Paul-William Gagnon
University of Massachusetts
May 24, 2004

"But then, these things are not to be done by Companies; who generally set their Minds wholly upon getting rich in a little time; and abandon, or neglect every thing which does not immediately return large Profits. They give themselves very little Trouble about making solid and lasting Settlements, or considering the Advantage of the Inhabitants; for whom it is not possible to have too great a Regard, if we would engage them to establish themselves in a new Colony, and promote their interests therein."
--William Bollan, colonial agent to London from 1745-1762, writing in regard to what use the lands of Cape Breton should be put to. ¹

"Under capitalism the working class has but two courses to follow: crawl -- or fight. "
--Union organizer J.B. McLachlan commenting during a 155 day labor day strike in Cape Breton.²

"To understand and appreciate the mining community of Glace Bay, or the other mining areas, or Cape Bretoners in general, it is necessary to penetrate the fog formulated by politicians, journalists, tourists, industrial relations experts, novelists and yes, academics and to concentrate on the traditions and on the culture. That is why they [the Cape Bretoners] have survived."
--Don MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions."³

"Of Course, that's exactly it!" she exclaimed. "I might have known because old Scotland is full of fairies. Probably when the Reverend Norman MacLeod sailed away from Scotland in the year 1817, there were stowaway brownies on board-- brownies, you know, are the good Scotch fairies."
-- "The Duchess," a fictional character in New York travel writer Gordon Brinley's 1936 book Away to Cape Breton.⁴
     

While traveling in Atlantic Canada in the summer of 2003, I happened to stumble upon the Cape Breton Miner's Museum in the town of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. The sign outside advertised a museum of coal mining artifacts and a guided tour into the Ocean Deeps Colliery, a defunct coal mine that, like most Cape Breton Mines, begins on the shore and follows the coal seams along their diagonal path down, out, and under the strata beneath the sea. Three days before arriving at the museum, I had been tramping around in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, world renowned for its stunning natural beauty. One day after visiting the Mining Museum, while waiting for the six-hour superferry ride to Newfoundland, and less than an hour's drive from Cape Breton Highlands, I took a side trip to the infamous Sydney Tar Ponds, the site of North America's largest hazardous waste legacy.

__________________________________________

The Miner's Museum used an eye-catching photo as a logo: the paradoxically cheery but coal-smudged face of Cape Breton miner with hardhat and headlamp. I was told by the museum receptionist that admission to the museum was three dollars and fifty cents; to join the mine tour was an additional three dollars and fifty cents. I gave her a five dollar bill and a "Twonie" (Canadians seem proud of their ecological heritage; Canadian money often depicts Canadian wildlife. One dollar coins bear the image of a loon and are affectionately called "Loonies." Two dollar coins are called "Twonies.") 

Coal mining as an industry has been slowly dying in Cape Breton for half a century. The phasing out of coal mining as an industry on the island began in 1967,⁵  and although there has been talk of revitalizing the industry by applying new technologies to existing collieries and untapped seams, doing so does not appear to be economically profitable.⁶ The last two active collieries are expected to run out of coal in the next nine years.⁷ From 1990 and 1997, the Canadian government subsidized the failing coal industry at the sum of $650 million dollars.⁸ Between the closing of the mines and the collapse of the Grand Banks fisheries, Cape Breton has become one of the most economically distressed regions of Canada. Unemployment has soared; Glace Bay has one of the highest unemployment rates of any community in Canada.⁹ Economic infrastructure that once depended on coal mining has packed up for greener pastures or has simply ceased to exist. The huge coke ovens and steel mill that once turned the economic wheels of Sydney, Cape Breton's only city, were nationalized along with coal mining in 1967 in an industrial welfare initiative to reduce Cape Breton's unemployment, but they eventually were closed (the ovens in 1988 and the mill in 2001), leaving a wake of blue collar unemployment and a toxic legacy several miles wide by twenty meters deep around a local tidal estuary.¹⁰ An aura of post-industrial decay has loomed over the Sydney-Glace Bay region for some time; descriptions of Sydney in Jim and Pat Lotz's 1974 book Cape Breton Island and the 2002 Lonely Planet travel guide to Canada are comparable:

Lotz: A history of poor labour-management relations, of industrial and urban blight and exploitation still hangs over the land and the people, as is obvious even on casual visits to parts of Sydney, Glace Bay and other places in industrial Cape Breton.¹¹

Lonely Planet: Sydney is...the embattled core of the island's collapsed industrial belt. As the heart of a coal mining district, this old town has seen its share of grief and hardship. Long a drab and rather grim place. . .¹²

I was told that the mine tours were guided by real miners--laborers who had once worked Cape Breton coal. As I recall, there were three working in the museum on that day. My guide was a short but wiry snow-haired old man with the colorful name of Hinson Calabrese. He was fascinating. His storytelling ability in exchange for a seven dollar admission fee left me feeling like a thief. He explained that he worked half of his life in coal mines--beginning at the age of thirteen--in Cape Breton, and in the mines of New Brunswick. He spoke of silicosis, collapsing timber, pittance wages, unforgiving bosses, and of his father, who had also been a coal miner. He spoke of dirt that would not come out in the wash. He spoke of working coal seams no more than a foot and a half feet high with nothing more than hand tools. He spoke of men buried alive, occasionally men buried then rescued, and of being buried in collapsing seams himself--on two different occasions--before he quit mining and took up raising chickens, because, he said, "I was married. My wife was expecting. I figured twice was enough."¹³

You can find mention of the Cape Breton Highlands in Nova Scotia travel literature; it's on the map. It, along with Halifax, are what most people come to the province to see. The Glace Bay Mining Museum is also on the map, although mostly as an afterthought for tourists who have come to see the main attractions. The Highlands are a stunning collusion of rugged boreal forest, heath covered mountains, and dashing, dramatic coastlines--so reminiscent of the landscape of the Scottish Highlands that settlers from that place are said to have come to Cape Breton because it reminded them of home.¹⁴ In fact, some of the older residents still speak Scottish Gaelic and there is currently a Gaelic revival in many areas of Nova Scotia and especially Cape Breton--a trend aimed at recovering and preserving Gaelic culture and language¹⁵ Many people in Cape Breton speak with a mild to heavily distinct Scottish accent and have strikingly Scottish features. (Acadian French, Irish, English descendents of American Revolution British loyalists, and Native Canadian Mi'kmaq make up most of the balance of the Nova Scotia ethnography).

