by Mick Lowe
It went without saying that he and Jake, like bonus miners everywhere, had long since come to consider the bonus an essential part of their paycheck, absolutely necessary to support themselves and their families. Every penny would be spoken for before the cheque had even been cashed, every penny necessary to maintain the lifestyle to which every miner, and his wife and children, had become accustomed. Even single guys like Jake burned through the money like there was no tomorrow. Shiny new muscle cars (GTOs, Sting Rays, Dodge Chargers), four-wheel drive trucks, bigger and better gadgets (colour television was the latest, next best coming thing), boats and motors, expensive new stereos, there was no end of must-haves in Sudbury’s fast-paced, boom-town lifestyle.
Simply keeping a roof over one’s head was also an increasingly expensive challenge in a city acutely sensitive to events half a world away. As the United States ramped up its war in Vietnam, demand for nickel, “the most militarily strategic of metals,” soared, and with it both the world nickel price and the profits of the International Nickel Company, all of which reverberated with Jake and Bob, their ears still ringing from the roar of the jackleg, as they ate a hasty lunch in the dark, dusty confines of their stope on the 600 foot level of Frood Mine on an afternoon in early October of 1963.
Job seekers from all over the world were flooding into the Nickel City, hoping to share in the fast money, and the city was bursting at the seams. Venal home owners rented every spare room and space to the newcomers, to further augment already rich wage and bonus earnings. The practice of “hot sheeting”—where a bed, cot or couch was rented to both a dayshift worker and his cross-shift counterpart—was not uncommon. One newly arrived immigrant family found themselves forced to dwell behind the basement furnace of an already-established Sudbury family, so great was the housing shortage triggered by the nickel boom of the 1960s.
“But there’s a few things we can do to beat the system,” Bob confided, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “One is slowing down when them time-motion assholes are down here with their clipboards.”
“Working slower?” frowned Jake. “But that’ll mean less bonus, for sure.”
“For that one shift, sure. But it’s how they’ll set the rates for months to come, which’ll let us earn as much as before, don’t you see?”
“The second thing we can do is to bank the bonus.”
“Bank it how?” Jake looked up with interest.
“We under report our breakage for most of a pay period, so it looks like we’re not making so much bonus. And then, at the end of two weeks, we draw down the bank, report our actual breakage, and we’re back to a hundred percent, or even more.”
“I get it,” Jake nodded, chewing his sandwich thoughtfully. “They think we’re making less than we actually are, so they don’t come down to cut our rates. But really, we’ll still be making a hundred percent.”
“You got it, Pontiac.”
“Let’s do it, then.” Jake stood up, gulping down the last of his lunch with a swig of now lukewarm coffee. “Pitter-patter …”
And so, on that afternoon and for the rest of the pay period, Jake and Bob began to bank the bonus.
At first, it all went according to plan, with no inkling that the scheme could be fatally flawed.
They shaved just enough off their reported daily tonnage, or “push,” to reduce their bonus nominally, but not enough to arouse the suspicion of management.
Meanwhile in actuality, of course, they continued to make their steady push at their accustomed one hundred percent rate, perhaps even more. It was a grind, but in the meantime Jake continued to learn the nuances of successful, safe, high bonus-earning hard rock mining from Bob, techniques that would serve him well for the rest of his life: how you had to work smart, and not simply bull-bull, to be a big-time bonus miner—learning to think ahead before crossing the heading, for example—and to anticipate whether you should carry this or that tool with you now, to save steps later. Time was money, after all.
Safety was another major challenge here in the Upper Country. Jake learned the delicate, life-saving art of scaling by watching Bob. Each day they’d begin their shift by cautiously venturing into their heading, which had just been blasted by their cross-shift. They were entering a space, still dusty from the blast, created only minutes before in rock that had lain undisturbed since the earth cooled. All eyes were on the back. On a good day most of the screen would still be intact. Bob would venture as far out under the edge of the screen as he safely could, being careful not to advance beyond the screen, which basketed any loose that might have scaled off the back. He’d grab his scaling bar—a heavy, six-foot-long bar made of solid cast iron, blunt at one end, tapered at the other—and begin tapping on the back. A ringing sound was reassuring, Bob explained. The ground was solid. But a dull, spongy, sound was a sure sign of loose, no matter how solid the ground might look in the dull beam of their cap lamps. Here Bob would search for an opening, insert the tapered end of his scaling bar, and begin prying and prizing at the suspect ground in the back, and often, sure enough, a chunk of loose would come crashing down to the floor of the stope in a shower of rock dust and splintering fragments. Sometimes, it might be the size of a basketball, but at others it would be ugly, fearsome chunks weighing untold tons and leaving no doubt as to its lethality. “Falls of ground,” as they were termed by Ministry of Natural Resource statisticians, were among the leading, if not the leading, causes of death among hard rock miners in the province.
