The Coal Creek mining disaster

February 12th, 2021 1 Minutes

#0039.0297 ca. 1910: Coal Creek Mines Near Fernie, BC – Image courtesy of Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History

Shortly after 7:30 pm on May 22, 1902, an explosion ripped through the No. 2 and No. 3 mines at the Coal Creek mines near Fernie. The ground shook. A cloud of coal dust and flame blew 1,000 meters in the air at the mine’s shared portal. Roughly 20 men escaped, and the rest of the entire night shift perished either from the explosion itself or the afterdamp. A total of 128 miners lost their lives that day.

It is Canada’s third worst mining disaster, surpassed only by the Hillcrest disaster in 1914, just across the Alberta border in the Crowsnest Pass, where 189 miners died, and the 1887 Nanaimo mine explosion, which snuffed the lives of 150.

Within 12 minutes, rescue volunteers entered the mine looking for survivors. Many of the rescuers themselves needed assistance as they were assaulted by carbon monoxide and other gases. Recovery of the bodies would take several days as the mine was ventilated and the ceiling shored.

#0039.0295 ca. 1910: Coal Creek, B.C.
Unused B&W printed postcard of mining operation at Coal Creek, B.C. – Image courtesy of the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History

In Fernie, the first train of injured and dead arrived less than half an hour after the explosion. Church bells in town rang non-stop. The train would begin a trip every four hours to bring bodies into Fernie with a temporary morgue set up in the Church of England. A lack of coffins had carpenters working day and night, and the grim work of a grave digger became a 24-hour proposition.

On May 24, Victoria Day, there were 17 public funerals. In one case, there were 14 coffins in the procession, and Fernie was a city in mourning for some time. The community set up a relief fund for the victims’ families, with the CPR donating $3000 and the government $5000. The coal company promised to pay the funeral expenses. As word got out about the disaster, Victoria Day celebrations were cancelled in many communities in B.C. and Alberta.

It wouldn’t be the last explosion to rip through the coal creek mines. An explosion in the No. 3 mine on April 5, 1917, killed 34, while another at No. 1 would kill six in 1928.