2015 Trip: Cape Breton Miner's Museum

Coal was discovered on Cape Breton in the 1720s.  The French were the first to mine it seriously.  They used  it to heat buildings and supply ships at Louisbourg.  When the British captured Louisbourg in 1758, they continued mining operations.  Immigrants from Scotland, Wales, England, and Ireland  ame to work.  By the 1900s, Cape Breton had become Canada's main coal-producing region.  The last underground mine closed in 2001.

I took a guided tour underground, in the former Ocean Deeps Colliery.  A little bending and shuffling, but kind of fun.