Cape Breton museum commemorates mining strikes

Mining strikes commemorated The coal mining strikes that attracted national attention in the 1920s' are being commemorated at the Cape Breton Miners Museum.

The Cape Breton Miners Museum is commemorating the violent mining strikes that attracted national attention in the 1920s’ by sharing the story years later, in Glace Bay.

Back then, miners took to the streets for better collective bargaining rights, forcing federal and provincial governments to develop better labour policies that are in place today.

“The strikes of 1922 to 1925, the coal miners stood together and stood the gaff, that means they did not bend under the hardships the BESCO pushed on them and they stood together,” says executive director, Mary Pat Mombourquette.

She says the 1920's weren’t an easy time to be a coal miner in Cape Breton as the British Empire Steel Corporation controlled the miners’ wage, fuel, food, clothing and housing.

The company threatened to cut wages and that lead to the strikes, but eventually the miners stand would prove to shape the province's unions and labour policies.

“They paved the way for us guys coming up because it was terrible here. They would work all week,” says miner, Sheldon Guthro. “They would go down and get their pay and they would open it up and there would be no money in it.

When visitors arrived at the museum, they were greeted with a plaque outlining the hardships of the 1920's, Saturday.

Mombourquette says it's important to share these stories, especially with younger generations.

“These stories happened to people that we remember,” she says. “Our grandfathers, some of our mine guides’ fathers went through this strike,” she says. It’s very recent history, so most of our people that come here say this was probably one of the most profound museum experiences they ever felt.”

The project has been in the works since 2011. The federal government, along with Parks Canada chose to highlight the strikes of 1922 to 1925 because of their national significance.

Museum officials say mining tours are up 15 per cent over last year, making it one of their best years on record.

“We all come from a place where we're sitting around the supper table and our fathers are telling us stories about their fathers, and their father's, father's. Right now that doesn't happen so much because the coal mines have been gone for 20 years. So those stories are not being told at the supper table now, and we want to reach those young audiences," says Mombourquette.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Kyle Moore.