Exploration
protecting my delicate glass camera dome from the rock walls. Slowly, my dive buddy Cas Dobbin’s bright Sola light comes into view. The chocolate water yields to wispy veils of white, and then, suddenly the tunnel is fully revealed. Rusty industrial pipes guide us down the slope of angular walls stretching 17-feet (5m) from floor to ceiling. At times we lose sight of the distant walls in giant rooms where the ore was fully scooped out and removed. The vein of hematite carries us down a slope dropping one foot (30cm) for every six feet (182cm) traveled. We pass a rusty bucket and see a discarded hand saw and shovels. We find crude inscriptions and caricatures drawn on the wall, including a more somber epitaph that catches my attention. A simple
24 Magazine
Mining Bell Island was a dangerous business, taking the lives of over 100 men in the course of operations
white cross beside an old ladder indicates a place where a miner lost his life. “Struck by ore car, fall of ground and dynamite explosion,” reads the fatality account in the archives. Mining Bell Island was a dangerous business, taking the lives of over 100 men in the course of operations. Cas and I turn the corner and
follow a narrow gauge rail track to the undercarriage of an ore cart. Pausing only briefly, the ferrous- oxidizing bacteria is disturbed and fills our view with chunky orange
Top: One set of Jill’s gear, we wouldn’t have
room to list it all! Left: Etchings from mine
workers. Right: An old warer
pump has its first visitor in years
shreds. We continue forward, spotting a monumental pumping station looming out of the darkness. A large wheel connects with long- ago silent gears. The triple pistons appear broken and the supply lines are partly severed, perhaps indicating a relic hulk not worth moving when extraction operations were relocated to other sections of the mine. Another inscription catches our attention. “James Bennett” has scrawled his name on the wall with lamp black. I cannot find his name listed on the list of fatalities and assume he was one of the lucky ones that made it home safe. Bennett has drawn a caricature of himself with a small pipe and watchman’s cap and I envision this man taking a smoke break in the already dusty mine.
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