Congratulations and plaudits for Coalhurst Miner’s Days

The oddities in attitudes, populous and in places, is remarkable!
I’m speaking of course of the very impressive and very successful, Coalhurst Miners Day and Parade again, as compared to the passive, non-historically, never mentioned nor celebrated, existence of the lives and families of the past Coalbanks Mine, pioneers, in our Lethbridge area.
Yet these two communities are literally just a coulee and a hill apart.
This phenomena as a past Young Miner, and an organized and elected Union Grievance Rep., seemed strangely odd and strangely out of Whack to me, when we moved here from the Drumheller,a multi-coal mine area, after my discharge from the R.C.A.F .and after serving my country.
May I reiterate that to the best of my knowledge, from the Crowsnest on to Estevan, all three Provincial Mine Communities enjoy their annual Miners Day Parades and Celebrations, and I have been asked to speak at every one of them as a. Rep. of the U.M.W.A.
Congratulations and plaudits to Mayor Dennis Cassie and his many happily engaged volunteers and townspeople of Coalhurst, who again served cooked and fed hundreds of people, with their morning’s pancake,. sausages, scrambled eggs, coffee and orange juice.
With their gratious smiles, hellos and hospitality, the lineups seemed to continue on for hours with bulging attendance, handshakes and hugs.
Morally, the People of Coalhurst  paid homage to the memory of The Men of the Deep, who toiled constantly in death denying underground coal mines, for the Black Gold, that fuelled the train locomotives, the huge electricity generating plants, home heating and cooking of their food.
The Coalhurst populace remember their coal miners, who perished in one of Canada’s worst mine explosion disasters in history.
They pay their respects for some of the still surviving family heirs of this tragedy.
Bless the community leaders for their leadership in these annual celebrations.
Plaudits to the politicians, Rachel Harder, the local Fort Macleod riding M.L. A., the R.C.M.P., the police sheriffs, the no.8 mine and all the contributing personal in the Coalhurst Mine Parade.
There seemed to be a lack of representation from the Lethbridge City Council, despite the few miles of community separation, and the fact the Lethbridge Coalbanks Mine Union did instill the 48-hour work week into the Canadian Labour agreement in the 1930’s, when the federal labour minister of the day, Mackenzie King, came to Lethbridge to settle an elongated coal mine strike.
  It is imperative to note, as one astute writer has written recently, that (Methane) is the most harmful gas that has caused endless deaths, explosions and eruptions for eons, and it is our responsibility to notify the government and people for a greater response to its demise, especially from the millions of sealed and especially abandoned gas and oil wells.
With thanks,
FRANK J. TOTH

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