Samuel Beckett, born in a suburb of Dublin in 1906, was a native English speaker. However, in 1946 Beckett decided that he would begin writing exclusively in French. After composing the first draft in his second language, he would then translate these words back into English. This difficult constraint – forcing himself to consciously unpack his own sentences – led to a burst of genius, as many of Beckett’s most famous works (Malloy, Malone Dies, Waiting for Godot, etc.) were written during this period. When asked why he wrote first in French, Beckett said it made it easier for him to write without style.

Beckett would later expand on these comments, noting that his use of French prevented him from slipping into his usual writerly habits, those crutches of style that snuck into his English prose. Instead of relying on the first word that leapt into consciousness – that most automatic of associations – he was forced by his second language to reflect on what he actually wanted to express. His diction became more intentional. [continue].

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

This overview photo has Village Foods in the background to give you an idea of where the carving is: in one of those mid-parking lot gardens. But wouldn’t you rather see the detail carved on the other side of the stone? Here, then:

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Amendments made to the Coastal Ferry Act this week were greeted with enthusiasm Thursday by local stakeholders, while the conspicuous absence of other suggested measures, such as restraints on fare increases, were largely treated with guarded optimism. [continue]

The article quotes three Gabriola residents you probably know:

• Sheila Malcolmson, Gabriola’s Islands Trust representative, and Islands Trust Council chairwoman
• John Hodgkins, chairman of the Gabriola Ferry Advisory Committee
• Phillip Vannini, a Royal Roads University professor who wrote Ferry Tales

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Today the Bowen Island Undercurrent has an article on Philip and his work: Mind the gap (or not). It includes this bit:

Vannini inquired about the various signs about the line-up and ended up including a chapter in his book entitled Mind the Gap. There is a significance in the gaps, he said. And I compared Bowen to Gabriola and Sointura. On Bowen, if you go and join the ferry line-up and lineup hasn’t stretched beyond overload sign, you can fill the spaces at the bottom of the hill. On Gabriola, you don’t do that ever. [continue]

Well. Who knew Bowen had different rules?

The article also mentions that Philip has a website to go along with the book. It’s FerryResearch.ca, and of course there’s a Gabriola Island section.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

This sign appeared on a North Road tree. I hope Sylvie saw it!

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Gabriola Island children’s author Iain Lawrence was awarded the Vicky Metcalf Award for Children’s Literature for 2011, a $20,000 prize presented by the Writers’ Trust of Canada. The award is presented for a body of work in children’s literature and the recipient is selected by a three-member, independent judging panel.

Lawrence has written more than 10 novels for young people, building on the tradition of Treasure Island and other boy’s adventure stories, the Writers’ Trust citation says.

… His convincing evocation of period, setting and character make these as much studies of human nature as they are tales of excitement, suspense, fear, and sometimes, sorrow,” the citation says. “He is well able to sustain both a rousing pitch of action and complex, reflective male protagonists. [continue]

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

… the ethnographer and Gabriola Island resident has travelled to every small community serviced by ferry on the coast, clocked 250 ferry rides and conducted some 400 interviews with ferry users on their relationship with the system.

Vannini, a Royal Roads University professor, has formalized his interest in ferry travel with a new book called Ferry Tales: Mobility, Place and Time on Canada’s West Coast. Read more at http://www.gulfislandsdriftwood.com/news/138516354.html.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

In case you can’t make out the text, here it is:

Reverend George William Taylor C.R.S.C. F.Z.S.
1854 —1912

Born in Derby, England, came to Canada in 1882. Ordained Church of England in 1884. Served in parishes in Victoria, Ottawa, Cedar, Gabriola Island and Nanaimo.

An accomplished naturalist, charter member of the natural history society of British Columbia, named honourary provincial entomologist in 1884, elected fellow of the royal society of Canada in 1894.

An actie and articulate conservationist, appointed member of british Columbia fisheries commission 1905, lobbied for west coast fisheries research station, established in 1908 as Pacific Biological Station. Served as curator director and mentuor until his death in 1912.

He lies beside his wife, Elizabeth Ann Taylor, 1858 –1895.

‘We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.’

Erected by the Taylor family and the staff of the Pacific Biological Station, December 1992.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

The inventor of a high-voltage handheld stun device goes before a judge today in a legal battle over whether the device is a dangerous weapon. Gabriola Islander David Norman faces a charge of possession of a prohibited weapon and will appear in Nanaimo provincial court.

His Quasar device can pack a substantial wallop as a personal protection device. He makes them in his home-based shop.[continue]

Update/related:

• Gabriola Island Man Says Legal System Standing in His Way to Financial Success – youtube.com

(Note: I don’t have contact information for David Norman, so please don’t write to me to ask about that.)

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Toronto – November 2, 2011 – Last night in Toronto’s Isabel Bader Theatre, the Writers’ Trust of Canada announced the winners of six literary prizes and presented more than $100,000 to the authors at the 11th annual Writers’ Trust Awards, one of the richest literary prize-giving events in Canada. Iain Lawrence was the recipient of the Vicky Metcalf Award for Children’s Literature. Sponsored by the Metcalf Foundation, the award carries a cash prize of $20,000 and is given to a a writer of children’s literature for a body of work. [continue]

Such happy news. We raise our glasses to you, Iain!

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Sheila Malcolmson:

• Friday, November 4th: Mad Rona’s, 4:30 to 6 pm
• Saturday, November 5th: Robert’s Place, 2:30 to 4 pm
• Tuesday, November 8th: Harvest Thyme, 2:30 to 4 pm
• Saturday, November 12th: Silva Bay, 2:30 to 4 pm
• Tuesday, November 15th: Raspberry’s, 5:30 to 7:30 pm
• Thursday, November 17th: Skol, 5:30 to 7:30 pm

Gisele Rudischer:

• Friday, November 4th: Mad Rona’s, 4:30 to 6 pm
• Saturday, November 5th: Robert’s Place, 2:30 to 4 pm
• Tuesday, November 8th: Harvest Thyme, 2:30 to 4 pm

(Opportunities like this for casual chats with candidates are just what I was hoping for a few days ago.)

