Cage Call: Life and Death in the Hard Rock Mining Belt
Canada’s stock exchanges are world leaders in mine finance and development, built by the profits, corporations and workers, which evolved from the mines in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. This region is home to some of the world’s richest and largest underground mines and smelters. Many of the communities surrounding the mines have given rise to some of the most militant labour unions in North American history.
This body of work examines life in Canada’s geologically enormous hard rock mining belt. The photographs are documents of the people, land and work involved in underground mining and smelting.
As the son of immigrant labourers, I have always been fascinated by the politics of work and commerce. By examining the social issues surrounding workers and market economies, we gain a clearer understanding of the symbiotic nature of the global economy we all participate in.
The photographs in this online portfolio and the book are only a small sample of thousands images from the project. The fieldwork was conducted from 1991-2003 with over two years of editing.
Writing samples from Cage Call
In the narrow confines of an underground gold stope, the sound of two drills tearing into the rock face is more than a sound; it is like a physical pounding against the body. The noise is amplified along the rock walls of the twisting cavern. The sound lets up slightly as one miner releases the pressure on the pneumatic support leg of the drill. He pulls the drill back far enough to release the drill steel from its retainer. A four-foot length of drill steel is pulled from the rock. Coolant water bleeds from the hole in the rock face. He grabs a longer steel rod, spears it into the hole, slaps down the retainer and bucks the drill back into the face.
The miners are drilling out a series of blasting holes on the face of the gold vein. At the end of their shift, the holes will be filled with AMEX blasting powder and wired to an electrical detonator. To maximize the speed with which they work, the miners store the various lengths of drill steel in the completed holes, giving the impression of a multitude of spears jutting from the rock. As the men sway back and forth in the misty oil spray of the drills, it’s like watching Ahab taking down the whale.
The two men are partners, the primary production unit on which underground gold mining depends. A good partnership is based on skill, trust and an absolute intolerance for backsliders who don’t have the drive to “give’er shit.” Every move is done for maximum efficiency; two sets of arms, legs and eyes intent on making the cycle of a shift. The cycle is the ability to muck [shovel] out a blast; scale [scrape] the back [ceiling] for loose [rock]; apply metal screening and rock bolts along the back for safety; drill out a new round and get it set for blasting…”
…But there is another element to be considered pondering the cultural tendency of miners and mining communities to live for the day. At the end of the shift, the very act of riding to surface in the cage is, in itself, an act of resurrection. Having spent the day in the diesel-tainted air of underground, a miner’s first taste of fresh air on surface is a moment to be savoured. He spends his days in darkness, only to return to a world of the night sky.
Which is why when the miners turn off their drills and ride the cage back to surface, you’re liable to find them spending their time in the outdoors. On Saturdays they’ll be out on their boats bombing around the cold, deep waters of northern lakes. Basking in sunshine. Living in the moment.
Brothers. Comrades. Buddies.
Blaring AC/DC tunes.
Catching fish.
Not worried about the next cage call into the depths.
“My dad beat a firing squad in Finland. In the 1918 Civil War, a friend of his who was on the other side saw his name on the hit list and warned him. My dad escaped to Denmark and then over to North America. He started in the mines in the Coeur d’Alenes [Idaho] and then worked his way up into Montana.
He was involved in union activities in the mining camps in the United States back in the days of the Western Federation of Miners. He told me stories about this big Swedish guy who was very prominent in the mining union in Montana. His wife ran a laundry doing the miners’ clothes.
The Ku Klux Klan were working with the Pinkertons [Detective Agency] for the company. They burnt a cross on his front lawn and told him to get the hell out of town. He went down to the hardware store and bought three or four 30-30 rifles and ammunition. Sure enough, the cops disappeared and the KKK showed up and shot his house and the laundry all to rat-shit. His wife was loading the 30-30s while he was firing back. The battle went on for about four hours and not a cop came around. But both he and his wife survived.
It was civil war, plain and simple. One mine manager, who was a real prick, hired the Pinkertons to take the union out. The Pinkertons were little more than hit men. So the miners decided to kill him. The WFM had their own “powder men” for jobs like this. This manager used to walk across the vacant lot to the headframe every day and they set this dynamite charge to kill him. They caught the wrong guy. My father had real sorrow about what happened.
My father left the States to work in the gold fields of Kirkland Lake and then went to Inco at Sudbury. He got black-listed at Creighton Mine in 1932 for union activity. Then he got a job at [Inco’s] Levack Mine under an assumed name. Somebody squealed on him and that was it. From that point on, he couldn't get a job in mining at all…”
-- Jack Rauhala, Sudbury, Ontario
Steve Guindon never had a chance. He was cleaning drill holes out of the face when the walls of stope 5635 exploded in his face. One minute the world was as it should be -- Steve Guindon and his partner Glen Harwood had just finished lunch over a laid-back chat about the upcoming Christmas break. Then they'd headed back to the drilling face. Guindon was at the face while his partner Harwood was running the jackleg drill. Without warning a rock burst hit the stope.
Guindon took the force of the hit, falling back onto his partner. Harwood didn’t even know what hit him. One minute the world was as it should be, the next he was lying in complete darkness calling out for his partner…
…The event in stope 5635 hit at 2:20 pm on December 20, 1991. Immediately the mine rescue squad began assembling. Heading the Macassa Mine rescue squad was veteran shift boss Eddie O'Bradovich. He was joined by fellow shifter [shift boss] Brian Pascoe.
Once they reached the 5600-foot level, O'Bradovich led the rescue team along the narrow manway ladders into the damaged stope. They were shouting out to Steve and Glen, hoping against hope that voices would respond. Harwood was trying to call out. He wanted to see his little girl and his wife. He wanted to be free of the blinding pain that was slowly squeezing the very life out of his hands and legs.
But the rescue team had to move very carefully. First they had to assess the damage in the stope and then slowly, painstakingly they began to remove the pieces of blasted rock. Finally they'd managed to breach a small tunnel in order to get fresh air down to Harwood. Minutes ticked into hours. Realizing that Harwood could give up before they freed him, Eddie O'Bradovich laid down on the muck pile and pushed through the rock until he found Harwood's hand. He held on, literally, for dear life.
"Hold on Glennie, we're coming for you."
Harwood’s arm was pinned by the drill hose which was still connected to the drill buried below him in the muck.
"We can't get you out, Glen," Eddie told him. "It's gonna take time. We gotta free your arm.”
The full text is available in the book.