jeanette: Most of the big trucks (carrying ore) went up through Framboise and Grand River, didn’t they?
Douglas: They dumped the stuff in the box cars in St Peter’s. It was all shipped up by train.
Jeanette: I came across a book “All Aboard” by William Calder. Murdock Morrison also told me about that process as he worked there (See Murdock Morrison’s interview for details).
The first bunkhouses
Jeanette: You were showing me a picture of a car beside the house you lived in.
.
Douglas: That was MacDonnell’s car. Not Alex but maybe a relative. They were from Port Hood or Mabou, up that way. My mother and father often travelled with them.
Jeanette: They would stay down during the week; Would they be staying in the bunkhouse?
Douglas: The first bunkhouses were just buildings with that KP Sheeting and there was one down just below where Mom and Daddy had that building between that and the gate.
Jeanette: So, do you think the building they used for the theatre was one of those old bunkhouses.
Douglas: It could have been afterward.
Jeanette: That (the theatre) would have been right across from the Chinese restaurant. It would have been in the same vicinity, right?
Douglas: Yeah. And then there was one on the opposite side of the road. There was like three bunk houses there.
Jeanette: So, past the Chinese restaurant there may have been another one of those older bunkhouses there?
Douglas: Yes
See photo below provided by Douglas The two buildings on the left and the third building straight ahead in the foreground were the three old bunkhouses.
Douglas: That was MacDonnell’s car. Not Alex but maybe a relative. They were from Port Hood or Mabou, up that way. My mother and father often travelled with them.
Jeanette: They would stay down during the week; Would they be staying in the bunkhouse?
Douglas: The first bunkhouses were just buildings with that KP Sheeting and there was one down just below where Mom and Daddy had that building between that and the gate.
Jeanette: So, do you think the building they used for the theatre was one of those old bunkhouses.
Douglas: It could have been afterward.
Jeanette: That (the theatre) would have been right across from the Chinese restaurant. It would have been in the same vicinity, right?
Douglas: Yeah. And then there was one on the opposite side of the road. There was like three bunk houses there.
Jeanette: So, past the Chinese restaurant there may have been another one of those older bunkhouses there?
Douglas: Yes
See photo below provided by Douglas The two buildings on the left and the third building straight ahead in the foreground were the three old bunkhouses.
Baseball
Jeanette: (Looking at Douglas’ picture of the Jr baseball team below). And this was the Jr baseball team.
Jeanette: (Looking at Douglas’ picture of the Jr baseball team below). And this was the Jr baseball team.
Douglas: See the M for Mindemar Metals.
Jeanette: So, they had a kid’s team?
Douglas: Yeah.
Jeanette: Do you remember a man there who was into sports, maybe he’d be a Recreation Director? His name was Eddie Murrin from Glace Bay.
Douglas: No
Jeanette. Who would get this organized?
Douglas: I guess the people down there. Michaelson was good at doing stuff like that.
The Stores
J Is that Morrison’s store there (in the background).
Douglas: Yeah
Jeanette: Is that the back of it or the side of it?
Douglas: The back of it. It was practically on the road.
Jeanette: So, they had a kid’s team?
Douglas: Yeah.
Jeanette: Do you remember a man there who was into sports, maybe he’d be a Recreation Director? His name was Eddie Murrin from Glace Bay.
Douglas: No
Jeanette. Who would get this organized?
Douglas: I guess the people down there. Michaelson was good at doing stuff like that.
The Stores
J Is that Morrison’s store there (in the background).
Douglas: Yeah
Jeanette: Is that the back of it or the side of it?
Douglas: The back of it. It was practically on the road.
Looking at picture of Kimona above
Douglas: Actually, that’s kind of a gown. That’s something that Daddy had won at the Chinese restaurant. Ernest Landry has it on there. It was around for years and years.
Jeanette: Who is the man next to Ernest Landry.
Douglas: Jimmy Fougere.