Maggie Mooney would like to meet you, too. Stop by her office at Folklife Village if you’ve got questions for her. I think there’s a sign on the door that tells passers-by when Maggie is in the office and when she isn’t.

Between the meet-for-coffee option and the visit-office option, you’ll have an easy time meeting three of Gabriola’s Islands Trust candidates.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Now look what’s opened at Folklife Village: a Maggie Mooney campaign office, staffed with volunteers, and sporting campaign literature that points readers to the Maggie Mooney.com website. Wow. That’s pretty organized! (Is this campaign office a first for Gabriola?)

Maggie’s website asks for volunteers, some of whom may opt for going door-to-door with Maggie or a key campaign team member to discuss the election and the issues with your neighbours.

Door to door? On Gabriola? Eek. I hope they skip my neighbourhood. Door to door stuff is too much like religious proselytizing for my taste.

Anyway. Of the candidates who are running for election on Gabriola at the moment, Sheila Malcolmson and Maggie Mooney seem to be the only ones with websites.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Tuesday, October 18 at 1pm, GaLTT will sign its first trail licence agreement

GaLTT will celebrate the signing of its first trail licence agreement, allowing public access on a trail through privately held forest land off Barrett Road. GaLTT and the Cornish family will sign the agreement at the trailhead, which is on the left just before the long hill down Barrett Road.

Thank you, Cornish family. And thank you, GaLTT.

Update: more details! GaLTT has revised their website; the bit about this licence includes a photo and now says:

On October 18, GaLTT signed its first trail licence agreement with Gabriola landowners Diane and Bill Cornish, shown here with President John Peirce.

The agreement allows public access (on foot, bike or horse) through private land on a beautiful forested trail connecting Barrett Road to Rollo Park. GaLTT will be responsible for maintaining the trail.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

For the position of RDN rep for Gabriola:

• Jordy Alexander
• Howard Houle (website: howardhoule.wordpress.com)
• Eric Moeller (website: www.gabriola.org/moeller)

For the positions of Islands Trust Trustee for Gabriola:

• Jeremy Baker (Jeremy is no longer running for this position.)
• Sheila Malcolmson (website: sheila-malcolmson.ca)
• Maggie Mooney (website: maggiemooney.com)
• Gisele Rudischer (update: website no longer online)

(Candidates: if any of you would like to tell us why we should vote for you, send me a note. We’ll give you space to say your bit, and blog readers will be able to comment on whatever you write.)

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Demonstration of life-size casting by sculptor Linda Richter. Saturday August 20th, 10am. To promote the Gabriola Theatre Festival. local Artist Jeff Molloy has agreed to “get plastered” at Village Market. (4-6 hours casting time.)

Related links:

• Gabriola Theatre Festival
• Linda’s website, Feat of Clay Studio
• Jeff Molloy

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Nanaimo RCMP Forensics are presently examining the scene at Harrison Way, where Elaine Schwartz, age 50 and her 18 year old son Trevor Schwartz were found. Trevor was airlifted to Victoria General hospital and is recovering from his injuries. He regained consciousness earlier this morning. Armstrong said she could not say whether he had given any statements to RCMP as of yet. His medical condition is our first priority. Elaine was confirmed deceased last night by RCMP.

(The Sounder article is no longer available on their website.)

We offer our deepest sympathies to the Schwartz family, and hope that Trevor will recover quickly.

(Often when this kind of information is released, people pop in to share stories about the victims, how they know/knew the victims, and so forth. We won’t be doing that here – it’s not needed, and I’m sure the family would appreciate as much privacy as possible. With that in mind, I’ve turned comments off for this post.)

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Meanwhile, Nick Doe has published his own Trail Map of the 707 Community Park (.pdf) It is far more fun and interesting than any official thing will ever be. Go take a look!

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

If you’re going to throw cigarette butts out the window, that’s bad enough for all sorts of reasons. Why do it from the vehicle that represents your business? Surely you would understand that people watching can quickly change their minds about hiring you?

Mind boggling, really.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Today the Vancouver Sun has an article about this trike and its creator: Power-assisted tricycle helps disabled get moving.

Georgi Georgiev has designed a new power-assisted tricycle for adults that can be ridden by anyone, including people with disabilities.

The 69-year-old Gabriola Island resident, who suffered a stroke in 2000, created and now builds the Varna Trike, a three-wheeler with an option for battery power.

With age, you start thinking about how to continue being active and cycling, having in mind that you’re not exactly perky, and strong and agile like you used to be, Georgiev said. I know it’s an excellent contraption for people like me. I have put 13,000 kilometres in the past year and a half on my trike. [Sorry, article no longer available.]

You can see the Varna Trike on the Varna Bicycles and Tricycles page.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Among the pioneer gravestones in Gabriola cemetery is this one, marking the resting place of Thomas Martin, who was killed 124 years ago today in the worst mining accident in British Columbia history.

Jonathan Martin emigrated to Canada as a Hudson’s Bay Company employee, from Orpington in the southern English county of Kent, in 1850, just one year before Ki-et-sa-kun, ‘Coal Tyee’, reported the presence of black rock in Winthuysen Inlet to the colonial authorities in Victoria. Jonathan’s first son, William, was born to an unknown native woman, his eleven other children to the woman from Cowichan whom he married, whose name is variously recorded as Ellen, Helen, Hellin and most confusingly, on the baptismal record of four of their sons, as Jane. Jonathan and William pre-empted land on Gabriola in April 1874 (160 acres in Section 2, to the northwest of today’s United Church). Thomas, the second son, had been born on 24 May 1865, and was baptised with three of his brothers at St Paul’s (Anglican) church in Nanaimo in 1876. Martin family tradition recalls that he was the best athlete among the brothers, taking part in baseball and competitive sculling on Gabriola. In the 1884/85 assessment rolls, Thomas is recorded as owning 112 acres in the southwest quarter of Section 4, between Degnen Bay and Drumbeg. He was in his early twenties, and working in the Number One (Esplanade) Mine in Nanaimo.[2]

* * *

Number One Mine was owned by the Nanaimo Coal Company, a subsidiary of the Vancouver Coal Mining and Land Company. Despite its name, the company was based in London, and most of its directors never saw Vancouver, let alone Nanaimo. The mine was managed by a superintendent sent out from England. The main shaft was sunk in 1881, and the mine went into operation two years later. Over the next fifty-five years its seven miles of tunnels would snake out under Nanaimo Harbour, Protection and Newcastle Islands, and down to the Nanaimo River, following the seams of coal.