The greatest precaution—and this too was only relative; every man who stepped onto the cage knew the risk he was facing by venturing underground—was to always work only beneath the screen, which was laboriously advanced by drilling and bolting into the back. The drilling was done with a device known as a stoper, basically a jackleg adapted to drill vertically. Instead of filling the freshly drilled hole with Amex, a rockbolt, which would hold the screen, was inserted. Occasionally Jake would experience the disconcerting sensation of his stoper, which was chewing steadily away at solid rock far overhead deep in the back, suddenly jumping ahead a few inches, a sure sign that it had just drilled a “slip”—a gap between layers of otherwise solid rock—and that was truly scary. It meant that a huge chunk of loose was suspended over their heads. At that size even the most diligent and experienced scaler could be deceived—the loose was so large it would ring true—like good ground. A chunk of loose that size, should it ever break free, would burst through the screen, and come crashing down onto the floor of the stope, crushing everything in its path in an instant. Jake had no illusions about the consequences, and mostly he tried not to think about them too much. One day, though, he asked Bob about it as they ate their lunch.
“Do you ever think about it?”
“’Bout what?”
Jake pointed up at the back. Both of them knew he meant the ever-present spectre of sure, sudden death that was suspended just over their heads.
“Sure, I think about it …”
“And?”
“I try to look on the bright side.” Bob chewed his sandwich reflectively. “If one a’ them big chunks ever did come down, we’d never know what hit us. Not a bad way to go …”
“But how would they get us out? Wouldn’t someone wonder what happened to us?”
“Oh, sure, the Mine Rescue guys would come in, maybe use an air bag to lift the chunk off us. We’d prob’ly come out—if we ever did come out—in pieces.”
Jake shivered at the notion that this dank and eternally dark space could become his final resting place for eternity.
“So—so why do you keep doing it, Bob?”
“What, mining, you mean?”
Jake nodded.
Bob shrugged. “Look, kid. This is what I do. Where else can a guy with a Grade Two education make this kind of money? I own a house, my wife and kids don’t want for nothin’, I’ve even got a little put away so my kids can go to college and never have to face this,” he lifted his eyebrows in the direction o
f the chancey back. “And besides, it gets in your blood. Not everyone can do what we do. And what about you? You got what, Grade Eleven?”
“Ten,” Jake confessed.
“Yeah, and next year the village idiot graduates, and you ain’t shit …”
Bob paused. “Whether we like it or not, we’re in a war down here. The company won’t admit it, or the politicians, but that’s a fact. More men have been killed in Ontario’s hard rock mines over the years than in some whole wars Canada’s fought. No one even knows how many. But, for sure, there’s been hundreds killed right here in the Sudbury camp alone.”
“So why do people keep doing it?”
Bob smiled ruefully and rubbed his thumb and fingers together in the universal sign for money … “Speaking of which …” Bob stood up and brushed the sandwich crumbs from his overalls.
Jake needed no further prompting. They were on a roll now—hundred twenty five percent bonus in the bank, maybe a hundred fifty, even—they wouldn’t know for sure until the engineer came down to officially measure their total push several days from now.
As the pay period wore on fall descended toward winter, forcing Jake and Bob to steel themselves increasingly against the gathering cold in their stope. Nevertheless they continued to drill, blast, scale, roof bolt and screen their way through the parlous rubble heap that was Frood Mine’s Upper Country. Thanks to Bob’s experience and leadership, and in no small measure to Jake’s muscle and youthful energy, the duo made steady headway, banking the bonus at a prodigious rate that pleased them both.
At long last the day of reckoning arrived. Time to redeem the bonus bank. Bob led the way to the shift supervisor’s office, and Jake was happy to let him do the talking.
Soon enough the three of them were trudging their way back down the drift, and as soon as they entered the stope Jake had the sense something was wrong. It was way too bright, for one thing, and the cold was even more intense than ever, not least because of the breeze that was now whistling through their stope. Breeze? Jake stopped short at the sight. It was gone! The whole heading had disappeared, jackleg and all, as if it had never existed! The screen overhead was buckled and at the front end it dangled down crazily, screening them off from nothing more than daylight and birdsong. At first Bob was as dumbfounded as Jake by this unexpected turn of events, but soon he started to laugh uncontrollably as he began to comprehend that the cross shift’s blast had broken through into the pit, and that their precious, hard-won bonus bank—probably thousands of dollars’ worth of it—braces for Bob’s kids’ teeth, the guitar lessons Jake had planned so that he could finally master Ben’s old Gibson, all their heart’s desires—were now nothing more than worthless rubble lying beneath the mangled jackleg that dangled on its hoses, suspended over the water that covered the bottom of the old Frood Open Pit.
Bob was laughing so hard he had to retreat back into the stope and sit down on the muck pile. He tried over and over to say something, but every attempt brought on another laughing fit that left him gasping for breath, and slapping his knees.
Jake felt sick. How was it possible that the solid rock they had drilled, the tons of loose they had dodged, could disappear into thin air, as if it had never existed?
The shift supervisor was coming to the same conclusion. He was already smiling his tight little smile.
“Well, fellas that’s it, then. Can’t pay for push that ain’t there. Sorry.” He shook his head and headed back for the cage.
Finally Bob, still on the muck pile, got a grip. “Sorry ’bout this, partner.” Then he stood up. “Better get a move on, bid us into a new heading.”
