Photo C163-001 courtesy of the Cumberland Museum & Archives
Tuesday 24 July 2007
In the heart of the Cumberland Forest is the oldest coal mine in the area: the Union Colliery Mine. Ben Nicholas, aged 86, wrote...
In 1881, the Dunsmuir Empire at Nanaimo had acquired all of the shares of the Union Coal Company to gain control of the Comox coalfield. In 1884 they had control of the Baynes Sound coalfield and in 1888, they had secured the deep-sea port of Union Bay. The Union Colliery had been idle from 1881 until 1888 when Dunsmuir started large-scale development of the Comox coalfield. The first priority was to lay the railway tracks to Union Bay. While this was in progress, they tidied up around the Union Colliery mine site and started a new mine shaft to the west of it to gain access to a more lucrative lower seam (number 2 seam) than that of the modest Union Colliery. They called this Number One Mine. The following year they started a new mine shaft to the same lower seam 3/4 mile south of Number One Mine and called it Number Two Mine.
Photo courtesy of the Cumberland Museum & Archives
Tuesday 24 July 2007
From as early as 1888 Cumberland mines employed a substantial community of Chinese immigrants. When "Union", as Cumberland was originally called, was constructed, segregation was still a normal part of everyday life. An area outside of town, the swampy Southwest fringe, was set aside for the Chinese community. In this less than desirable location the Cumberland Chinese managed to build a thriving community. To assure a sturdy foundation for buildings in Chinatown the structures were built on soil mounds the same level as the streets. Gutters lined the streets for drainage. Wooden boardwalks and bridges crossed these small drainage lanes. At first glance, Cumberland's Chinatown may have looked like a collection of haphazardly constructed shacks linked by a maze of boardwalks and narrow streets. It was actually an organised and self-contained business centre which could supply all of its own resident's needs.
Further along the wetlands, in the direction of Comox Lake, number one Japtown housed Cumberland's Japanese miners and their families. This particular community was small and consisted of approximately twenty buildings. The first Japanese arrived in this area in the early 1890s and also contributed significantly to the economic boom of the Cumberland mines. To this day, when you walk along the old railway beds linking Cumberland with Comox Lake in the springtime you can still see and smell the blooming fruit trees which mark the spot where the Japanese community once stood, a living testament to the Japanese families who called this beautiful wetlands their home.