The coal mines of Vancouver Island employed first experienced miners direct from the British Isles or via mining areas in Nova Scotia or other parts of North America, and then less experienced Swedes, Finns, Italians, Croats and Japanese who would work for lower pay, and large numbers of Chinese, some of whom had previously built railways in the province. Many of the non-British miners, unable to speak much English and keeping to their own communities above ground, were used by the coal companies to keep wages low and as unwitting strike breakers. The companies encouraged miners to bring their wives to Nanaimo, both because families were seen as a stabilising influence in a frontier town and because the cost would keep a man tied to the mine for many years as he paid off his debt to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Thomas Martin and his brother William, who worked in the Wellington mines, were unusual among that first generation of Nanaimo miners in having been born in the area.

Miners of Number One Mine, Nanaimo, at the pithead. The date of this photograph is unknown, but the open flame lamps on the miners’ soft caps indicate that it was taken in the 19th Century. [Image B-03624, reproduced by permission of the Royal BC Museum, BC Archives. The photograph has been cosmetically edited for this publication.]

The men who came to dig coal on Vancouver Island found themselves in some of the most dangerous, gassiest mines in the world, where unions were prohibited, safety regulations were often ignored by miners and managers alike in favour of productivity, and from which they were unlikely ever to make enough money to leave. Again the Martin brothers were unusual in owning property, but clearly the income to be earned by a fit man able to work hard in the mines was attractive enough to lure them away from their land on Gabriola. Miners at the coal face were on contract, and paid by the number of carts of coal they produced. Other labourers in the mine’s many operations, above ground as well as below, were paid a daily wage, whose amount was determined in part by the colour of their skin.

There are many ways in which a mine will kill men, either individually or en masse. At times in the early decades of Vancouver Island mining, some mines averaged one fatality every month during normal mine operations. The body of a miner crushed by a rock fall or a runaway coal car would be laid on top of the coal car going to the surface, and work would continue. If one of the costly mules or ponies, imported from the United States, were killed underground, most likely a driver would lose his job over it; men could be had for free, though, and they lived and worked knowing how lowly their lives were valued by the coal companies. After each accident, even those gas explosions, fires, cave-ins or floods that killed a dozen or more men at once, the survivors would return docilely to their labour in the days that followed. The wives and children of the dead men would receive a small family support payment for a limited time, and some support from the fraternal lodges, but would have to find a way to support themselves, most often by the eldest sons applying for work at the mine, some of them as young as twelve. And so it went, for the first years of the Number One Mine, the other Nanaimo Coal Company pits, and in the Dunsmuir mines at Cumberland and Extension, notorious for their poor safety and harsh labour policies.

* * *

Shortly before six o’clock in the evening on 3 May 1887, while the miners’ wives were preparing supper for their families, the ground shook violently beneath them, displacing bricks from chimneys and leading many people to wonder if it were an earthquake. A thunderous noise arose from the pit head on Esplanade. Within minutes the shrill pithead whistle began to sound a continuous note, indicating a disaster. Number One Mine had exploded.

Of the more than 150 men on shift in the mine that afternoon, only seven survived. Some were killed immediately by the explosion; five of the bodies were never found. Others were trapped and suffocated or were killed by the dreaded ‘afterdamp’, the invisible and odourless poison gas that rushes through a mine after an explosion. Some ran in the darkness and were overtaken by the gas. Some huddled together. Some lived long enough to scratch farewell notes to their families in the coal dust on their shovels. The mine burned uncontrollably for a whole day, and although search teams worked quickly near to the surface some bodies were not retrieved until the end of the year. It would be reckoned the largest man-made explosion in history, and would remain so until the great Halifax munitions explosion of 1917.

As the whistle continued and smoke rose from the hoisting and ventilation shafts of Number One Mine, women and children rushed to the pithead, many of the wives still wearing their aprons. Forty-six of them were widowed that day, and 150 children left without fathers.

For a long time the total of killed miners was reckoned at 148, but recent research has raised the number to 150. Of these, 53 were Chinese workers whose names were not recorded by the mine company. They were listed in the payroll only by number, and that is how they are also recorded on the memorial of the disaster. Prior to enactment of the British Columbia ‘Birth, Marriages and Deaths Act’ of 1897, employers were not even required to report the deaths of Chinese workers. The Dunsmuirs ensured the loyalty of their Chinese workers by keeping back a portion of their wages towards the head tax that the Canadian government introduced on Chinese immigrants in 1885, in effect keeping the Chinese miners in indentured servitude.

In addition to Thomas Martin, two other sons of Gabriola families were among the victims of the disaster: James Hoggan (21) and John McGuffie (22). In the months that followed, Gabriolan James McLay, who owned land near Horseshoe and built a number of the roads at the north end, helped organise the relief committee that raised money for widows and orphans. David Roberts of Mudge Island collected relief funds there and on Gabriola’s south end.[3]

The cause of the explosion was eventually determined to be improperly laid charges, which would have blown outwards into the mine tunnel instead of into the coal and surrounding rock. Such a blast, although immediately localised, throws large amounts of coal dust into the air, which then burns explosively. As the oxygen is rapidly consumed, the concentration of explosive firedamp gases such as methane in the mine increases, causing a chain reaction through the tunnels. The explosions cause rock falls, trapping men underground and crippling the ventilation systems that miners rely on to remove poisonous gases from the tunnels. Afterdamp, the mix of gases left in the mine following the explosions, includes high percentages of carbon monoxide and this is usually responsible for many of the deaths in a mine explosion. Close to the original explosion, bodies may be unrecognisable or even completely destroyed by the force of the explosion; further away, they might by lying without a mark on them except the discolouration of their faces indicative of the gas.