But Jake was still incredulous at this sudden turn of events. “But—but is that all there is? There must be more—”
“More? No, partner there really isn’t. We got outta this shithole in one piece. There’s your bonus.” There was a cold, almost triumphant gleam in Bob’s eyes, which were startlingly blue now, seen in the unaccustomed light of day.
And then he was gone.
Jake took Bob’s place on the muck pile. Alone now, he shivered in the cold. It was late October, and the cold was more penetrating each morning.
Even here the smell of snow was in the air.
Jake took one more look around, sighed, and shook his head in disbelief.
Skating rink in hell.
Part four
Into the Middle Country
21
An Offer They Couldn’t Refuse
Bob’s maniacal laughter in the face of disaster would baffle Jake for months—rankle, in fact—but he didn’t broach the subject with his partner when Bob returned, at last, to the heading. He’d been gone for a few hours, in fact, but to Jake it felt like an eternity—hours of prime bonus-earning time wasted.
“Well?” Jake demanded impatiently, jumping up from the muck pile.
“Oh, partner …” was all Bob said, shaking his head as he took Jake’s place.
“What took you? Do we have a new stope?”
“Hold on there, young feller. What took me was I had to go all the way to the mine super, and yes we have a new stope. But it’s not that simple …”
“Well where is it? C’mon. let’s go! We’ve wasted half a shift here, Bob! Pitter-patter let’s get at ’er!”
“Will you wait a goddamned minute? You need to hear this … To begin with, the stope’s right here, just down a few levels, enough to get us below the pit, and outta this cold. But that’s not all …”
Jake swallowed and nodded expectantly. He was all ears now.
“Listen, they want us to start taking much bigger cuts, see? Fourteen by sixteen ’stead of eight by eight.”
“What? Why? That’ll mean way more drilling for us just to make our reg’lar push!”
“Listen to me now—everythin’s about to change, whether we like it or not. They’re bringin’ in a whole new mining method, with a whole bunch a’ new machinery—big stuff—that won’t fit into the usual headings. Damndest thing I ever heard of—biggest thing is these new trammers—they’ll run on diesel, and tires …”
“Diesel!” Jake snorted in disbelief. “Why just the exhaust fumes’ll kill us! Underground?”
Bob nodded. “They know that. They plan to boost ventilation. New raises, bigger blower motors, the lot.”
Jake frowned. It was all beginning to sink in. “Wow! That is big. Trackless mining. But if they’re as big as you say, how’ll they even get them underground?”
Bob shrugged. “Break ’em down on surface and sling the parts down beneath the cage, reassemble ’em underground.”
“Trackless mining …” Jake repeated. The wheels were turning now. “No more laying track, always having to extend it down the drifts …”
Bob nodded. “And not only that, eventually we’d come to ramp mining. Don’t you see? No more shaft. Just drive a ramp down, and you could drive these new trammers right underground …”
“Too much … and what’s all this got to do with us?”
“That’s just it! They want us to go first! To start mining with these new dimensions!”
Jake wasn’t sure he shared Bob’s new-found enthusiasm. “But what’ll it mean for our bonus? With all that extra drilling …”
“Well, I just cut a deal with the mine super himself. He guarantees the new rates’ll be set to work out at our usual rate, maybe even more. They really want us to start this, Jake.”
Still the younger man remained nonplussed. “You sure we can trust ’em, Bob?”
“No, not entirely,” Jesperson conceded. “But if it don’t play out next pay period, then we’re outta there, and I told him so. We’ll bid in to someplace else. Okay?”
Jake sighed. “I guess so. But I just keep wondering ‘What’s the catch?’”
As the duo repaired to the drift to locate their new workplace neither man could know the immense ramifications of what they were about to undertake, or that, because of it, things would never be quite the same ever again.
> 22
Cracks, Slips, Fissures and Gaps
Instead of confronting Bob with his disappointment at his partner’s seemingly cavalier attitude toward the loss of the bonus bank, Jake took the matter to heart, quietly nursing his disappointment, knowing that it was a lesser wound compared to the heartbreak of Ben’s death, and of his rupture with Jo Ann. Those hurts were real and ongoing, and perhaps it was the need to lose himself in something greater that drew Jake inexorably back into the affairs of Local 598, now more embattled than ever.
Gilpin, too, remained on the scene, churning out a steady stream of leaflets, broadsides, newspaper display ads and thirty-second radio spots in an effort to stem the barrage of anti-Mine Mill propaganda that flooded the city’s airwaves and newspaper pages as the raids dragged on.
The battle for the hearts and minds of Sudbury’s miners and surface plant workers raged on for yet another season with first one side gaining ground, only to lose it in the face of a determined counterattack from the other.
There were Mine Mill hold-outs—Frood Mine was one such—and Steelworker strongholds—Stobie, right next to Frood, provided counterbalance. Many of Mine Mill’s adherents were proving fiercely loyal to their old union—the only one they had ever known, after all—despite the disastrous defeat of ’58.
Divisions on the job were acrimonious. And the fissures were about more than politics.
Even now no one is certain when it began, who came first. Some will contend that it was Jake himself that May morning in 1963 when he first stumbled off the cage onto the 2200 foot level of Garson Mine.