Hinson Calabrese asked us to don black capes and hard hats. The capes were for keeping coal dust off the summer clothing of the tourists. The hardhats were to keep visitors from banging their heads on the four-foot high ceilings of the seam. Hinson told us the story of coal mining in Cape Breton, the natural history of coal, the machinery--both mechanical and manual, and the safety equipment of miners. For instance, consider the evolution of flammable methane gas detection technology: what is now accomplished with electronic detectors was once determined by observing the livelihood of a caged canary (more sensitive to methane levels than human beings). We've all heard of the canary method, but what most of us don't know is that before canaries were used there was another method for testing for methane: a convicted prisoner was sent into a shaft with a lit torch: if he came back alive, the mine was safe and his sentence was commuted. If not, the community had one less convict on their hands; his immolation burned off the methane and made the shaft safe for mining--until the gas again built up in the shaft.¹⁶

You won't find the Sydney Tar Ponds on most of the tourist maps. The 2002 edition of Lonely Planet Publication's guide to Canada features a full column spotlight on the Tar Ponds.¹⁷ The Lonely Planet Guides are the liberally conscious travel bible of those who prefer youth hostels and similar low budget and socially centered kinds of lodging. As a consequence of Lonely Planet's controversial choice to include information on Canada's worst environmental mess, the Tar Ponds had suddenly become somewhat of a macabre tourist attraction (the local chamber of commerce was likely less than thrilled by the inclusion). While exploring Cape Breton, I ran into numerous international tourists who had indicated they planned to visit the Tar Ponds. Property owner-activists around the ponds made sure travelers understood what was at stake: during my visit, I found home-made signs on the chain link fences around the contaminated area. One sign read:

WELCOME TO THE GATES OF HELL

Nearby, the front lawn of an apartment building bordering the ponds was inhabited by a grisly collection of scarecrows made from old clothing and straw--"monsters" and "victims" of the sludge. Like the Love Canal controversy in New York fifteen years earlier, the people affected by the contamination wanted the government to buy out their property made worthless by the nearby superfund site.¹⁸ One grotesque mannequin held a sign that read:  

Tar Pond Monster When I Came out            they put the Fence up. That was 4 years ago I'm still Here and Still nothing               done.

Toxic discharges often seeped into the cellars of nearby residences. Sydney has the highest mortality rate of any place in Canada, and one of the highest cancer, birth defect, and miscarriage rates. Contamination of shellfish and crustaceans with polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) has closed the lobster fishery around Sydney. Wastes from years of coke and steel production, industrial and community dumping, and raw sewage discharge into the Muggah Creek estuary of Sydney include some 185 cancer causing chemicals and other highly toxic pollutants. The 700,000 tons of contaminants include benzene, dioxin, PAHs, organic pollutants, a mélange of toxic heavy metals, and a whopping 40,000 tons of carcinogenic PCBs.¹⁹  In the summer of 2001, residents took direct action, including a tax revolt and a protest--they handed out bags of toxic Tar Ponds dirt to tourists entering and exiting Cape Breton Island on the Canso Causeway.²¹

__________________________________________

We're near the end of the tour, Hinson Calabrese tells us. We round a corner towards a well-lit area. There is an alcove to the right. Without any foreshadowing of what we are about to see, Hinson leads us in, motioning to the benches that surround a small but very well-tended flower and vegetable garden. We no longer have to stoop. The lamps above the greenery feel like miniature suns; their light leaps off the slick black walls of the seam. Hinson's voice, when it comes, is little more than a whisper. There is something weighty to it, reverential. There is a history of such gardens, Hinson tells us; in 1924, a miner named William Krause came up with the idea. Securing permission from management, under the condition that the garden would be maintained on the miner's own time, Krause was given a few lightbulbs; he got water and fertilizer from the underground stables that housed the mine's "pit ponies" (pit ponies lived most of their  lives underground; they were brought to the surface only once a year during the miner's three week vacation). Dirt was carried from the surface--often in the hard hats of the miners. The garden was located in the mine known as Colliery 1B, Glace Bay, and was approximately one mile out from the shore and about one thousand feet under the ocean floor. The garden was a success. According to the Calabrese, Krause's garden was the first underground garden in North America; his efforts were duplicated in other coals mines throughout the world and the 1B garden was visited by dignitaries from Europe. Communal tending of the 1B underground garden became a source of pride for local coal miners. When the Miner's Museum was established in the Ocean Deeps Colliery, the underground garden experiment was repeated.²⁰

__________________________________________

It is a wonder that the miners bothered with the garden at all. By today's standards, their days were long, their pay and benefits sub-standard, their work hazardous, unhealthy, and psychologically oppressive. Political historian Paul MacEwan describes the working conditions of the Cape Breton coal miner:

"Coal mining one of the most arduous and depressing occupations in the world. Mine workers do not work in warm well lighted places, but in the clammy depths of the earth, where violent injury and sudden death are ever present companions. A miner is often subjected to extreme heat or extreme cold, or to working an a confined space in a cloud of dust or acid laden water."²¹

Miners led busy personal lives outside of the mines; they had families. That the miners took the time to create such a garden on their own time, off the clocks, in such an environment, is amazing. What inspired them to do so? What did the garden mean to them? At first glance, the garden might seem like a small thing, a little bit of fancy engineered by bored miners. However, when we begin to tug at the symbolic "string" of the 1B Colliery Garden and the Ocean Deeps Colliery Garden, we realize we are unraveling a very complex narrative that goes beyond the usual relationships we conjure when we think of coal mining and its legacy --labor vs. management, industrialization versus pastoralism or primitivism, culture vs. centrifuge, ethics vs. exploitation. It is a narrative that speaks most deeply of humankind's relationship to place.