Jeanette: And where was this picture taken
Douglas: At mom’s house across the way (Samsonville).
Jeanette: So, they won it. It looks like a Kimono.
Douglas: It was fancy. There was a lot of beads and stuff like that. And how he won it was: There were jellybeans in a jar, and you had to guess how many jellybeans and what he did one weekend, mom was up (in Sampsonville). He had to work I guess. And what he did was - he had a jar about the same size and he bought all the jelly beans that was at the Morrison’s store, I guess, and he filled it to about the same height as there was in the other jar and then, he counted them, so he was the closest. Laughter.
Jeanette: Do you remember the Chinese restaurant?
Douglas: Yes, somewhat. I remember Danny Shaw’s store and Hooper’s store. Burt MacDougal worked at Danny Shaw’s store.
Jeannette: Sadie MacDonald and Jessie Savoie worked there too.
Douglas: Probably, but Burt worked there a long time.
Jeanette: Where was he from?
Douglas: Dundee. His wife is still living.
Jeanette: And where would they be staying down there (in Stirling).
Douglas: Burt would be by himself.
Jeanette: In the bunkhouse.
Douglas: More than likely.
Douglas: shows Jeanette the picture of the mine in the 30’s.
Douglas: Actually, that’s kind of a gown. That’s something that Daddy had won at the Chinese restaurant. Ernest Landry has it on there. It was around for years and years.
Jeanette: Who is the man next to Ernest Landry.
Douglas: Jimmy Fougere.
Jeanette: And where was this picture taken
Douglas: At mom’s house across the way (Samsonville).
Jeanette: So, they won it. It looks like a Kimono.
Douglas: It was fancy. There was a lot of beads and stuff like that. And how he won it was: There were jellybeans in a jar, and you had to guess how many jellybeans and what he did one weekend, mom was up (in Sampsonville). He had to work I guess. And what he did was - he had a jar about the same size and he bought all the jelly beans that was at the Morrison’s store, I guess, and he filled it to about the same height as there was in the other jar and then, he counted them, so he was the closest. Laughter.
Jeanette: Do you remember the Chinese restaurant?
Douglas: Yes, somewhat. I remember Danny Shaw’s store and Hooper’s store. Burt MacDougal worked at Danny Shaw’s store.
Jeannette: Sadie MacDonald and Jessie Savoie worked there too.
Douglas: Probably, but Burt worked there a long time.
Jeanette: Where was he from?
Douglas: Dundee. His wife is still living.
Jeanette: And where would they be staying down there (in Stirling).
Douglas: Burt would be by himself.
Jeanette: In the bunkhouse.
Douglas: More than likely.
Douglas: shows Jeanette the picture of the mine in the 30’s.
Douglas: This is a different set up. This is the conveyor belt. The last time (the mine ran the conveyor belt) was much longer than that.
Jeanette: Yes. It went a long span.
Douglas: We weren’t supposed to do this, but our shop was down here. We’d walk up to the head frame and jump on the conveyor belt and go up to the mill.
Jeanette: A lot of people did that in the mining days.
The school
Douglas: The first one down there was a one room school. Then they built a second room on it. Then they built a third one. I know we went down to wire it. And upstairs was a place for the teacher to stay.
Jeanette: Was it an apartment or was it just one big open room? Did it have a stove and a fridge?
Douglas: Well there was a stove and a little bedroom, sort of, partitioned off and there was a bathroom too.
Jeanette: That would be good to have, in those days.
Douglas: Back then you’d be lucky to have a bed. There had to be some kind of heat, some sort of furnace they put in. It wasn’t heated from the mine because it was too far away. I think it was more an open space up there. I don’t think it was an apartment or anything.
Douglas: One of the first teachers after that was built was Marie MacDonald from Johnstown. She married John Burke.
Jeanette: Did she meet him at the mine?
Douglas: No, after that.
Jeanette: The community would have owned it (the school). Would the mine have done that?
