Industrial Cape Breton
This large deposit of high-sulphur coal was first extracted by French soldiers from Fortress of Louisbourg in 1720 at nearby Port Morien.
A major coal industry developed during the 19th century, becoming the largest energy project in British North America at its height of production.
They were nationalized by the federal and provincial governments during the late 1960s with the intention of closing them by the 1980s, however production increased in the 1970s as a result of rising world oil and steel prices.
By the 1990s, environmental degradation (see Sydney Tar Ponds) and economic ruin were facing the industrial Cape Breton region.
The booming economy in the Industrial area experienced immigration from Newfoundland and Eastern Europe to fuel the labour demand.
If the miners require more work, then the United Mine Workers of America district 26 Executive must recommend wage reductionThe stage had been set for a sequence of events which would lead to the tragic death of a union brother and father of 10 children, William Davis.
McClurg added insult to injury by eliminating credit for miners at the company "Pluck Me" store and further reducing days of work at the collieries.
Hard pressed merchants continued to give credit, fishermen contributed their catch, the British Canadian Co-operatives donated 500 dollars.
On June 11, 1925 drunken company police terrorized the people of New Waterford by charging down Plummer Avenue on horseback beating all who stood in their path.
They were determined to restore electricity and water to their homes and families; On June 11 approximately 3,000 infuriated men and boys gathered at New Waterford and made their way towards the power plant.
The men were driven to this action because on top of already deplorable conditions their supply of water and power to their homes, schools, and hospitals was cut off.
The police force was subsequently withdrawn, the wage scale was reduced to the 1922 level (a reduction of between 6% and 8%), the Corporation received a rebate of 1/5 of the coal royalties paid to the province for a 6 month period.
It is summed up in the words of District 26 President, Stephen J. Drake— There is no finer person on this planet than the working man who carries his lunch can deep into the bowels of the earth.
Far beneath the ocean he works the black seam; an endless ribbon of steel his only link to the fresh air and blue skies.
Following the war, coal production went into a decline as newer and cheaper open-pit mines were opened in western North America, railways switched to diesel fuel for locomotives, and nuclear energy and hydroelectricity gained increased acceptance.
DOSCO announced that its mines had 15 years of production left and that its steel mill was uneconomic to operate without significant modernization.
The federal government reversed course and chose to expand, rather than retract, the production of coal and opened new mines and modernized its DOSCO-inherited properties to serve new electrical generating stations.
It is significant to note that until 1992, Nova Scotia Power was a crown corporation, and as such treated locally produced coal with preference.
Industrial Cape Breton's economy faces significant challenges with unemployment and out-migration, as well as ongoing efforts to clean up the Sydney Tar Ponds; a legacy of DOSCO, and later DEVCO, producing coke to fuel the blast furnaces at the steel mill.
The Muggah Creek estuary opening onto Sydney Harbour near the coke ovens site is contaminated with a variety of coal-based wastes.
After extensive public consultation and technical study, a CDN$400-million cleanup plan, jointly funded by the federal and provincial governments awaits further environmental assessment.
In the early 2000s, it was feared that in a classic case of adjustment from an industrial to post-industrial economy, the region would undergo a rapid depopulation as workers with limited skills and financial means would migrate to Alberta energy projects or Ontario and U.S. urban centres.
[citation needed] Record world energy prices during 2004-2005 resulted in plans to reopen an abandoned colliery at Donkin.