Perhaps what is most striking about the 1B Colliery Garden is the stark contrast between a well tended garden of flowering plants and the filthy, toxic, and troglodytic environment of the coal mines themselves. Simply put, the environment of the coal mine is, perhaps, the most disturbingly unnatural of industrial environments. There is no sunlight, no soil, no growing things, no fresh air or water; the physical space is confining and access to the outside world is cut off. The fear of asphyxiation, flash explosions, and crushing death are ever present to the coal miner. "Black Lung" or silicosis might cut his years short. In many of the collieries, laborers were transported to the working end of the mine via "man rakes," narrow gauge rail cars that rocketed down deep into the depths of the mines like rollercoasters to Hell.²² There was no returning to the surface until the shift was over. Working a long shift, a miner might get up at dawn, ride the manrake into the dark colliery, and return to the surface in the evening; he might not see the light of day for up to six days a week, especially in the winter.²³ The contrast between the environment of the coal mine and the image of a thriving garden is therefore radical. The garden, after all, is the primary symbol of the rural farming life. As Alan Sekula points out in his analysis of the narratives of labor photography, the image of mining "may be the antithesis of farming."²⁴ During my tour of the Ocean Deeps Colliery, when I rounded the corner and saw the garden, I was immediately struck by the impossibly huge gulf between those two worlds. How much more powerfully it must have called out to the laborers who were working in the mines day after day.

To better understand the significance of the 1B Colliery Garden, let's turn to an example of a project deliberately engineered to contrast the rural with the industrial. On a much larger scale, it was such "contrast" that Frederick Law Olmstead had in mind when he designed New York's Central Park. According to Olmstead, Central Park would "secure an antithesis of objects of vision to those of streets and houses. . .affording the most agreeable contrast to the confinement, bustle, and monotonous street-division of the city" and "supply to the hundreds of thousands of tired workers, who have no opportunity to spend their summers in the country, a specimen of God's handiwork that shall be to them inexpensively, what a month or two in the White Mountains or the Adirondaks is, at great cost, to those in easier circumstances." ²⁵ The purpose of the park, according to Olmstead, was to be one of respite from conditions created through industrialization and its by-product, urbanization. The recipients of this respite would be the "hundreds of thousands of tired workers who have no opportunity to spend their summers in the country", i.e. primarily the blue collar and low level white collar working classes. The "shape" of the project would be "a specimen of God's own handiwork"--or, in reality, an approximation of God's (or, if you will, Nature's) handiwork designed by Olmstead. Following in the humanistic and early environmentalist tradition of thinkers such as Henry David Thoreau and Thomas Cole, Olmstead believed that spending time in "natural" environments was spiritually, psychologically, and even physically rejuvenating.²⁵ Such ideas remained powerful through the New Deal era, popularized in grand manifestos such as Benton MacKaye's famous Appalachian Trail proposal.²⁶

At the most basic level, the underground colliery garden might have provided the Cape Breton "muckers" a similar respite, in miniature. It is easy to imagine that the gardens might have been a vital reminder to the miners of the "real" world outside the mines, an elementary symbol of hope and safe return to the surface. 

But this is an easy assumption. If a symbol functions, it does so on various different levels. Some symbols are universal--the garden as an archetype may be one of those. For instance, a smile is a symbol common to almost every culture. As a symbol, its meaning is so universal that we have cleverly reinvented it for use in email conversations: 

:)

The trouble with universal symbols is that we tend to divorce them of their context without thinking about it. We acknowledge the universal elements of the symbol but deny the possibility of local interpretations. Perception of the symbol "garden" might be different for a New Yorker thinking of a window box compared to the perceptions of a migrant worker in the San Joaquin Valley picking strawberries, to a dust farmer in Oklahoma praying for rain, to a car salesman in suburban New Jersey purchasing tomato plants for his 5' by 5' backyard vegetable plot.

Garden. Coal mine. These symbols have universal significance to all of us; they also have particular significance depending on our geography, occupation, and culture. By extension, we can also say that the contrast between "garden" and "coal mine" is universally symbolic, offering us a third universal symbol, one of juxtaposition: light vs. dark, Heaven vs. Hell. . .etcetera. In our understanding of these universal symbols, we must not underestimate how the coal mining labor population of Cape Breton might have reckoned such symbols locally. Since we can say that culture will certainly affect local interpretation, let's start our unraveling there.

__________________________________________

Between 1871 and 1900, there was an epic migration from rural areas of Cape Breton and Nova Scotia that more than tripled the census in coal mining centers such as Sydney and Glace Bay. From 1901 to 1911, the coal town populations doubled again from their 1900 census--all told, a leap from 12,000 people to over 50,000.²⁷ Most of these people were farmers; some fished; some did both. These agriculturists could be further classified into two groups. "Frontlanders" were farmers cultivating the scarce but rich arable land of Cape Breton: floodplains, estuaries, and other lowlands. "Backlanders" were farmers eking out a thin existence in the more or less infertile, rugged interior of the penninsula.²⁸  