Douglas: Well the community owned the first part, but the mine did the rest of it. They built the room on and then they put a roof on. It would have been Jimmy Fougere who did that.
Jeanette: He got a contract from the mine to do that?
Douglas: And Melvina Sampson. Irene’s sister, worked there. She taught there too around the time the mine was working.
Jeanette: Oh, did she?
Douglas: Yeah. Well it might have been a little after because she came to St Peters for her grade 12. She didn’t have a teacher’s license.
The Catholic Church
Douglas: Then they had a little church down toward the eight-mile stretch.
Jeanette: Yes. We called it the Catholic church. Now who built that; was that the mine?.
Douglas: No. I don’t think. It must be the Johnstown Parish. It was the same priest he came there on Sunday.
Jeanette: Do you remember what his name was?
Note see excerpt from Johnstown website –Among the events of Father Dan. E. MacDonald’s pastorate were the erection of a large addition to the Johnstown Academy and the opening of a mission church at Stirling, Richmond County. The Stirling venture was necessitated by the beginning of hard-rock mining there some time before. On August 12, 1951, Fr. MacDonald began to offer Mass at Sterling on Sunday mornings and he kept up this schedule throughout the rest of his pastorate. The Stirling mission reached its greatest population in 1954, and on May 20 of that year Bishop MacDonald sent to Johnstown as assistant Father Bernard R. MacDonald, native of Upper Grand Mira. He was the son of Dougal MacDonald and Sarah Jane Currie, and was ordained on June 3, 1950. He was at Johnstown until December 1, 1955
From <http://www.johnstown.ca/History.htm>
In addition to his parochial ministrations Father Morley kept up weekly the Sunday visits to the Stirling mission chapel. The mission had reached its peak by the end of 1954 when its Catholic population numbered 265 souls. A year later there were only 210, and by the end of 1956 these had dwindled to 16. Father Morley offered the last Mass at Stirling in October, 1957.From <http://www.johnstown.ca/History.htm>
The Senior Baseball Team
Douglas: One night they were playing ball. This would be the senior team. I think they may have been playing St Peter’s there. Anyway, we were up there. We had some seats so the fowl ball came, and it landed right in her jaw.
Jeanette: Your mother?
Douglas: Yes
Jeanette: Did she get hurt.
Douglas: Well, she was bruised pretty bad for a while but there was nothing broken.
Jeanette: Did they have a hockey team too?
Douglas: No.
Jeanette: So, the baseball. I wonder whose idea that was. I guess baseball was popular back then. So, they had an adult team.
Douglas: Yeah. I’d say that was Michaelson who organized that. His wife’s first name was Marta.
Looking at Douglas’ pictures
Jeanette: Yes. It went a long span.
Douglas: We weren’t supposed to do this, but our shop was down here. We’d walk up to the head frame and jump on the conveyor belt and go up to the mill.
Jeanette: A lot of people did that in the mining days.
The school
Douglas: The first one down there was a one room school. Then they built a second room on it. Then they built a third one. I know we went down to wire it. And upstairs was a place for the teacher to stay.
Jeanette: Was it an apartment or was it just one big open room? Did it have a stove and a fridge?
Douglas: Well there was a stove and a little bedroom, sort of, partitioned off and there was a bathroom too.
Jeanette: That would be good to have, in those days.
Douglas: Back then you’d be lucky to have a bed. There had to be some kind of heat, some sort of furnace they put in. It wasn’t heated from the mine because it was too far away. I think it was more an open space up there. I don’t think it was an apartment or anything.
Douglas: One of the first teachers after that was built was Marie MacDonald from Johnstown. She married John Burke.
Jeanette: Did she meet him at the mine?
Douglas: No, after that.
Jeanette: The community would have owned it (the school). Would the mine have done that?
Douglas: Well the community owned the first part, but the mine did the rest of it. They built the room on and then they put a roof on. It would have been Jimmy Fougere who did that.
Jeanette: He got a contract from the mine to do that?