News of the explosion and the recovery efforts were published widely. This account is from the Evening Tribune of Lawrence, Kansas, published four days after the disaster (the number of men in the mine cited in early accounts were later shown to be inaccurate):

NANAIMO, B.C., May 7.—The exploring party that went down yesterday morning broke through into the mine and discovered the dead lying in all directions. All hope is now given up of saving any of them. Thirty-five bodies were recovered from the mine. The fire is still burning, but is under control. The mine is owned by the Vancouver Coal Company, of London, England. The latest investigation shows that 101 whites and eighty-five Chinese were in the mine at the time of the explosion. At two o’clock the body of Michael Lyons was found on level No. 1, 700 yards from the hoisting shaft. He was a mule driver about eighteen years old, and was found at his station, near a dead mule. The corpse was taken to a school house where he lies, terribly burned about the face and breast. His face is black from the effects of the gas. His father is still in the mine. A cave-in evidently occurred just beyond where he was lying. After the strictest inquiry it is learned that there are forty-seven widows, most of whom have large families. The Chinamen met last night and made arrangements for burying their countrymen. Some of them refused to place the dead in coffins and had to be compelled to do so. The stores will continue to be closed and little business is being done. Most of the men are from Cornwall, Yorkshire and Wales, and a few are from Nova Scotia. The fearful character of the explosion can not be exaggerated. Over 130 children orphans have already been counted. The progress of subduing the flames is proceeding rapidly and it is thought that all danger of a second explosion is over.

* * *

The Number One Mine explosion was a tragedy that directly affected almost everyone who lived in the Nanaimo area, including many on Gabriola. It also marked the first significant step in the long and bloody struggle of Vancouver Island miners to organise into effective labour unions. Sadly, the first to suffer in that struggle were the unfortunate Chinese, whom many white miners and families chose to blame for the explosion, claiming that the Chinese were unable to read and follow the posted safety regulations. The docility of the miners was broken on 3 May 1887: there were too many dead for anyone to go quietly back to work. A second fatal explosion that killed sixty men at the Dunsmuirs’ Number Five mine at Wellington, just eight months later, raised the level of anger still further, and the mine companies finally had to agree to listen to the miners’ demands. The first of these was that the Chinese be prohibited from working underground, and only given topside jobs such as firing the boilers and manning the coke ovens.

It is difficult to extricate the economic and racialist motivations of that time. The mine companies hired the Chinese labourers because they could be paid considerably less than the white miners, and deliberately pursued policies to keep the mining communities fractured along racial and linguistic lines to inhibit organisation. In Victoria, racist politicians and newspaper owners profited from ‘yellow peril’ scaremongering, and in an early and uncharacteristic alliance supported the demands of white miners to restrict the work opportunities of Chinese miners. But there is little in the oral histories recorded by the Coal Tyee Society to suggest that racism, rather than economic considerations, made white miners resentful of the Chinese. White miners spoke with admiration of just how little money the Chinese survived on and still sent some home to China, and Chinatown in Cumberland was a popular destination on Saturday nights, while many white families came out to watch the colourful festivities of Chinese New Year. In the wake of the Nanaimo explosion, white miners saw an opportunity to make the coal company employ more of their own community at higher wages underground. Despite the fact that few of the Italian or Swedish immigrants spoke English any better than the Chinese, or that a significant number of native English speakers in the mine were likely illiterate, the circumstances of the explosion—and the cooperative labour policies of superintendent Sam Robins[4]—enabled the white miners to win this concession from the mine company.

There is, of course, no way to determine whether Chinese miners were in any way responsible for the Nanaimo explosion. Some Chinese were clearly close to the site of the incorrectly laid explosives that triggered the disaster, but so were white miners. It was general policy in Vancouver Island mines to permit miners to lay their own charges in most situations, in the interests of efficiency and productivity: the mine managers didn’t want to pay the fees for a specialist charge layer, and the miners didn’t want to have to wait for one to arrive at their section of the coal face. Miners were paid by the coal load, and time spent making their environment safe was time they were not earning money. At Nanaimo in 1887, the inquest found the mine owners and management at no fault; this pattern was repeated many times, after every mine disaster on the Island, even when mine inspectors had previously noted breaches of safety regulations that the managers had done nothing to correct.

A final fact deserves to be stated with regard to this topic and in defence of the Chinese miners. During the period a few years later when they exclusively worked the Dunsmuirs’ Number Two slope at Cumberland it had the lowest accident rate of any mine in British Columbia.

* * *

If the Nanaimo explosion was a turning point in Vancouver Island labour history, we can only see it as such in light of the long and bitter struggle that followed from that tragic day. The mine companies, especially that of Robert and James Dunsmuir whose labour policies and cost cutting measures consistently put productivity before the welfare and safety of their employees, sowed as they reaped. Efforts to stifle union organising in the mining camps led to greater militancy and radicalism, exploding in the Big Strike of 1912–1914 when rioters trashed the houses of strike breakers in Extension and burned the pithead. Provincial police, special constables and militia were brought in to suppress the strikers and to arrest organisers. During the years of the First World War, union organisers were targeted for conscription to get them out of the coal fields, and resisters went into hiding in the mountains above Cumberland; miners and their wives walked the snow covered trails to bring food to the fugitive men during the winter. The shooting of the labour organiser Albert ‘Ginger’ Goodwin by a special constable in 1918 sparked a general strike in Vancouver, the first in Canadian history, while thousands followed his coffin through the streets of Cumberland. In 1920, alarmed by the increasingly successful efforts in BC and Alberta to establish One Big Union along the syndicalist lines advocated by the Industrial Workers of the World, the government of Canada passed an order-in-council requiring all miners in Canada to become members of the more moderate United Mine Workers of America.