Cape Breton Island, 110 miles long by 87 miles wide, with roughly one thousand nautical miles of coastline (combined seashore and the loch-like interior lake, Bras d'Or), has very little soil good for growing anything.²⁹ The lot of backland farmers was a rough one. A potato famine (1845-1849), further exacerbated their tenuous existence. Frontland farmers weathered the blight well enough, but conditions in the backlands pushed the land's ability to support its population beyond its limit.³⁰ Backland farmers were often forced to depend on government welfare, emigrate, or find other means to support themselves. Agricultural wisdom would indicate that the geography of Cape Breton had long before exceeded its potential to support an agriculturally self-sufficient population.³¹ In 1858, the breaking of the General Mining Association's (GMA) longstanding monopoly of coal mining in the province and new trade agreements with the United States opened up mining to speculators. This produced sudden widespread development of the coal industry.³² The United States Civil War further contributed to the demand for Cape Breton coal. From the late 1860's to 1880, the coal extraction industry experienced various ups and downs, but overall the development of coal mining had an enormous impact on rural depopulation.³³ In 1900, the opening of a steel mill and coke ovens in Sydney and another steel mill at Sydney Mines (using iron ore from nearby Bell Island, off the east coast of Newfoundland) contributed to further depopulation of rural areas and encouraged a wave of European and Canadian immigration.³⁴ And yet, the majority of the industrial population were rural Cape Bretoners, most of whom--as we shall see-- were the descendents of immigrants from a roughly ninety-by-ninety-by-ninety mile triangular region in western Europe³⁵. What is most interesting about this history is the fact that, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was hardly any rural population or agriculture on Cape Breton Island. Who were these rural people then? Where did they come from?

Up until 1802, "Cape Breton Island was a thinly settled, extensively forested and relatively undeveloped colony of Great Britain."³⁶ Over two-thirds of the inhabitants were supported by fishing; there were only a handful of farmers and coal miners on the island. In 1795, Sydney, which would become an industrial mecca by 1900, had a population of around 120 people, most of whom were provincial employees of the British Government.³⁷ By 1801, the entire population of Cape Breton Island did not exceed 2,600 souls.³⁸ Of these, half were French Acadians; most of the balance were English Loyalists who had fled the American Revolution. The remainder of the population were Irish (mostly fishermen from Newfoundland), a few New England emigrants, remnants of Mi'kmaq Nation people living "in the interior woods," and a small number of Scottish settlers who had bounced in from other parts of Canada.³⁹

After 1802, the population of Cape Breton began a forty year exponential increase through massive immigration. In 1815, there were 6,000 people living in Cape Breton, up from 2,600 fourteen years prior. By 1827 there were 19,000; by 1938, 35,000; and by 1851, nearly 55,000.⁴⁰ That the vast majority of these immigrants were Scottish is interesting enough, but much more unique is the fact that most of these people were from the same region of Scotland--the Western Highlands and the adjacent Hebrides Islands.⁴¹ As historian Stephen J. Hornsby notes, emigration "was remarkably confined to a triangular wedge if territory that had its eastern point at Fort William in Lochabar, its southwestern in Barra, and its northwestern in Lewis"⁴²--an area centered around the Island of Skye, ninety miles triangular, roughly about the same area as Cape Breton Island. Such a mass regional migration into a relatively undeveloped area in so short a period of time produced a majority Cape Breton culture not very different than that of the Western Scottish Highlands.⁴³ In less than ten years, the non-Scottish residents of Cape Breton had become minorities. "In large part," writes Stephen Hornsby in his history of nineteenth-century Cape Breton, "Cape Breton had become a Scottish island."⁴⁴

Why such a diaspora? The fact that explorers noted that Cape Breton resembled Scotland⁴⁵ probably helped provoke initial immigration, as did early 17^th Century honorary charters ceding Cape Breton and other maritime territories to various Scottish lords.⁴⁶ But more important was the correspondence and tales of those who had already migrated to Cape Breton or who had visited Cape Breton and other nearby colonies. Often these milk and honey stories, although well intentioned, did little to express the geographic reality of Cape Breton and the island's ability to support agriculture any more than was true in the Western Highlands. Richard Brown, in 1869, writing his history of Cape Breton and its settlement, suggested that Scottish Highland regiments serving the British Empire in 1758 at the battle of Louisbourg (a French fortress on the east coast of Cape Breton) planted the seed for mass immigration:

"Many of the Highlanders, with that prudence and foresight peculiar to their countrymen, who had noted with observant eyes the fertility of the provinces in which they had served, in every respect so much superior to the bleak and barren hills of their native land, determined to make them their future home. Those who settled in Canada, Nova Scotia, and St. John's Island [Prince Edward Island] sent home to their friends such glowing accounts of their new homes, about the year 1773. .." ⁴⁷

Such "glowing accounts" of "the fertility of the provinces" were not unnecessarily true for early settlers who had the pick of the best land.⁴⁸ It does appear, however, that their enthusiasm got the best of them, as was typical of so many early settlers of North America: they grossly underestimated the resources of the land, imagining a cornucopia without end. In reality, the Western Highlands of Scotland, with the exception of coastal areas, were more fertile that the lands of Cape Breton; they had for many centuries supported a fairly stable and self sufficient agricultural community.⁴⁹ And yet, by the end of the 1700's tenant farmers in the Western Scottish Highlands were pushed off their agricultural land. The reasons for these evictions are complex, but the main impetus seems to be the ascension of wool as an industry--essentially, people were removed to make room for sheep. The shift from hand-processed wool to factory-processed wool had also made the rural weaver redundant. Furthermore, the Napoleanic wartime economy had boosted the price of local wool and kelp-derived alkali. Tenants and the landless cottars who worked for the tenants were forced from the more fertile interior highlands to the coasts and islands, where they eked out an existence on much more marginal agricultural land and supplemented their income by harvesting and burning kelp to make alkali, which in turn they sold to their landlords. Many of them barely got by; landlords charged rent at the same rate they expected to pay tenants for alkali. Some tenants and their cottars were forced to emigrate; these emigrations account for much of the 1802 to 1815 settlement of Cape Breton. However, the situation in the Western Highlands became much worse. The kelp-derived alkali market collapsed in the post-Napoleonic War economy, forcing landlords to turn entirely to wool to support their lifestyles. Wool finally came to the islands and coasts of the Western Highlands, and tenants, who could no longer pay their rent with kelp, were evicted wholesale. Sheep were profitable; human beings were not.⁵⁰

