Cool Underground Tunnel and Nanaimo's Old Mine Shafts

[yogi bear]

It's the biggest slagpile (locals just refer to it as the "Coalpile") located by the old access road off of Midora...it's the one we all used to climb up when we lil' uns...

Cheers,
Al

[Bunky]

oh ok well thanks Al. I seem to remember Donny Randles Chevy II getting about half way up one day. He came down backwards but on all four and in one piece.

[GR74]

Apparently everyone called that huge coal pile in Extension 'Mt. Bickerton' in the 1920s because Mr. Bickerton was the outside foreman for the pithead. There was a track coming from the mine that went up to the top. Coal slack and waste rock would be dumped into special steel cars and hauled up. There was a little shack up there in the early days and two chinamen stayed up there to dump the cars. Later on the cars dumped automatically. Erosion has taken its toll on Mt. Bickerton over the years. It was another 50-75 feet higher during the mining era.

[GR74]

Very cool was there any relics in there?

Oops, sorry Mike. Looks like I missed that one. I don't always look back at the thread right away and it looks like you were asking your question right around the time that my computer crashed. I abandoned the internet altogether and went offline for a couple of months afterwards, I understand that it doesn't feel very good if you are ignored, so my apologies for the late response.

So we didn't find any relics or artifacts inside since this mine was flooded to the brim. We did have a guy that was interested in diving some of the mines to see what was down there though. I can't say that I'll ever encourage anyone to follow in my footsteps and therefore won't be much help with mine locations and names but the Harewood Mines are already well known and it would be cool to see our coal mines from a diver's perspective.

[GR74]

The following photo is a recent one and was taken during a random drive down Jingle Pot Road last month. I started adjusting the exposure and color to keeps things interesting when it turned out like this:

[Peter Roosen]

Apparently everyone called that huge coal pile in Extension 'Mt. Bickerton' in the 1920s because Mr. Bickerton was the outside foreman for the pithead. There was a track coming from the mine that went up to the top. Coal slack and waste rock would be dumped into special steel cars and hauled up. There was a little shack up there in the early days and two chinamen stayed up there to dump the cars. Later on the cars dumped automatically. Erosion has taken its toll on Mt. Bickerton over the years. It was another 50-75 feet higher during the mining era.

Some of the rail is still there sticking out of the slack and rock on the south side. The thing is quite visible from space - google maps - Extension's grey wart. There is also an old engine block about a third of the way up. It was there last year. I've heard there was an intention a few years ago of hauling Mt. Bickerton out to the big gravel pit south of there, sifting out and selling the coal. There are all sorts of interesting things there. Quietly pulled out a railcar a few years ago, also a loose wheel and a nice moveable point (swingnose) switch frog which is now in service. I gave the orphan wheel to Garry Britt. His neighbour also pulled a wheel out last summer - coincidentally while I was visiting Garry. There is still plenty of stuff in Extension. The area is about to be taken over by the suburbanators who are now building houses and planting lawns all over it. Not sure if a local architect has designed a suitable house with a 2 car garage for the top of Mt. Bickerton.

P.S. Adding a couple photos taken here yesterday. The wooden 1911 Dunsmuir car built at the Mt. Sicker shops in the winter which is now in Wellington service for the first time. Plus a fresh addition that arrived 3 days ago - a newly restored 1887 wrought iron car. PPR

[GR74]

Some of the rail is still there sticking out of the slack and rock on the south side. The thing is quite visible from space - google maps - Extension's grey wart. There is also an old engine block about a third of the way up. It was there last year. I've heard there was an intention a few years ago of hauling Mt. Bickerton out to the big gravel pit south of there, sifting out and selling the coal. There are all sorts of interesting things there. Quietly pulled out a railcar a few years ago, also a loose wheel and a nice moveable point (swingnose) switch frog which is now in service. I gave the orphan wheel to Garry Britt. His neighbour also pulled a wheel out last summer - coincidentally while I was visiting Garry. There is still plenty of stuff in Extension. The area is about to be taken over by the suburbanators who are now building houses and planting lawns all over it. Not sure if a local architect has designed a suitable house with a 2 car garage for the top of Mt. Bickerton.

