Greenland Calls - Part 3 The Mine

The Black Angel deposit was lead/zinc, discovered in the early part of the 20th century but not put into production until the 1970's.  Initial mine development was done by JS Redpath, who maintained a presence at the mine over most of its life due to the great work done in the early days to excavate a portal on the side of a sheer rock cliff about 2,000 ft above the ocean.  An ice cap covered the top of the mountain containing the deposit, and permafrost extended deep into the mountain.  Because of this the mine was quite dry and cold.  Air temperature inside the mine was normally around -1C, so normal water would be frozen.  As a result, the mine used salt water for normal mine operations.  Water was constantly hoisted up to the mine in large containers to replace water lost to evaporation or to the ore handling system.  The photo below shows the outline of the Black Angel on the mountain with the camp in the foreground.

In our track drift we used salt water for muckpile washing and for drilling.  Because of its corrosiveness we had special jacklegs made by Joy to resist rusting from the salt.  They were much heavier than normal jacklegs, but they were impressive drills with unequalled power for those days.  The drift itself was 3.2 by 3.5 meters in area, the largest track drift I had ever worked in.  We used an Eimco 25 muck machine to load blasted waste into 10 tonne granby style cars that were hauled to the portal where they would be dumped over the edge of the mountain and into the ocean.  Quite a sight to watch it from the top looking down!  Air and water pipes were galvanized to resist corrosion.  Both pipe and rail were 6 meters long, which was exactly the length of two full rounds.  This meant that if you were on track when you started you would be on track for your entire four month rotation unless someone missed their round....something that never happened.  And if you were on track then your crosshift did the pipe installation, and they stayed on pipe for their entire rotation.



The main mine infrastructure was below the orebody.  Ramps were used to access ore zones, where room and pillar was the main mining method.  Ore was sent through raises to a tram system and hauled to a crusher before being loaded into 50 tonne skips and lowered to a storage bin next to the mill, which was located near the camp.  Concentrate would be stored onsite until spring breakup, when it was shipped to smelters in Europe.  All in all it was a very efficient operation.  Most of the mine employees were Danes, Greenlanders or Swedes.  They were supported by contractors like Redpath for specialized work, such as the drift we were driving and cable tram maintenance.

Located near the portal was a well equipped lunch room/refuge station where everyone received a hot lunch brought up from the camp.  The drift crew often missed lunch due to our location at the extreme opposite end of the mine, but we had a small heated workshop where we would sometimes visit for a quick lunch.  It was manned by a Redpath mechanic who brought up fresh Danish pastry for the drift crews every day.  His name was Bernie Scholtz, (seen below) a German by birth who lived in North Bay and had worked for Redpath for many years.  His main job was to keep us supplied with operating jacklegs, and to maintain our Eimco 25 as needed.

I stayed at the Black Angel for 120 days, arriving March 15, 1975 and leaving July 15th.  (My birthday)  I have a memory of earning about $16,000 over that time, or about $4,000 per month.  That was pretty good money for those times, and with nothing to spend it on it was all in the bank when I returned to Canada.  Over that time we advanced the drift about 2,000 ft.  It had already been driven about the same distance when I arrived, so there was still about 1,000 ft remaining when I left.  I always intended to go back, and I almost went in 1976, but it didn't happen.  I look back on my time there with fondness.  I wish I could go back to visit again but I know it will never happen.

Greenland Calls - Part 2 The Camp

Early Black Angel development (around 1969) was done from a ship anchored to the shore.  The ship, the CD Howe was long gone by the time I arrived.  It had been replaced by three large two story bunkhouses for the single miners and some small apartment like accommodations for married senior staff.  Company employees had single rooms but for the Redpath guys were were two to a room, with a set of bunk beds along one wall and a small desk at the end.  Washing facilities were down the hall, near the middle of the bunkhouse.  The company men used the wash rooms after shift but the Redpath guys used the dry showers.