Those who could afford to leave did so. Many could not. Landlords, faced with a huge number of tenants who could not afford to pay their rent or hire passage to North America, paid passage for them, either directly, or by agreeing to cancel their debts if they emigrated. Such arrangements were often unscrupulous; ship captains were paid a minimum fare to dispose of unwanted tenants. They delivered no more than what they were paid for: many Cape Breton immigrants arrived at their new home near the end of the growing season with little or no means to get through their first Canadian winter.⁵¹ Later batches of immigrants, forced to settle on poor Cape Breton backlands, had it even harder. The provincial leadership of Cape Breton tried to stem the landslide immigration of "penniless Scots" but had little resources to do so; the coasts of Cape Breton were long and full of uninhabited ports where ships might secretly dock and discharge their destitute human cargo unhindered.⁵² Attempts to stem the immigrant tide ultimately failed. The problem reach its apex in 1827, as summarized by D.C. Harvey in his analysis of Scottish immigration in Cape Breton:

"The year 1827 was to open a decade of misery for old and new settlers alike and strain government machinery to the breaking point. With the opening of navigation [in the spring] hundred of dispossessed Scots, exploited by the agents of ship owners, were landed in the ports and harbours of Cape Breton and, in the outlying ports, left to shift for themselves. In September, the brig Stephen Wright entered Sydney harbour with 170 passengers. . .forty of whom were down with small-pox. . .In the following year, the number of immigrants was more than doubled; and, in September again, the Two Sisters arrived in Sydney with 160 passengers. . .several of whom were suffering from small-pox ."⁵³

Harvey also provides us with two excellent quotes that illustrate the problem the provincial government had on their hands in 1827 and 1828. The first is from a letter addressed to the Provincial Secretary; the second from Chief Justice Marshall of Sydney:

"Another load of poor emigrants is arrived in our Harbour. . .they brought with them some bad cases of malignant small pox--Four are dead, three more, I understand are dying, and happy we shall be if the contagion does not spread over the Country-- The Magistrates have experienced great difficulty in their endeavors to prevent communication with the infected Vessel and from the vessel to the shore-- The inmates of the latter have threatened more than once to force a landing. . .This scene being transacted in the presence of many spectators, among whom were some who wished to enquire for their relatives and friends, several boats immediately rushed along side and the author of this dangerous disobedience when spoken to by the acting Magistrate defended his conduct and openly declared he was prepared to justify it. . .I have been in constant expectation that the passengers and crew would throw the Constables overboard and rush the Town. The Master of the vessel, who is an obstinate brutish fellow, declares he will do nothing towards the relief or recovery of his unhappy living Cargoe and in pursuance of that determination perversely refuses to let air into the hold of the vessel where it must necessarily be pestilential."⁵⁴

And here:

"In the course of the present year, upwards of 2,100 persons have come into this district, from the Western part of Scotland, many of whom on their landing, were quite destitute of food, and also of the means of procuring it, in one instance, a number of them, at the time of their arrival, were infected with the smallpox, and it was, therefore, found requisite to prevent their being landed, or any freedom of intercourse being had with them, until their recovery, and in consequence of their provisions being nearly exhausted, when they arrived, and of their being very generally in the destitute state we have mentioned, they would inevitably have suffered the miseries of famine, if supplies of food had not been furnished to them by our directions, which was done on the faith that the expense thus incurred would be defrayed by Government. From the most current information we have been able to obtain, we are satisfied, that this county, even in the most abundant years, would scarcely have been in a condition, to support such a number of destitute persons, for the long period of twelve months, through which they must struggle, before they can raise subsistence for themselves-- Our crops, the present year, have in general failed, and those settlers, who have ventured to open their doors to their relatives and ancient connexions, have, with their families and lodgers, an alarming and melancholy prospect before them-- But great numbers of these unhappy people are without friends, or resources of any kind to relieve their necessities, and are begging from door to door for a morsel of food, and yet we have much reason to fear that notwithstanding the appearance of approaching scarcity, provisions will be exported, and thus the evil will be hastened and increased. It is unnecessary to attempt a description of the distress that awaits these wretched people, when our navigation being closed, it will be impossible to procure a supply of provisions, from any quarter whatever."⁵⁵

These quotes well illustrate the dynamics of the immigration problem--the "brutish" ship captain who wants only to discharge his "living Cargoe"; the strong clan and family relations that provoked the attempted rescue at the dismay of the local magistrate; the "destitute" and unhealthy condition of many of the immigrants; the respectful but urgent reminders for government aid; and the sudden awareness of the limits of agricultural sustainability. Luckily, aid was forthcoming, if often at the last minute,⁵⁶ perhaps because the economic and political dynamics of the mass emigration were well known and inescapably pitiable. Richard Brown, living on the island for more than twenty years just after the last of the mass immigrations, shows us that these dynamics were not unknown at the time:

". ..many of the Highland chieftains, who had discovered that the raising of cattle and sheep afforded greater profits than the letting of their lands to miserable tenants, were dispossessing the latter of their farms and holdings; this harsh treatment of course gave a great impetus to the emigration, and thousands left almost every district in the Highlands to join their friends in the colonies. In the course of the twenty or thirty years following 1773, whole baronies were turned into sheep farms, and hundreds of families were driven across the Atlantic to look for a home in the backwoods of [North] America."⁵⁷

The economic politics behind this situation--the shoveling out of Britain's pauper population-- had been, in fact, proposed a long time before it actually happened--as early as the fifteenth century.⁵⁸ Wool speculators were well aware that the poor farmers would have to go if they were to make their fortunes. William Bollan, writing in the early 1700's, suggests that paupers could be removed and resettled in Canada, not only ridding the landlords of redundant tenant farmers to make room for sheep, but also providing a new market for that wool--clothing for settlers in "frosty" Canada.