Douglas: And Melvina Sampson. Irene’s sister, worked there. She taught there too around the time the mine was working.
Jeanette: Oh, did she?
Douglas: Yeah. Well it might have been a little after because she came to St Peters for her grade 12. She didn’t have a teacher’s license.
The Catholic Church
Douglas: Then they had a little church down toward the eight-mile stretch.
Jeanette: Yes. We called it the Catholic church. Now who built that; was that the mine?.
Douglas: No. I don’t think. It must be the Johnstown Parish. It was the same priest he came there on Sunday.
Jeanette: Do you remember what his name was?
Note see excerpt from Johnstown website –Among the events of Father Dan. E. MacDonald’s pastorate were the erection of a large addition to the Johnstown Academy and the opening of a mission church at Stirling, Richmond County. The Stirling venture was necessitated by the beginning of hard-rock mining there some time before. On August 12, 1951, Fr. MacDonald began to offer Mass at Sterling on Sunday mornings and he kept up this schedule throughout the rest of his pastorate. The Stirling mission reached its greatest population in 1954, and on May 20 of that year Bishop MacDonald sent to Johnstown as assistant Father Bernard R. MacDonald, native of Upper Grand Mira. He was the son of Dougal MacDonald and Sarah Jane Currie, and was ordained on June 3, 1950. He was at Johnstown until December 1, 1955
From <http://www.johnstown.ca/History.htm>
In addition to his parochial ministrations Father Morley kept up weekly the Sunday visits to the Stirling mission chapel. The mission had reached its peak by the end of 1954 when its Catholic population numbered 265 souls. A year later there were only 210, and by the end of 1956 these had dwindled to 16. Father Morley offered the last Mass at Stirling in October, 1957.From <http://www.johnstown.ca/History.htm>
The Senior Baseball Team
Douglas: One night they were playing ball. This would be the senior team. I think they may have been playing St Peter’s there. Anyway, we were up there. We had some seats so the fowl ball came, and it landed right in her jaw.
Jeanette: Your mother?
Douglas: Yes
Jeanette: Did she get hurt.
Douglas: Well, she was bruised pretty bad for a while but there was nothing broken.
Jeanette: Did they have a hockey team too?
Douglas: No.
Jeanette: So, the baseball. I wonder whose idea that was. I guess baseball was popular back then. So, they had an adult team.
Douglas: Yeah. I’d say that was Michaelson who organized that. His wife’s first name was Marta.
Looking at Douglas’ pictures
Above - Photo of Morrison's store on the left and Gertie and Willie A Landry's home to the right with young man drinking a 7Up.
Jeanette: There’s a truck there. Do you think that was one of the ore trucks?
Douglas: No. I think that was Morrison’s delivery truck. It has single wheels on the back of it.
Jeanette: Yes. It looks like it. It looks like it could carry something big.
Jeanette: There’s a truck there. Do you think that was one of the ore trucks?
Douglas: No. I think that was Morrison’s delivery truck. It has single wheels on the back of it.
Jeanette: Yes. It looks like it. It looks like it could carry something big.
Photo of lady with baby carriage
Jeanette: This lady here with the baby. Do you know who the woman is in the picture?
Douglas: Unless it was Marta (Michaelson). Her and Mom were good friends.
Jeanette: And there was a little house almost on the corner. See there’s a little building there. There’s a car in front of it. I wonder if that’s where May and Hughie MacDonald had a little post office in there.
Jeanette: This lady here with the baby. Do you know who the woman is in the picture?
Douglas: Unless it was Marta (Michaelson). Her and Mom were good friends.
Jeanette: And there was a little house almost on the corner. See there’s a little building there. There’s a car in front of it. I wonder if that’s where May and Hughie MacDonald had a little post office in there.
Photo of older tall gentleman
Douglas: If you find out what that gentleman’s name is, print it on the back.
Jeanette: I’ll let you know. Maybe it’s Murdock Dan.