P.S. Adding a couple photos taken here yesterday. The wooden 1911 Dunsmuir car built at the Mt. Sicker shops in the winter which is now in Wellington service for the first time. Plus a fresh addition that arrived 3 days ago - a newly restored 1887 wrought iron car. PPR

I was around the Myles Lake - Arbutus Heights area of Extension for work earlier this month and decided to stop at the Extension Miner's Park quickly when I was finished. A story and photos of the Extension Mines have finally been posted inside the kiosk that GBritt constructed. Garry has also drawn up plans for a small covered bridge that he is going to build, crossing the creek flowing from the mine. I like the idea because it will grant you an opportunity to go down and stand right in front of the mine entrance for a better view (not to mention the bridge's outstanding design). I am hoping that I can participate with that project. The miner's park has really come together nicely, so far they've done an awesome job. However, I do wish that the City would have designated a little more land. You go down to the mine entrance today and there is now a log home to your left and a smaller rancher-style home to your right. You almost feel like you're trespassing when you go down there, and in my case I obviously am. The first couple of new homes constructed since the surrounding land was subdivided and they decide to build as close to the mine entrance as possible. It would have been nice to see, let's say, a small parking lot for cars on the right, and a nice lawn on the left with some picnic tables, more coal car benches and kiosks, maybe plant some Japanese maples or pink Dogwood trees? Or lay some track somewhere? Now you go down there to look around and hunt for artifacts and some weirdo comes out of his house and starts yelling "Hey, that's my stuff!!"

The whole Mt. Bickerton relocation plan - glad that it fell through! I can't say that I liked the idea to begin with, it sounds like somebody's 'get rich quick' scheme to me. Sell the coal, I wonder whose pocket that money ends up in? If you consider our heritage, consider who put that coal there and when, then it's probably a better idea to leave Black Beauty alone. How many years did it take to make that coal pile and exactly how many loads of waste rock and coal slack does Mt. Bickerton consist of? Seal the mines and build houses on top, remove all of the slack piles and we really won't have anything left! What a shame. What's wrong guys? Scared of the big, bad coal mine?

I recently noticed some excavating taking place around the Douglas Mine site on Old Victoria Road, it appears that somebody is preparing to develop the land. Condos are being constructed on the Jingle Pot Mine site (construction crews caused a cave-in ), and there are plans to build on the No. 1 Esplanade Mine Manager's Heritage Lot. In my opinion, the manager's home should have been saved/restored, at least one (if not all) of the barrack-style buildings should have been saved/restored, and they should have left the elevator/air shaft alone!!! I think that the property would have been put to better use had it been designated a heritage site and converted to another provincial coal mining park. We don't have the funds, you say? Well then it's time for the Government to donate. They have lots of money, money to burn! Just look at the Fast Ferry Fiasco, we only lost $400 million. My god! I'm sure pennies from that fund would have restored the old Morden Ruins.

Nice addition to your collection, Peter. 1887 was a memorable year. The design appears to match the description of the cars used in Extension to dump waste rock, having been described as being "steel cars, sort of wedge shaped things".

[Peter Roosen]

Thanks GR74 for coming by today where we were short a trammer / engineer on the WCR. Lubing the locomotive and track switches is part of the job (including that special double linkage switch with the movable point frog from Mt. Bickerton in a couple of the photos). It seems they needed to use those at Extension because they had cars with big wheels and tiny wheels running on the same track. The tiny wheeled cars might fall into the gap crossing a regular switch frog. Odd that these 1800s moveable point frogs are now in use on high speed rail systems for entirely different reasons.

[yogi bear]

see next post

[yogi bear]

Hi all,
Had an enjoyable (and exciting) evening walk up to the area around the Chambers Mine this evening after work...poked around a bit and came across some interesting artifacts (to me anyways, most would call it junk! : )) On the base of a concrete and wood foundation saw the plaque for the "American Junior Combination Machine" built by the Service Station Equipment Company of Chicago USA...I'll assume it some kind of air compressor for the mine, or perhaps a pump cause there was lots of pipe and old high pressure rubber/asbestos hose lying about...there was the remains of an old coal bucket and what looked like some prying tools that may have been used to access the coal seams?
The excitement came in our walk back to the car....came face to face with a big ol' black bear who wasn't too impressed with us disturbing his dinner salad (grass : )) Luckily the wife carries a small portable air horn in her backpack, a couple loud blasts had the bruin heading for the woods : )

Cheers,
Al