Number One Mine in Nanaimo had re-opened in 1889, two years after the explosion. It became the largest and most productive mine in the province, and when it closed on 5 October 1938 it was the oldest operating mine in BC. By then almost all the miners on Vancouver Island were unionised. In 1937, the Western Fuel Corporation that had taken over the Nanaimo mines, and the Canadian Collieries Ltd., which had bought the Dunsmuir mines in 1910, accepted UMWA representation of workers in negotiations and disputes and to set up safety committees. For the first time in the history of mining on Vancouver Island, full-time miners were entitled to two weeks paid holiday each year. They were given twenty minutes in which to sit down and eat their lunch, instead of having to grab mouthfuls while working. The union pension plan offered security in their old age. Most importantly, and most likely to contribute to their reaching that old age, the individual miner no longer had to choose between his income and his safety. After fifty-four years of struggle commencing in the aftermath of the Number One Mine explosion, and the deaths of more than 700 more men in the mines of the Nanaimo area,[5] these are the simple but real benefits won by the miners and those who had faced arrest, imprisonment, deportation and even death to organise them.

By the late 1930s, oil was already displacing coal as a source of energy in many places. The Second World War increased demand for coal again, but the discovery of oil in Alberta in 1947 put an end to the last mines of the Nanaimo area: their tunnels were collapsed, their pitheads dismantled, and only a few physical reminders remain today to indicate that they were ever there. One of these is the sad and isolated little memorial that commemorates Thomas Martin and the other miners killed in the 1887 explosion. It is on a little-visited corner in Nanaimo, above the train tracks and beside the Van-Kam freight yard at the foot of Milton Street, near the site of the Number One Mine pithead.

* * *

Some years ago, my brother wrote a fine book about Horden Colliery and called it Coming Back Brockens, a northern English mining term for the practice of pulling out props and allowing the roof to collapse when a coal face is exhausted and the tunnel to be closed. It is a metaphor that suggests one of the book’s themes, the fragility of collective memory in the disruption of a community whose original reason for existing has been exhausted. Another coal metaphor comes to mind when I think about the history of mining on Vancouver Island. A longwall cut is a method used to extract coal from a narrow horizontal seam sandwiched between two masses of rock, above and below. Because the coal company obtained no profit from and paid no wage for cutting rock, miners working a longwall cut would do so lying on their sides, frequently in pools of water, or bent double on their knees beneath the low roof, to maximise the amount of coal extracted against the amount of rock cleared. The history of mining in the Nanaimo area is something like that narrow seam of coal: the 117 years between the discovery of coal in Winthuysen Inlet and the closure of the last Wellington mine in 1968 are a narrow interlude, sandwiched between the immensely longer history of the aboriginal peoples of this coast and the future that is rushing away from the tragedies and struggles of the past. Facing those tragedies and struggles is difficult. But it is a rich seam, and worth the effort.

[Read comments on this article; add your comment if you wish.]

Victims of the Number One Mine explosion.

The list that follows cross-references information from two sources: 1) a list of victims originally published in Volume 13, Issue 4 (Winter 1996) of AncesTree by the Nanaimo Family Historical Society and cross indexed with the mine level information published in Volume 11, Issue 3 (Fall 1994); 2) the Nanaimo Community Archives Mine Death & Accident database entries for 1887. These two sources are not consistent. Names marked * occur only in the Nanaimo Family Historical Society list, while those marks ** occur only in the Nanaimo Community Archives database. Variant names in the latter are recorded in parentheses. The total count of the combined lists is 150, but it is possible that there are transcription errors in one or both sources and misidentification of at least one victim under multiple names.

The memorial in Nanaimo records that most of the anonymous ‘Chinamen’, listed by their payroll number, were members of the Mah clan from the villages of Nam Long, Sheng Long and Sun Gup, near Canton (Guangzhou) in Guangdong province. In mine records, the Chinese were not accorded the title ‘miner’, but were listed simply as ‘underground’.

Thomas Allen (or F. Allen?) Miner, No. 5 Level.
Bristol, England. Aged 24. Body retrieved May 9th.
Single.

Edward Benton Miner, No. 1 Level.
Rothwell, Yorkshire, England. Aged 34. Body retrieved May 8th.
Left a wife and six children.

George S. Bertram Miner, No. 3 Level.
Yorkshire, England. Aged 37. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and three children.

Herbert Bevilockway Miner, No. 3 Level.
Nanaimo. Aged 24. Body retrieved May 6th.
Single.

George Biggs Miner, New Slope.
Nanaimo. Aged 27. Body never found.
Single.

Arvid Bjurling* No. 5 Level.
Sweden. Aged 30.
Presumed single.

Jonathan Blundell Miner, New Slope.
Maryport, Cumberland, England. Aged 33. Body never found.
Left a wife and five children.

Robert Buffington Miner, No. 1 Level.
Age unknown. Body retrieved May 8th.

William Bone Miner, No. 1 Level.
Penzance, Cornwall, England. Aged 42. Body retrieved May 8th.
Left a wife and three children.

George Bowden Miner, No. 1 Level.
Cornwall, England. Aged 71. Body retrieved May 8th.
Widower.

Jonathon Bramley Jr. Miner, No. 1 Level.
Rothwell, Yorkshire, England. Aged 36. Body retrieved May 8th.
Left a wife and three children.

H. Brun (or Burn) Miner, No. 5 Level.
Age unknown. Body retrieved May 9th.

William Burns Miner, New Slope.
Scotland. Aged 35. Body retrieved May 13th.
Single.

James Byers (or Byres) Miner, No. 3 Level.
Wrickbridge, Cumberland, England. Aged 22. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and child.

William R. Campbell Miner, No. 1 Level.
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Aged 28. Body retrieved May 9th.
Single.

James Campbell Miner, No. 1 Level.
Rye, Sussex, England. Aged 39. Body retrieved May 8th.
Left a wife.

Chinaman No. 3 Underground.
Body retrieved May 3rd.

Chinaman No. 71 Underground.
Body retrieved May 3rd.

Chinaman No. 72 Underground.
Body retrieved May 3rd.

Chinaman No. 73 Underground.
Body retrieved May 3rd.

Chinaman No. 77 Underground.
Body retrieved May 3rd.

Chinaman No. 83 Underground.
Body retrieved May 3rd.

Chinaman No. 84 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 86 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 87 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 88 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 89 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 90 Underground.
Body retrieved May 8th.

Chinaman No. 92 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 93 Underground.
Body retrieved May 8th.

