The Westray Tragedy

The author is a draegerman in Plymouth, Pictou County, Nova Scotia. 26 coal miners were killed in an explosion at the Westray Mine in 1992. The author was part of the rescue team, and this is his personal account of the disaster, one of the worst mining accidents in Canadian history. This volume includes dozens of photos, a list of the victims and memorials, glossary of mining terms.

"A princess in hiding" Dispatched by the king to retrieve his headstrong, errant daughter, Lucas Garcia thought this was just another day at the office. That's before he meets Princess Claudine Verbault, who's adamant that returning to the kingdom that banished her as a child is never going to happen. "A barely concealed attraction " Hidden from the spotlight, the now-independent Claudia has learned the art of being the anti-perfect princess. But Lucas does "not" look like the kind of man to accept insubordination If only she could bargain with this frustratingly immovable man...and give him something to distract him from his duty

In 1992, a preventable explosion at the Westray Mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, killed twenty-six miners. More than a decade later, the government enacted Bill C-45, commonly known as the Westray bill, to hold organizations criminally liable for seriously injuring and killing workers and the public. In Still Dying for a Living, Steven Bittle turns a critical eye on the Westray bill, revealing how legal, economic, and cultural discourses surrounding the bill downplayed the seriousness of workplace injury and death, effectively characterizing these crimes as regrettable but largely unavoidable accidents and in the process obscuring their underlying causes.

By The Acclaimed Author Of Like This, A Finalist For The Giller Prize Leo McKay Jr.’s bestselling novel is set in a small Nova Scotia town, where a family is changed forever after a devastating mining accident claims the lives of twenty-six men. As the story shifts back and forth in time and between characters, we meet the men and women of the Burrows family: brothers Ziv and Arvel, drawn to the mine for different reasons; their father, a former union organizer; Ziv’s ex-girlfriend, now living in Japan; and Arvel’s wife, who hopes for a better life for herself in the city. In the aftermath of the explosion, and as the investigation into its causes unfolds, the members of the Burrows family are forced to confront each other – and themselves – bringing the novel to its moving and redemptive conclusion. Written in spare, hard-hitting prose, and inspired in part by the Westray mining disaster, Twenty-Six is a novel of universal human struggle and understanding that evokes in all its drama and pathos a community transformed by tragedy.

Andrew: It isn't just one shift, it's a lot more than that. If I run scared today, how do I know I can go back down there tomorrow? Andrew and Pam have a young son, and have just purchased their first home. Even though conditions at Westray are nearly subhuman, Andy, alongside his co-workers, descends again and again into the mine, because -- like his fellow miners -- Andy's family depends on his job at the mine. When the Westray mine exploded, a nation was rocked by the human tragedy and by the bureaucratic back-stabbing which ensued after the dead were laid to rest -- chilling proof of the age-old price paid for coal in human blood. Playwrights Chris O'Neill and Ken Schwartz, basing their play on Dean Jobb's book Calculated Risk: Greed, Politics, and the Westray Tragedy, give the lives and homes of the community of Plymouth, Nova Scotia a human face and a voice beyond the screaming headlines in the newspapers. In Westray: The Long Way Home, O'Neill and Schwartz show an intimate picture of families who have staked their hopes for the future on a mine known to be dangerously mismanaged, a place of frequent cave-ins and gassings.

Vernon Theriault was off shift when the Westray mine exploded in 1992, killing twenty-six men in Plymouth, Nova Scotia. Theriault took part in the perilous rescue operation that followed. As the magnitude of Westray took hold, Theriault found himself struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares. When he tried to re-educate himself for another line of work, he discovered that he was both illiterate and dyslexic. Theriault found new purpose when he became part of a labour movement that successfully lobbied the federal government to bring in a worker-safety law that became known as the Westray Bill. Theriault openly discusses his complicated journey in this straightforward, simply written memoir, which begins with the promise of a good job with good pay at Westray.

Mining has had a significant presence in every part of Canada — from the east to west coasts to the far north. This book tells the stories of those who built Canada’s mining industry. It highlights the experiences of the people who lived and worked in mining towns across the country, the rise of major mining companies, and the emergence of Toronto and Vancouver as centres of global mining finance. It also addresses the devastating effects mining has had on Indigenous communities and their land and documents several high-profile resistance efforts. Mining Country presents fascinating snapshots of Canadian mining past and present, from pre-contact Indigenous copper mining and trading networks to the famous Cariboo and Klondike Gold Rushes. Generously illustrated with more than 150 visuals drawn from every period of mining history, this book offers a thorough account of the story behind the industry.