I began my mining career in 1977 and have been an eye witness to the Donkin saga since the day Pierre Elliot Trudeau announced his National Energy Program (NEP) in the 1980s. The NEP earmarked $2 billion dollars for expansion of the Cape Breton coal industry and Donkin Mine wasRead More

Adding to the general feeling that the world as we know it is coming to an end — and that that’s not necessarily a bad thing — the owners of the Donkin Mine announced on Tuesday they were ending production permanently and putting the mine on “care and maintenance” dueRead More

Steve Drake’s informative piece on March 18th was revealing — an excellent explanation of why the roof-falls are continuing and of what might be the only ‘fix’ possible. It appears that supporting the roof at these depths is best done with the steel arches. It would be quite something ifRead More

If I get this right, Donkin Mine management, and our provincial Department of Labour, are calling in world-renowned ground control experts to assess the Donkin geology and shine a light on how Kameron Collieries can best proceed after its 12th roof fall. Scott Nauss, senior director of inspection and complianceRead More

C’mon MANS I’ve been noticing the Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS) tweeting up a storm lately. The tweet threads — some of which are as long as my arm — can be divided into two main categories: The first — I’ll call it the “Ain’t minerals grand?” category —Read More

I’ve lived in two cities (Toronto and Prague) in which trams (or streetcars, if you prefer) formed an integral part of the municipal transit system and have always had a soft spot for them. I’ve also wanted to write about the tram system that used to connect some parts ofRead More

Editor’s Note: In January 2019, the federal government announced a plan to end the Cape Breton Development Corporation’s (Devco) coal operations — Phelan Mine was to close in late 2000 and Prince Mine to be sold. The original scheme, as reported by the Globe & Mail’s Kevin Cox, would seeRead More

Season’s Meatings Alexandra’s Pizza is challenging patrons to eat a 12-pound donair in 90 minutes, the Cape Breton Post is treating it as “news,” and somehow, neither of those things is the funniest part of Thursday’s article about the contest. The funniest part, hands down, is the accompanying list ofRead More

Donkin The Donkin Mine saga took an unexpected turn last week with the sudden death of coal baron (and Kameron Collieries owner) Chris Cline in a helicopter crash. Weirdly, this was followed almost immediately by (yet another) rock fall in the mine itself. Fortunately — yet again — nobody wasRead More

FOIPOP blues Since the dawn of the age of Big Data — hell, since the dawn of the age of Excel spreadsheets — tracking and collating information has become much easier for us humans. Data entry is boring but not difficult, and once entered (whether into a database or aRead More