Chinaman No. 95 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 96 Underground.
Body retrieved May 8th.

Chinaman No. 97 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 98 Underground.
Body retrieved May 9th.

Chinaman No. 100 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 101 Underground.
Body retrieved May 8th.

Chinaman No. 102 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 104 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 105 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 106 Underground.
Body retrieved May 8th.

Chinaman No. 107 Underground.
Body retrieved May 8th.

Chinaman No. 108 Underground.
Body retrieved May 8th.

Chinaman No. 112 Underground.
Body retrieved May 8th.

Chinaman No. 113 Underground.
Body retrieved May 9th.

Chinaman No. 114 Underground.
Body retrieved May 9th.

Chinaman No. 116 Underground.
Body retrieved May 9th.

Chinaman No. 117 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 118 Underground.
Body retrieved May 9th.

Chinaman No. 119 Underground.
Body retrieved May 9th.

Chinaman No. 120 Underground.
Body retrieved May 9th.

Chinaman No. 122 Underground.
Body retrieved May 11th.

Chinaman No. 123 Underground.
Body retrieved May 6th.

Chinaman No. 124 Underground.
Body retrieved May 14th.

Chinaman No. 125 Underground.
Body retrieved May 11th.

Chinaman No. 127 Underground.
Body retrieved May 14th.

Chinaman No. 128 Underground.
Body retrieved May 8th.

Chinaman No. 129 Underground.
Body retrieved May 14th.

Chinaman No. 131 Underground.
Body retrieved May 11th.

Chinaman No. 133 Underground.
Body retrieved May 14th.

Chinaman No. 135 Underground.
Body retrieved May 14th.

Chinaman No. 136 Underground.
Body retrieved May 8th.

Chinaman No. 137 Underground.
Body retrieved June 20th.

Chinaman No. 137 (138?) Underground.
Body retrieved October 15th.

Chinaman No. 139 Underground.
Body retrieved December 10th.

Chinaman No. 140 Underground.
Body retrieved December 10th.

Chinaman No. 142 Underground.
Body retrieved October 15th.

Chinaman No. 143 Underground.
Body never found.

Chinaman No. 145 Underground.
Body never found.

William L. Cochrane (or Cochran) Miner, Sinking Shaft.
Age unknown. Body retrieved May 3rd.
Single.

Michael Corcoran Miner, No. 5 Level.
County Kerry, Ireland. Aged 46. Body retrieved May 9th.
Left a wife and six children.

William Davey (or Davy) Miner, No. 3 Level.
Whitehaven, Cumberland, England. Aged 33. Body retrieved May 6th.
Single.

James Davey (or Davy) Miner, No. 3 Level.
Whitehaven, Cumberland, England. Aged 33. Body retrieved May 6th.
Single.

William (L.) Davis Miner, Sinking Shaft.
Ruthin, Denbighshire, Wales. Aged 36. Body retrieved May 3rd.
Left a wife and two children.

Daniel Dawson Miner, New Slope.
Cletermore, Cumberland, England. Aged 28. Body retrieved May 13th.
Single.

Thomas Dawson Miner, New Slope.
Cletermore, Cumberland, England. Aged 32. Body never found.
Single.

Charles Drake Miner, New Slope.
Sweden. Aged 27. Body retrieved May 14th.
Left a wife and three children.

Peter Ducca Miner, No. 5 Level.
Formaco, Italy. Aged 25. Body retrieved May 9th.
Single.

Arthur Ellis Miner, No. 1 Level.
Aged 21. Body retrieved May 8th.

David Ellis Miner, No. 1 Level.
Rothwell, Yorkshire, England. Aged 48. Body retrieved May 8th.
Left a wife and four children.

Thomas Evans Miner, No. 3 Level.
Llwynpia, Glamorgan, Wales.Age unknown. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and four children.

John C. Fallen Miner, No. 1 Level.
Michigan, U.S.A., via California. Aged 30. Body retrieved May 8th.
Single.

Anderoti Fillipea (or Fillippia) Miner, No. 5 Level.
Genoa, Italy. Aged 28. Body retrieved May 9th.
Single.

Joseph Forrest (or Forest) Miner, No. 1 Level.
Longhurst, Northumberland, England. Aged 28. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife.

William Gilbert Miner, No. 1 Level.
Goldsithney, Cornwall, England. Aged 43. Body retrieved May 8th.
Left a wife and four children.

Thomas Gorman Miner, New Slope.
Middleton, County Cork, Ireland. Aged 24. Body retrieved May 13th.
Single.

William Hague (or Hagne) Miner, New Slope.
Oldham, Lancashire, England. Aged 23. Body retrieved May 14th.
Left a wife and child.

James Hoggan Miner, No. 3 Level.
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Aged 21. Body retrieved May 6th.
Single.

William Hoy Miner, New Slope.
Sydney Mines, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Aged 21. Body retrieved May 14th.
Left a wife and child.

Samuel Hudson** Explorer.
Age unknown. Body retrieved May 3rd.

Thomas Hughes Miner, New Slope.
Buckley, Flintshire, Wales. Aged c.32. Body never found.
Left a wife and children.

Andrew Hunter Miner, No. 1 Level.
Nanaimo. Aged 15. Body retrieved May 6th.

James Isbister Miner, No. 3 Level.
Nanaimo. Aged 17. Body retrieved May 6th.
Single.

Nicholas Johns Miner, No. 5 Level.
Cornwall, England. Aged 25. Body retrieved May 9th.
Left a wife.

Edward John (or Johns) Miner, No. 1 Level.
Wales, via Minnesota U.S.A. Aged 40. Body retrieved May 8th.
Left a wife and children.

John Johnson Miner, New Slope.
Sweden, abt 31 yrs, left a wife & 4 or 5 childrenAged c.31. Body retrieved May 14th.
Left a wife and four or five children.

Evan Jones Miner, No. 3 Level.
Llanarmon Yu Tale, Denbigh, Wales. Aged 40. Body retrieved May 6th.

Hudson Lee Miner, No. 3 Level.
Rothwell, Yorkshire, England. Aged 22. Body retrieved May 6th.
Single.

