Pacific Coast Colliery – Doomed Miners' Day in Court (Part 2)

Today, it’s a farmer’s field, the right-of-way for a gas line, and patches of third-growth forest and wild fruit trees bisected by the E&N mainline.

Other than a concrete tower-like structure in the middle of a pasture, some concrete foundations of the powerhouse in the trees, and evidences of scattered and mounded coal waste, the once famous—perhaps infamous--PCC Mine has all but vanished. Little, besides a sign warning hikers of “possible toxic gas and collapse,” to even suggest that this was a busy coal mine.

Nothing at all to suggest that here is where, 107 years ago and 100s of feet below the surface, 19 men were drowned.

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Of all the coal mining disasters in Vancouver Island’s history that of the PCCM in South Wellington stands out on two counts. First, that it was caused not by the usual suspects, gas, explosion or cave-in, but by flooding. Second, that, for once in an industry that all but accepted dangerous workings conditions and their consequences as the cost of doing business, criminal charges were laid.

Someone had screwed up.

19 men had died.

Someone had to pay.

That’s next week in the Chronicles. 

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