Douglas: No. Murdock Dan, I remember him. He was one of the gatekeepers with Enos Sampson. He was also Janitor there.
Jeanette: Murdock Dan MacLeod. I thought Jim MacDonald was the gatekeeper with Enos.
Douglas: Maybe he (Murdock Dan) just filled in
On Aug 15/19 visit
Jeanette: Oh, I found out who that guy was, that older man - Alex Hector MacAskill.
Douglas: That’s right.
Jeanette: From Loch Lomond. I’m not sure where he lived but his nephew, Neilly Hector MacAskill, lived on the Stirling road by the lake on one of those little roads up there.
Douglas: Yeah, that’s where I think he was staying.
Jeanette: Probably staying with his nephew.
Douglas: Yeah. And he was a tall man.
Jeanette: Yes, you can see (in the picture).
Douglas: If you find out what that gentleman’s name is, print it on the back.
Jeanette: I’ll let you know. Maybe it’s Murdock Dan.
Douglas: No. Murdock Dan, I remember him. He was one of the gatekeepers with Enos Sampson. He was also Janitor there.
Jeanette: Murdock Dan MacLeod. I thought Jim MacDonald was the gatekeeper with Enos.
Douglas: Maybe he (Murdock Dan) just filled in
On Aug 15/19 visit
Jeanette: Oh, I found out who that guy was, that older man - Alex Hector MacAskill.
Douglas: That’s right.
Jeanette: From Loch Lomond. I’m not sure where he lived but his nephew, Neilly Hector MacAskill, lived on the Stirling road by the lake on one of those little roads up there.
Douglas: Yeah, that’s where I think he was staying.
Jeanette: Probably staying with his nephew.
Douglas: Yeah. And he was a tall man.
Jeanette: Yes, you can see (in the picture).
Picture of the two miners
Douglas: (picture of two miners) I don’t know their names. Mom and Daddy knew them.
Jeanette: The pipes that are in the picture. What are those pipes for?
Douglas: That was the drilling rig. There was a pipe going up because you couldn’t hold that. It would be on the ground. This was the drilling machine here.
Jeanette: On the bottom part
Douglas: Yeah. It was run by air.
Douglas: The roofs weren’t that high, not as high as this here.
Jeanette: Not even 8 feet high.
Douglas: Yeah. This one seemed to be quite a height because these men were standing up and there is still room over their head. And this is the light you were talking about. These were electric lights. I don’t know if you can see the battery. There was a cord going from there (the lamp) to a belt you had on your side and the batteries were probably that long and that wide.
Jeanette: So, 4 inches wide and eight inches long?
Douglas: They’d have a battery room and every miner was allotted two batteries. Gus will know more about that. They’d have them when they’d go down the mine. They were little lamps about this big (2 inches in diameter) but they were really bright.
Douglas: (picture of two miners) I don’t know their names. Mom and Daddy knew them.
Jeanette: The pipes that are in the picture. What are those pipes for?
Douglas: That was the drilling rig. There was a pipe going up because you couldn’t hold that. It would be on the ground. This was the drilling machine here.
Jeanette: On the bottom part
Douglas: Yeah. It was run by air.
Douglas: The roofs weren’t that high, not as high as this here.
Jeanette: Not even 8 feet high.
Douglas: Yeah. This one seemed to be quite a height because these men were standing up and there is still room over their head. And this is the light you were talking about. These were electric lights. I don’t know if you can see the battery. There was a cord going from there (the lamp) to a belt you had on your side and the batteries were probably that long and that wide.
Jeanette: So, 4 inches wide and eight inches long?
Douglas: They’d have a battery room and every miner was allotted two batteries. Gus will know more about that. They’d have them when they’d go down the mine. They were little lamps about this big (2 inches in diameter) but they were really bright.
The picture of two houses above
Douglas: Barswich (lived in one) and there was another house besides that.
Jeanette: Bunclarke's
Douglas: Bunclarke, yeah.