Henry Lee Miner, No. 3 Level.
Rothwell, Yorkshire, England. Aged 48. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and ten children.

Abraham T. Lewis Miner, No. 3 Level.
Brymbo, near Wrexham, Wales. Aged 47. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and child.

John Linn Miner, Sinking Shaft.
Ayreshire, Scotland. Aged 34. Body retrieved May 3rd.
Left a wife and five children.

William Lukey Jr. Miner, No. 3 Level.
Wisconsin, U.S.A. Aged 27. Body retrieved May 6th.

William Lukey Sr. Miner, No. 3 Level.
Cornwall, England. Aged 50. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and five children.

James Lyons Miner, New Slope.
Ireland. Aged 44. Body retrieved May 14th.
Left a wife and child.

Michael Lyons Miner, No. 1 Level.
Aged 15. Body retrieved May 5th.
(Son of James Lyons.)

Alexander McDonald Miner, New Slope.
Pictou County, Nova Scotia. Aged 23. Body retrieved May 14th.
Single.

Roderick McDonald Miner, No. 5 Level.
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Aged 37. Body retrieved May 9th.
Left a wife and child.

John McGuffie Miner, No. 1 Level.
Nanaimo. Aged 23. Body retrieved May 8th.
Single.

Malcolm McLean Miner, No. 5 Level.
Sydney Mines, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Aged 31. Body retrieved May 9th.
Single.

John Malcolm** Miner.
Age unknown. Body retrieved May 8th.

Thomas Martin Miner, No. 1 Level.
Nanaimo. Aged 23. Body retrieved May 8th.
Single.

Frederick Mattison Miner, Sinking Shaft.
Sweden. Aged c.30. Body retrieved May 3rd.
Single.

John Meakin Sr. Miner, No. 1 Level.
London, England. Aged 57. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and nine children.

Arthur Meakin Miner, New Slope.
Nanaimo. Aged 19. Body retrieved May 9th.
(Youngest son of John Meakin, Sr.)

James Milton Miner, No. 1 Level.
Indiana, U.S.A., via California. Aged c.30. Body retrieved May 8th.
Single.

John W. Morgan Miner, No. 5 Level.
County Down, Ireland. Aged c.28. Body retrieved May 9th.
Single.

David Morgan Miner, No. 1 Level.
Cowbridge, Glamorganshire, Wales. Aged 27. Body retrieved May 8th.
Single.

William Morris Miner, New Slope.
Missouri, U.S.A. Aged c.30. Body retrieved May 14th.
Left a wife and three children.

John Morton Miner, No. 3 Level.
Lanarkshire, Scotland. Aged 30. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and two children.

Andrew Morton Miner, No. 3 Level.
Lanarkshire, Scotland. Aged 28. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and child.

Andrew Muir Miner, No. 1 Level.
Ayreshire, Scotland. Aged 45. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and six children.

Archibald Muir Miner, No. 3 Level.
Ayreshire, Scotland. Aged 57. Body retrieved May 9th.
Left a wife and three children.

John Myles Miner, New Slope.
Redding, Sterlingshire, Scotland. Aged 39. Body retrieved May 14th.
Single.

Samuel H. Myers Miner, No. 5 Level.
Ireland. Aged 49. Body retrieved May 9th.
Single.

Robert Nicholson Miner, New Slope.
Northumberland, England. Aged 34. Body never found.
Left a wife and two children.

George Old Miner, No. 3 Level.
Penzance, Cornwall, England. Aged 46. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and child.

Thomas Perry Miner, New Slope.
Backworth, Northumberland, England. Aged 32. Body retrieved July 28th.
Left a wife and two children.

Benjamin Popplewell Miner, No. 1 Level.
Methley, Yorkshire, England. Aged 28. Body retrieved May 8th.
Single.

John Richards Miner, No. 1 Level.
Birmingham, England. Aged 45. Body retrieved May 8th.
Left a wife, and a son in England.

William Ridley Miner, No. 3 Level.
Clifton, Cumberland, England. Aged 28. Body retrieved May 6th.
Single.

William Scales Miner, New Slope.
New Westminster, BC. Aged 27. Body retrieved May 14th.
Single.

George Simmons Miner, No. 1 Level.
London, England. Aged 35. Body retrieved May 8th.
Left a wife and child.

Allan Smiley (or Smilley) Miner, New Slope.
Glasgow, Scotland. Aged 34. Body retrieved May 14th.
Left a wife and child.

John J. Smith Miner, No. 1 Level.
Liverpool, England, via Australia. Aged 25. Body retrieved May 8th.

John Smith Miner, Sinking Shaft.
Scotland. Aged 21. Body retrieved May 3rd.
Single.

William Henry Stephenson Miner, New Slope.
Macon County, Missouri. Aged 18. Body retrieved May 14th.
Left a wife.

John Stevens Miner, No. 1 Level.
Iowa, U.S.A. Aged 23. Body retrieved May 8th.
Single.

John Stove Miner, No. 3 Level.
Nanaimo. Aged 23. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and child.

Robert Stove Miner, No. 3 Level.
Nanaimo. Aged 21. Body retrieved May 6th.
Single.

Jubert Tellaro (possibly G. Bartolero) Miner, No. 5 Level.
Turino, Italy. Aged 29. Body retrieved May 9th.
Single.

James Thomas Miner, No. 1 Level.
Wales. Aged 35. Body retrieved May 8th.
Single.

Joseph Thompson Miner, No. 1 Level.
Peltonfell, Durham, England. Aged 37. Body retrieved May 8th.
Left a wife and three children.

John Thompson Miner, New Slope.
Maryport, Cumberland, England. Aged 32. Body retrieved May 14th.
Single.

Frank Tulley (or Tully) Miner, New Slope.
California. Aged 28. Body retrieved May 14th.
Left a wife and child.

Joseph Watson Miner, No. 1 Level.
Weardale, Durham, England. Aged 30. Body retrieved May 8th.
Single.

John Henry Westfeldt (possibly Harry Westfieldt) Miner, No. 3 Level.
The Netherlands. Aged 43. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and five children.