"Add to this the great Encrease which this Acquisition [Cape Breton Island] must bring, to the Woollen Manufacturers. The Climate of Cape Breton is, for a great Part of the Year, extremely cold: And the Business of Fishing is such, as exposes the People employed in it, to the damp, rainy, foggy, or frosty Air: Wherefore they must of necessity be well cloathed; which, consequently, makes a large Demand for our coarse Cloths, Flannels, Yarn, and Worsted Hose, Caps, Mittens, &c. Whereby great Numbers of poor, but industrious Families, now starving in the North and West of England, will be comfortably maintained, and enabled to pay their Rents, as well as rear their Children, and qualify them for some Branch or other of this Trade. . ..And how many will be required to inhabit the Island, and to garrison the Fortifications, I leave others to compute: But be they more, or be they less, they must likewise be cloathed and add to the Demand for our Woollen Manufactures."⁵⁹

It is clear from this and other examples in William Bollan's book that he sees Cape Breton (and Canada) as an economic solution to poverty in the British Empire--he's not simply suggesting ridding landlords of their redundant human tenants to make room for profitable sheep despite his vision of Canada as an extension of the Old World manorial system. Others may have not been so humanely idealistic. In any case, mass emigration from the Western Scottish Highlands to Cape Breton did not let up until the early 1840's, when the potato famine finally put an end to the possibility of more immigration.⁶⁰ All told, between 1802 and the early 1840's, some 20,000 "mainly Gaelic speaking Scots" emigrated to Cape Breton.⁶¹

In all the history of European settlement in nineteenth century North America, there is no place where old world culture was so thoroughly transplanted to the degree experienced in Cape Breton during the Scottish settlement years,⁶² and certainly few places where such culture has lasted long as it has in Cape Breton. The importance and durability of those bonds--still incredibly intact to this day--can't be overstated. While visiting in 2003, I had the pleasure to speak with several old timers who recalled growing up speaking only Gaelic. Another claimed that in rural areas of Cape Breton--he was speaking of the rural Cape North area in particular--one could tell (if he had the ear, so to speak) the last name of a person by clan accent. To what extent this is true everywhere in Cape Breton today is debatable, but, as Stephen Hornsby notes, it was certainly very true throughout the nineteenth century:

"In some parts of the island, the clustering of settlers from particular areas of western Scotland was so marked that regional dialects, as well as language, were preserved. So long as Gaelic remained a functional language, the rich body of folklore the immigrants brought with them survived"⁶³

It is important to understand the culture and "folklore" of these immigrants was rural with roots at least many hundreds of years old. And although the move from the Western Highlands to Cape Breton had been a rough one, settlers appeared to have adapted well enough emotionally. The psychological "loss of place" that European settlers typically experienced in the "new world" seems to have been less a problem for Gaelic Scots settling into an area increasingly more and more Scottish, and, as has been noted, Cape Breton even looked a little bit like the Western Highlands. Del Muise tells us that, "By the 1870's they had almost a century of occupation of their small farms, so there was a sense of time and place that was very deep among them."⁶⁴.

It is almost as if the landscape of Cape Breton and its new people had bonded in some mystical way, so much so that, as early as the end of the nineteenth century, outsiders often described the "Cape Breton Highlander" in terms typically reserved for true native North American peoples. Don MacGillivray writes:

"After one Cape Breton tour in 1889 one American visitor stated: 'Many of the people exhibit that easy unconcern of the flight of time which under less favourable circumstances would probably be called laziness.' Presumably the criticism was tempered by the 'primitive splendours' of the general area. In 1893 John Gow observed that, especially in west and northwest Cape Breton, while having lost the 'staid respectability' of the ancient Highlander, 'some of these men are the wildest and hardest in the world.' For Gow, who detected traces of a 'primitive hospitality,' Cape Bretoners were 'nature's Ladies and Gentlemen.' The following year a Boston sophisticate assured his readers that: 'It is worth a journey to Cape Breton merely to see the people in their native wilds.' Yes, a vigorous and robust people. Some might say too much so for 'they have not developed a taste for factory or indoor work.' "⁶⁵

Although the deplorable ignorance of such visitors to the real plight of the Scottish Cape Bretoners during their forced migration between forty and ninety years earlier goes without saying, what is amazing about these accounts is the way in which outsiders saw these rural Scots as a natural extension of the Cape Breton landscape. We can see similar rhetoric in the myth of the "Noble Savage" typically reserved for Amerindian natives of the Americas. By way of comparison, we can look at William Bollan's 1746 description of Maritime natives, particularly the Mi'kmaq, and draw some interesting parallels.

"In turning over the Accounts given of the Conquests made in this part of the World, we frequently meet with the noble Struggles made by the People we call Savages; and brave Efforts, to recover their ancient and primitive Liberties. [Bollan goes on to describe how, by being deprived of these "Liberties" the various nations of "Savages" were reduced to making war upon each other-- apparently more so than they had in the past. He then continues:] Thus much for their Wars amongst themselves. But we have likewise seen them disputing their Liberties with the Europeans : Offering to trade with them upon fair footing ; desiring to keep good Correspondence with them ; disclaiming and renouncing all Enmity ; but protesting against the Right which was pretended to a Sovereignty over them, their Lands, Possessions, Laws or Liberties. Nay we have seen them, from this single Principle, engaged in long, bloody, and repeated Conflicts with Europeans. . .Bravery they are allowed to have, in the highest Degree ; and, on many Occasions; are not wanting for Conduct and Contrivance. But the Arts and Management of the Europeans have put their Politicks upon quite another Footing at this Day. The Original Simplicity and Disinterestedness is now no more to be met with; but Cunning and Deceit have taken its place. Violence, Cruelty, Drunkenness, and all kinds of Debauchery have been cultivated and improved amongst them, to an incredible and excessive Degree."⁶⁶

It is also interesting to note how both the true native people and Western Highland immigrants were often labeled as "drunken" "violent" and "lazy." 

