On American Pastimes, Peggy Seeger’s “Ballad of Springhill Mine” proves to be just as relevant today as it was 50 years ago.

This past week the world watched the rescue of 33 gold and copper miners who were trapped 2,300 feet below the surface of the Chilean desert for over two months. It was 52 years ago, almost to the day, that the first ever world-wide broadcast of a mining disaster rescue mission captured the attention of people all across the globe: October 23, 1958.

In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia
Down in the dark of the Cumberland Mine
There’s blood on the coal and the miners lie
In the roads that never see sun nor sky.

The town of Springhill, Nova Scotia is built on coal. By the 1870’s the deepest coal mine in the world channeled underneath the town. The first coal miner’s union in North America was founded there in 1879. Of this miner’s union, historian Ian McKay wrote: “They were giants….when they marched, the region shook.” But being giants with the rights of collective bargaining didn’t prevent death: Between 1876 and 1971 the mines in Springhill claimed 668 lives, most in individual accidents. There’s a monument there, with all the names.

But there were also major ‘incidents’: In 1891, there was a fire. Accumulated coal dust burst into a fireball. The men and boys and pit ponies (short, strong, blind horses that pulled the coal cars) who were not initially burned to death were eventually overcome by gas. 125 miners gone. In 1956 a coal car derailed in a shaft. Several cars broke loose and rolled backwards hitting a power line, causing an arc that ignited the coal dust 5500 feet below the surface. 39 killed but 88 rescued.

Often the earth will tremble and roll
When the earth is restless, miners die
Bone and blood is the price of coal.

Peggy Seeger’s ballad was written after the 1958 “bump” – an underground earthquake - that took the lives of 74 men. Those rescue efforts became perhaps the first television ‘event’, a media sensation, as the Canadian Broadcasting Company broadcast the rescue efforts live from Springhill. It was real Reality TV with the hope, frustration, anger, joy and grief of a small Nova Scotia town being beamed around the world. The 74 dead miners soon took a back seat to the efforts and eventual rescue of two groups of trapped miners who were discovered and brought up after 9 days from 13,000 feet underground.

Melissa Fay Greene’s book “Last Man Out” (2003, Harcourt Publishing) documents the rescue efforts and the post-rescue experiences of the 19 trapped men.

Soon after the successful rescue, researchers began a series of interviews with the men. Their goal was to gain insight into the development of leadership and social structure within the “community” of trapped miners. Their research had little if nothing to do with mining: This was the Cold War era. Everyone was anticipating a nuclear event that would result in communities of bomb shelter survivors. What better way to develop an understanding of the social dynamics of desperate bomb shelter inhabitants than to study trapped miners.

Three days past and the lamps gave out
Our foreman rose on his elbow and said
We’re out of light and water and bread
So we’ll live on song and hope instead.

The research identified two periods of time when activities of the trapped men were led by two separate groups or individuals. The first phase was called the “escape period.” During this time, in the days immediately following the mine’s collapse, leadership was provided by men who were good with tools and were energized about using their tools to get out. Their enthusiasm, confidence, and ideas made them leaders. The second phase was called the “survival period”: After the “escape” leader’s efforts to exit the mine failed to bear fruit, they eventually lost their zeal and became despondent. Other men however stepped up. These were men “who possessed endurance, and the intellectual and spiritual resources” to provide solace and hope. They become de facto leaders until the rescue was completed.

Listen through the rubble for a rescue team
Six hundred feet of coal and slag
Hope imprisoned in a three foot seam

But subsequent research also showed that solace and hope was not enough to prevent the trapped men from turning on each other. It showed that the camaraderie, team work and collective heroism reported by the mining company, the media, and the public statements of the miners themselves, were largely fiction. Underground, the horror and inescapable presence and stench of the dead was a source of great anxiety and stress for the survivors. The cries, moans and pleas of the trapped, injured and dying friends and co-workers especially took its toll on them. “Survivor’s guilt” surfaced almost immediately. Their anxieties developed into distrust; for each other and for the motivations of others. Men formed alliances and cliques rooted in mistrust and suspicion. Interviews with the survivors many years later show that the trauma of their ordeal took a toll on their relationships with co-workers and neighbors long afterward. Years later men were still second-guessing the decisions and motivations of their underground companions. The survivors couldn't shake off the darkness of the mine.  

After the 1958 “bump” the mine operator, Dominion Steel & Coal, closed its mining operation in Springhill. Other local mining operations however continued into the early 1970’s. Today, beneath the monument to the dead, Springhill’s mine shafts remain some of the deepest in the world. They are filled with water, are owned by the government, and are used as a source of geothermal heat.