Edward Wilkins Miner, No. 1 Level.
Cowbridge, Glamorganshire, Wales. Aged 26. Body retrieved May 8th.
Single.

Caton Willis Miner, New Slope.
St. Charles, Ontario. Aged 40. Body retrieved May 14th.
Left a wife and three children.

John Woobank Miner, No. 3 Level.
Leeds, Yorkshire, England. Aged 41. Body retrieved May 6th.
Left a wife and two children.

Copley Woobank Miner, No. 3 Level.
Rothwell, Yorkshire, England. Aged 18. Body retrieved May 6th.
(Son of John Woobank.)

John Zermani Miner, No. 5 Level.
Matte, Parma, Italy. Aged 38. Body retrieved May 9th.
Left a wife and three children.

_____

Notes

1. The epitaph is adapted from the penultimate verse of William Cullen Bryant’s elegy ‘The Burial of Love’. The clasped hands were a popular image on Victorian gravestones, symbolising the farewell to earthly life. [Return to text]

2. The Martin Family of Gabriola Island, a website created by Donald Martin. [Return to text]

3. Gabriola Museum Archives web pages for the McLay and Roberts families. [Return to text]

4. Samuel Robins was the London-appointed superintendent of the Nanaimo Coal Company mines from 1883 to 1903. In sharp contrast to the Dunsmuir mine managers and those who would succeed him when Western Fuel Corporation took over the Nanaimo mines, Robins was generally in favour of cooperation between management and workers, and in the 1890s was open to the organising activities of the Miners’ and Mine Labourers’ Protective Association. Although initially opposing the move to prohibit Chinese from working underground, he accepted the white miners’ demands in the wake of the explosion. He also introduced measures to enable miners to lease and cultivate smallholdings on company land in the area that became known as Five Acres (the average size of the plots). [Return to text]

5. A list of Vancouver Island coal mining fatalities has been compiled by the Friends of the Morden Mine. [Return to text]

Unless otherwise noted, information about the history and conditions of mining on Vancouver Island comes from Lynne Bowen’s book Boss Whistle (Nanaimo, 2002). This is an excellent read: well written, solidly researched and frequently moving. I could not have written this article without the work of Lynne Bowen and the Coal Tyee Society, who collected the oral histories of Vancouver Island miners that provided an invaluable record of a vanished way of life.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

If you live on Gabriola, perhaps you could keep an eye out for a young Gabriola man who’s gone missing. Details about him, including his photo, are on the missing person post at island blog.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

A Royal Roads University professor is plugging into the unplugged world of people living off the grid after receiving a $500,000 research grant.

RRU school of communications and culture professor Phillip Vannini, a sociologist known for wading into the esoteric and obscure, will be guiding a five-year project that seeks to tell the stories of people in B.C. who live away from the niceties of modern society, who are in most ways self-sufficient.

Living off the grid isn’t just about generating your own energy or putting up a windmill, Vannini says. It’s about a change of lifestyle, about taking control of your life. You feel in charge of your own destiny.

[Source: sorry, article no longer available.]

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Friends of the late Michael Brophy applauded the B.C. Court of Appeal for a decision to order a new trial for two men acquitted of manslaughter in the harrowing and notorious death of the young Gabriola Island man. [continue]

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

We see callow young ‘uns taking short-cuts through the Gabriola forest wearing things that can’t possibly be warm enough. I don’t know these kids, but I want to wrap them in sense and woollen blankets and caution them against the cold. I want to tell them, and you, this story.

Stay warm, my dears.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Other content includes interviews with a Coast Salish elder, a fisherman and biologist, a scuba diver, a tug boat captain… oh my.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

NANAIMO, BC, Nov 15 (CP). –The story of an 11-year-old girl’s audacious strategy in frightening off a shotgun-wielding assailant who slew her brother was told Sunday night by British Columbia Police here.

The girl, Anita Piper, said she hid under her brother’s automobile when the slayer chased her Friday night, after fatally blasting the face of her 20-year-old brother, Irvine Waldemar Piper, on a road leading to their Gabriola Island home near here.

As the man strove to reach her, she said she picked up rocks from the gravel road under the car and threw them into th bush nearby. The assailant, hearing crashing in the bushes, thought someone was coming and fled. [continue]

This is from Google’s news archive.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

There’s nothing like watching somebody climb out of the sea in November to make one feel like a wimp.

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

A friend on Gabriola — an elderly soul — blocked the Google Street View car from the road she was on, gave the driver a stern lecture, and sent the vehicle away. Heh.

Anyway. Are you shown on the Google Street View images of Gabriola? And did you know that Google collected a lot more than images as it went around the island? The CBC reports that Google breached Canada’s privacy laws.

Google Street View cars breached Canadian privacy laws by inappropriately collecting personal information through a careless error, the federal privacy commissioner has found.

Our investigation shows that Google did capture personal information — and, in some cases, highly sensitive personal information such as complete e-mails. This incident was a serious violation of Canadians’ privacy rights, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart stated Tuesday.

Information collected by Google’s cars included complete email addresses, user names and passwords, names and residential telephone numbers and addresses, and health details, Stoddart said. [continue]

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Classical Women is a 2011 calendar of tasteful black-and-white nudes and semi-nudes. The women are all classical musicians. The project is an effort to raise funds for Gabriola’s Lulu Performing Arts Society, now struggling in the face of provincial funding cuts.

Some of the models are young, others are more mature. One boldly wields her bassoon in the forest. [continue]

[Source: sorry, article no longer available.]

The Lulu store features the Classical Women 2011 Calendar – you can see the photos there. Lulu says that copies are available for sale at Artworks, Colleen’s, Gabriola Professional Centre, The Haven, Island Book Shoppe, Page’s Marina, and Slice of Life.

(Calendar photos were taken by Gabriola’s Carolyn Davey.)

(From Gabriolan.ca.)

Now, before you peek, take a few guesses about things like Gabriola’s population, median income for various types of households, number of dwellings, and population density per square kilometre for 2006. Then go take a look and see how accurate you were. Any surprises? Any other interesting things for you in the community profile?

(From Gabriolan.ca.)