I heard scattered raindrops on the roof of the RV this morning when I woke about 5:00 a.m. In view of the fact that I didn't really want to get outside and put away all the hoses and electrical cable and such in order to break camp, I just stayed in bed until 6:30. By then the rain had let up a mite, and I thought that we might have a sunny day for traveling to the shore of Lake Superior. But no such luck. It was not raining very hard, but most of the day a light drizzle accompanied each and every mile we traveled.
Since the day intended to be overcast and gray, we weren't much in the mood to stop anywhere along the way to take photos or do any touring. We just tooled along, listened to our DVD book, and tried to appreciate the verdant presence of the forest towering above us on each side of the highway. I did see one point of interest that would have lured me in on a sunnier day -- that of a iron mine tour underground. But somehow, the gloomy weather discouraged me from wanting to go underground for any reason.
I remember when we were in Wales back in 2008 we had an opportunity to take the underground tour of a coal mine. We had to leave all our electronic devices in the car, as nothing that would create a spark was allowed. But the tour and the tour guide were utterly captivating. We learned things about mining that still boggle our minds to this day.
Did you know that in the 19th Century children -- even girls -- of five and six years old were very often put to work underground in the coal mines? The kids would not do actual mining, of course, but would be employed in things like opening and closing access doors, or feeding the many dray animals that were kept underground and used for pulling ore cars. These dray animals would most often spend their entire lives underground and would only be transported to the surface when too old and unfit to work.
The children who were employed to open and close the big fire doors would spend the entire day in the dark as fuel for lamps was too expensive to waste. Standing in the dark, they had to listen for the sounds of an mule and ore car approaching. Then they would spring into action and open the door just long enough for the load of ore to pass, then close the door again. Our guide told us that the children's big complaint was not that they spent their day in the dark, but that they couldn't easily protect their lunch from the rats that roamed the tunnels.
The guide then proceeded to tell us about the miners and their working conditions. I'm sure most people have a mental image of today's miners working underground using mechanized machinery to gnaw away at the vein of ore surrounded by what they call "country rock," the non ore-bearing rock. Modern miners use front-end loaders to load the ore into ore cars, which are then whisked to the surface using electric vehicles.
That wasn't how it was in the 19th century. First of all, miners did not get paid for merely showing up to work topside. No, miners had to show up at the elevator shaft, take the long ride down to the ore-bearing level, then they had to walk to the coal face and relieve someone else whose shift was ending. Depending the distance, it might take thirty minutes or even longer to reach the coal face, and all the while the miner was not earning a cent.
Once at the coal face the miner probably was not expecting to see a mechanized drill of any sort. No, the miner was expecting to have to drill his own holes or use a pick-axe to remove the ore. At that point I asked the guide how much room they had to work if they didn't have prime conditions. "Well," he said, "a miner working by himself might have only 18 inches of head room at some coal seam locations. "If the miner had as much as three feet of head room he was in clover." Few of us can imagine such hardship just to earn a few dollars.
"Now comes the good part," the guide said. "Miners working these coal seams didn't get paid for just showing up at the coal face and breaking their backs for eight hours. No, they only got paid by the quantity of coal they loaded into an ore car and sent to the surface. Each miner would make his mark on the ore car so the talley-man on the surface would record the tonnage in his production book. Come payday, the miner would receive wages based on his output and nothing more."
But the guide wasn't through. He went on to discuss the topic that is always at the top of everyone's mind: safety and medical concerns. "There was no such thing as sick leave, medical leave, or taking time off if you were sick or hurt. If you got hurt you hoped that your co-workers were willing to take time away from loading coal to rig up a stretcher and help carry you to the surface. They probably lost several hours in the doing, which meant no coal loaded and less money in their pay envelope. If you were too sick to work you still had a lot of walking to do just to get to the elevator.
"Now you're probably wondering what happened if a miner was seriously hurt or even killed," the guide said. "Well, the easy answer is nothing. The company didn't give you a dime when you were injured. If you were killed, your co-workers would most often take up a collection for your family, but that's about it. And people nowadays think they have it hard," he finished.
Our tour to the Welsh coal mine was enough to convince us that my ancestors had certainly been sturdy folks and miraculous survivors. No, they hadn't been coal miners. In fact, they'd been iron workers. On a daily basis they had to deal with the ore similar to what was mined in the Iron Mountain mine that we passed today. Perhaps we should have ventured underground and seen the stuff that provided my ancestors with a living a couple of hundred years ago, but hopefully there will be a next time as we wander this great state of Michigan.
So until then, The Happy Wanderers wish you happy travels and exciting destinations as you travel the length and breadth of this always surprising country of ours. While you're doing that, we'll be sitting here in this soggy camp being pelted by very determined rain.
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