There are lessons in these comparisons. In both cases, the cultural group in question was painted with the same brush: they were described as innocents of sorts, "brave," "wild," "savage," or "Nature's Ladies and Gentlemen." These people were also somehow fallen from a previous state of grace, an "original simplicity" or "staid respectability." Clearly, such terms allude to the myth of The Fall: some malignant exterior force makes its way into Eden and corrupts its inhabitants. Although William Bollan reserves his harshest accusations for the French and the "Popish Powers,"⁶⁸ he makes no qualms about identifying the "Satan" in this story as "the Europeans"--an indictment he levels several times in italics. Other critics tend to blame the victims themselves.

As activist Giovanna Di Chiro explains in her treatise on environmental justice, "Nature as Community," Native Americans and African Americans--both whom were "classified as animals" were often seen as "part of a wild, untamed nature that had to be exploited and controlled."⁶⁹ Di Chiro concludes,

"Although "nature talk" separates humans from nature and posits them as superior to nature, it specifies that some humans are in fact part of nature. In other words, particular Euro-American romantic constructions of nature have been and continue to be problematic and even genocidal for people who have been characterized as being more like nature and thus less than human."⁷⁰

Assessments of rural Cape Bretoners are interesting to examine in light of Di Chiro's thoughts. For instance, in the 1889 quote from the "American visitor" who noted that, "Many of the people exhibit that easy unconcern of the flight of time which under less favourable circumstances would probably be called laziness"--and also in the 1893 words of the "Boston sophisticate" who noted that Rural Cape Bretoners ". . .have not developed a taste for factory or indoor work."⁷¹ And yet, they did come to work in factories, and in the deep dark "indoors" of mines; thousands of them in fact. But what is really being said when an ethnic group is characterized as "not having developed a taste for factory work?" The accusers in these instances are suggesting that the rural Cape Bretoners are lazy (and perhaps stupid as well)--an indictment that ridiculously ignores the hard, laborious life of poor subsistence level agriculturists. Perhaps, then, the accusations point towards a certain resentment of rural Cape Bretoners because they, by way of their tenacious ancient rural traditions, were naturally resistant to the often dreadful role set aside for them by the beneficiaries of an industrialized, capitalist society: exploitation via a state of quasi-slavery in the industrial plantations of the New World.

The fact that Cape Bretoners--notably rural Cape Bretoners--were looked down upon is well documented. As early as the 1860's, John George Bourinot, a Cape Breton legislator, noted "for years [a legislator] could not raise his voice on behalf of that island without being met by sneers, if indeed he was heard at all."⁷² During the debates regarding the question of a Canadian Confederation, Bourinot noted, "I felt it was better to be an appendage to Canada than to Nova Scotia, as we might obtain more justice then we had received in the past from Nova Scotia."⁷³ Later, the rural Scottish poor who came to dominate the labor force of the Cape Breton mines and mills were regularly demonized by newspapers both local and beyond.⁷⁴ MacGillivray notes that, ". . .upon their transfer from a pre-industrial to an industrial setting--the transformation from rural rustic to militant working class--Cape Bretoners acquired another coat of characteristics. It was no more positive; indeed, according to some it was far more sinister."⁷⁵ Cape Bretoners were looked upon with derision based on regionalist and classist prejudice --in the same way many rural poor folk across North America were viewed. Uunfortunately, Cape Breton (and Newfoundland) was (and, in many ways, still is) often viewed as Canada's Appalachia. Even today, the rhetoric reserved for such people is most revealing. In a review on the website Travel and Leisure.com by Canadian novelist Douglas Cooper--interestingly titled "Canadian Gothic"--Cape Breton is not only compared to Appalachia, but--quaintly, in this case-- to the culture of the "Middle Ages."⁷⁶ In 1999, Halifax conservative economist and journalist Fred McMahon compared the labor ethics of Cape Bretoners with those of the former Soviet Union,⁷⁷ suggesting, yet again, that "lazy" Cape Bretoners are prone to socialist welfare dependence and anti-establishment values. McMahon continues:

". ..employment isn't worthwhile for many workers unless it lasts long enough to provide a new round of employment insurance in a regionally enriched program which allows people to collect EI most of the year, year after year. Why give up the EI money you're already taking home for short-term work that won't qualify you for another round of EI?. ..People in Cape Breton can have a bright future if they shrug off the distortions, dependency and sense of entitlement of the past, and take their fate into own hands, as did people in Halifax and Moncton. Despite all the perversities of Cape Breton's politicized economy, younger Cape Bretoners and a new class of entrepreneurs have created a thriving, though small, technology sector, with some real gems particularly in multi-media." ⁷⁸

It is true that the political, cultural, and economic dynamics of post-industrial Cape Breton are complex--and certainly Cape Bretoners aren't above all reproach--but "just get over it" arguments like McMahon's fail to address these issues in light of their history and how that history plays itself out today. By labeling Cape Bretoners as a welfare culture, one inherently denies the role outside capital interests played in strip-mining the local economy and resources, vastly exacerbating --perhaps even creating-- the current problem. Furthermore, it is perhaps these same attitudes that allowed the rural people of Cape Breton to become so exploited in the first place. McMahon concludes by suggesting that "younger" Cape Bretoners unaffected by the "perversities" of the previous generation get with it by jumping on the technology bandwagon⁷⁹--echoing a long history of rhetoric that insists if such-and-such people would just work harder and try to fit in with what "we" see fit for them, they'd be able to get ahead. In the eighteenth century, it was wool that would save them, in the nineteenth, it was coal. Now, according to McMahon, it is "technology." It is interesting to contrast these old solutions with the recent dot-com crash. The trouble with McMahon's kind of rhetoric characteristically fails to take into account an understanding of culture and the requirements of real economic sustainability.