Jeanette: Which one was Michaelson’s.
Douglas: I believe it might have been that first one depending on how the picture was taken. It could have been this one because it shows the biggest.
Jeanette: And the third house where would that have been.
Douglas: It was probably over this way (to the right)
Jeanette: So, the Michaelson’s house was probably in the middle.
Douglas: Yeah, they were close by one another.
Jeanette: Yes, in a row I think.
Douglas: They were on the opposite hill from (John G’s)
Jeanette: Yes, they were up behind the bunkhouses.
Douglas: Yeah. They had brick siding in those days.
Jeanette: I think my father’s garage had it on it, but this looks fancier.
Deaths at the Mine
Douglas: There was a whistle in the morning, so you’d know when to start. And if that whistle blew between 8 and 12 and 5 there was something seriously wrong. And it blew twice that I remember. There were two miners that got killed.
Jeanette: But on two different days?
Douglas: Oh, yeah. Not the same year, I don’t think.
Company shares
Douglas: There was a younger fellow. He lived on the road, when you left Stirling heading to St Peter’s. They had a big house. Leaving Stirling it would be on the left-hand side. It was on the road (in Framboise) when you started toward Grand River. We’d have to go by it on our way home. It was between Framboise and St Esprit. Well that guy made more money than the Miner’s did. He was advised by MacLeod, the Miller, when to buy shares and sell. He had bought a whole bunch of shares when they first came out – 6 cents/share. And they went up to $5.10 or something. He had a bunch of shares.
Jeanette: What happened to them (the shares) when the mine closed?
Douglas: Well some of them had sold before. They kind of got suspicious.
When the mine closed:
Douglas: At its peak there were 520 people there between the miners, and the maintenance people and construction people. There were two things that happened: the ore dropped, and it was harder to get it out because it was further and further underground. And there were a few young fellows, University students working there in the summer. They were trying to form a union. The mine didn’t want a union.
Douglas: Barswich (lived in one) and there was another house besides that.
Jeanette: Bunclarke's
Douglas: Bunclarke, yeah.
Jeanette: Which one was Michaelson’s.
Douglas: I believe it might have been that first one depending on how the picture was taken. It could have been this one because it shows the biggest.
Jeanette: And the third house where would that have been.
Douglas: It was probably over this way (to the right)
Jeanette: So, the Michaelson’s house was probably in the middle.
Douglas: Yeah, they were close by one another.
Jeanette: Yes, in a row I think.
Douglas: They were on the opposite hill from (John G’s)
Jeanette: Yes, they were up behind the bunkhouses.
Douglas: Yeah. They had brick siding in those days.
Jeanette: I think my father’s garage had it on it, but this looks fancier.
Deaths at the Mine
Douglas: There was a whistle in the morning, so you’d know when to start. And if that whistle blew between 8 and 12 and 5 there was something seriously wrong. And it blew twice that I remember. There were two miners that got killed.
Jeanette: But on two different days?
Douglas: Oh, yeah. Not the same year, I don’t think.
Company shares
Douglas: There was a younger fellow. He lived on the road, when you left Stirling heading to St Peter’s. They had a big house. Leaving Stirling it would be on the left-hand side. It was on the road (in Framboise) when you started toward Grand River. We’d have to go by it on our way home. It was between Framboise and St Esprit. Well that guy made more money than the Miner’s did. He was advised by MacLeod, the Miller, when to buy shares and sell. He had bought a whole bunch of shares when they first came out – 6 cents/share. And they went up to $5.10 or something. He had a bunch of shares.
Jeanette: What happened to them (the shares) when the mine closed?
Douglas: Well some of them had sold before. They kind of got suspicious.
When the mine closed:
Douglas: At its peak there were 520 people there between the miners, and the maintenance people and construction people. There were two things that happened: the ore dropped, and it was harder to get it out because it was further and further underground. And there were a few young fellows, University students working there in the summer. They were trying to form a union. The mine didn’t want a union.