The kitchen was similar to most camp kitchens, with a number of long tables with chairs facing opposite each other across the tables.  The caterer was a company called DAC (Danish Arctic Contractors) who cleaned the bunkhouses and provided meals.  The food naturally had a strong Scandinavian flavour.  In addition to the usual hot meals there was a large table stocked with all manner of seafood edibles.  At the end of the table was a large bowl of raw hamburger and a bowl of fresh eggs.  The Danes liked to take an ice cream scoop of hamburger and crack an egg over it.  It definitely wasn't fully appreciated by the Redpath miners.  To accommodate both shifts the kitchen was set up for breakfast and dinner at the same time on both shifts.  You could get up in the morning (or evening) and have a full dinner or a full breakfast, whichever you wished.

There was a small bar in a building adjacent to the kitchen.  It also operated on two shifts, so you could have your meal after night shift and go for a few beers if you wished.  Bar hours were limited to only a couple of hours per day, but it was enough time if you really wanted to get drunk.  Carlsberg and Tuberg were the local beers but I never developed a taste for them.  One day a ship whose last port of call was Halifax arrived so all the Canadians traded cases of Carlsberg for Schooner beer and both groups were happy.  One night one of my drift partners got so drunk that when the bar closed he fell off a walkway and hit his head on the rocks below, causing a large gash and a concussion.  He had to be flown out for medical treatment.  He eventually went back to Canada to recover.  On another occasion we had an arm wrestling contest that was finally won by one of the Greenlanders.  He was a tall skinny fellow with arms of steel. 

The Greenlanders were tough people, which I guess goes without saying in a land where 99% of it is covered with ice.  The tall skinny guy was named Ule, and he had an older brother Jonas, who was an elected member of the Greenland assembly.  Jonas had relatives on Baffin Island, so one winter he travelled 300 miles over the ice to see his cousins and then returned to Greenland.  I don't think he had to clear customs.  

One day the mine decided to hold a dogsled race, with a shotgun for first prize.  About 24 hours before race day the teams began to arrive from all around.  By race time there were several dozen teams of ten or twelve dogs per team.  The dogs were hungry and would kill and eat each other if given a chance.  But when the race started they were all business, as a couple of dozen teams took off across the ice towards the open ocean.  Eventually they returned and the winner claimed his prize.  Then they all went back home.

The Dry and cable hoist (up to the mine) building were located near sea level.  The dry was typical of Canadian mine drys, but the cable hoist (actually there were two...one for men and one for ore)  was an experience for those of us used to travelling down into the mine on a cage.  This one went up and over a large fjord to a point about 600 meters above sea level.  The ride up took about 10 or 15 minutes, and in daylight hours provided some spectacular scenery, with sheer cliff walls, glaciers calving into the fjord and ships coming and going up and down the coast.  Trips to and from the mine were restricted by wind speed.  If the wind was more than 50 km/hr the conveyances were shut down and people in the mine would be stranded until winds died down.  I think the longest wait was around 48 hours.

One of my favourite pastimes on the trip to the mine was to steal measuring sticks (H.I. sticks) out of the surveyors' pockets on the ride up.  One day, frustrated by their losses they tied the bottom of their sticks to their pants, so that when I tried to pull one out of their pocket it wouldn't come out, and I was caught in the act.  They gave me a certificate for being the best hijacker in camp, which I still have in my papers somewhere.  Decades later I discovered a Facebook site for former mine workers and I found the surveyor who I had tried to steal from.  He remembered me and we both had a good laugh again.

Communication with the outside world was difficult.  The mine had a radio telephone but the cost was prohibitive.  Internet didn't exist back then.  Some people had AM radios but they often didn't work well due to polar interference.  (Northern lights)  Newspapers arrived by helicopter two or three times per week but they were for the most part Danish and did not have Canadian news.  (I had to wait until July of that year to find out who had won the Stanley Cup.)  Occasionally a new worker would arrive from Canada with updates on national affairs.