Let's consider the work ethic of rural Cape Bretoners. Don MacGillivray tells us "there was a saying in the old world that turning a Highlander into an industrial worker was like putting a deer in the plough,"⁸⁰ meaning of course that there was some intrinsic attitude of resistance common to both a deer forced into plowing and a highlander forced to work in a mill. This is the crux of the matter: one might draw from this that the highlander is equitable with a wild creature--and as we have said, this allows him to be more easily dehumanized. Or, one might conclude that there is in both wild animals and the highlander a certain intrinsic resistance to captivity and exploitation through labor. . .and a certain sadness and despair common to both. Both of these viewpoints contribute to the conflicted Rosseauian sobriquet "Noble Savage," yet it is the second viewpoint that speaks intelligently and ethically about the nature of exploitation and resistance to exploitation. Emigrant Scots, exploited by their previous landlords in the Western Highlands and subsequently discarded to starve or fend for themselves when they were no longer economically useful, were proud of their newfound freedom from the European manorial system and proud of their tiny bits of Cape Breton land, meager as it might have been. Hornsby remarks that ". . .the social release from the oppressive estate structure was palpable. ..No longer bound by the rents and dues of the Scottish feudal system, settlers relished their greater independence."⁸¹ Hornsby quotes the sentiments of one immigrant: "I go out and in [my house] at my pleasure. No soul living forces me to do a turn against my will, no laird, no factor, having no rent, nor any toilsome work but what I do myself."⁸²

To assume that the rural Cape Bretoner was pastoral simpleton who was not interested in furthering himself would be unfair. Similar myopic viewpoints abound in descriptions of Native North Americans as totally incapable of material desire, denying the obvious ambition of those same natives who engaged in the fur and wampum trade⁸³--regardless if such values were cultivated by Europeans or were there to begin with. Still, there did seem to be an attitude among rural Cape Bretoners, one more inclined towards appreciating life and less inclined to the classist puritan work ethic that often forms the subconscious germ of labeling such rural or "native" ethnic groups as "lazy." More observant witnesses have noted that rural Cape Bretoners were not at all lazy; rather they were simply engaged in a surprisingly psychologically healthy work ethic: "Their previous environment had encouraged an attitude towards life that demanded only a very meagre standard of living so long as there was ample opportunity for amusement and happiness." Or: "They worked while they worked but when there was nothing particular to do, they hated to pretend to work -- they went to a picnic instead."⁸⁵ Don MacGillivray writes:

"Clearly, such people would not be easily swayed with simple wage incentives. With the arrival of large scale industrial capitalism into Cape Breton very late in the nineteenth century the people of the area did not leap to embrace the demands of the new system. Such demands--to be thrifty, sober, obedient, diligent--clashed directly with older traditions and attitudes. Such people were not easily trained, or broken. They were primarily a pre-industrial people with a rich and vibrant culture and the values they carried with them into industrial Cape Breton would not be easily discarded."⁸⁶

The cultural labor values of rural Cape Bretoners and the work ethic of industrial capitalism were inherently at odds. In 1900, Cape Breton mining management noted, "It is not unusual for 25 percent of the employees at a colliery to be off work on certain days. Many in the Spring go fishing and farming, while in the Summer many go frolicking."⁸⁷ MacGillivray notes that management was often "quite unable to comprehend" this sort of attitude, and suggests that the Cape Breton work ethic "could also be viewed as a strong statement that the miners in Cape Breton were going to continue to decide their own priorities and they were not necessarily those demanded by industrial capitalism. They were, however, ones which recently removed rural Cape Bretoners could easily accommodate." ⁸⁸ Unlike in many industrial areas, the work force of the Cape Breton mines and mills was never far from the influence of its rural clannish roots. Family members still farmed, logged, fished, and engaged in other pre-industrial subsistence activities; there was continual exchange between rural an urban populations.⁸⁹

Upon reviewing the rhetoric in which Cape Bretoners were described through the accounts of those who had the most to gain by continued control and exploitation, one comes face to face with specter of classism (and perhaps also racism). Alan Sekula, in "Photography Between Labour and Capital" suggests that industrial age classism is based in an irrational fear of a blue collar labor uprising. Sekula quotes Francis Klingender in his study of eighteenth and nineteenth century industrial rhetoric, then extrapolates:

"'The sense of awe and terror which the middle class visitor was likely to experience at a mine was not, however, entirely due to the strangeness of the scene, the wild appearance of the men or the danger of their work. The effect produced was heightened by a growing consciousness that the miners, and indeed the industrial workers generally, were beginning to form a distinct, ever more numerous and hostile nation."⁹⁰

A similar fear did not develop in the United States until the 1870's. Militant miners, particularly the "Molly McGuires" of the Pennsylvania anthracite fields, were to become objects of hatred in the middle class press."⁹⁰

With regard to Cape Breton's blue collar labor force, Don MacGillivray points out that such "irrational fears of revolution" were prevalent in "all levels of the [Canadian] government."⁹¹ "Red Scare" knee-jerk reactions are also well documented.⁹² In this "irrational fear" one can see echoes of the same guilt-driven paranoia that began to fester in the pre-emancipation southern American antebellum elite when it became apparent that they were outnumbered by their slaves. Going even further back, this fear has its roots in a general puritan fear of wildness-- things perceived as savage, primitive, barbaric, etc. were all beyond the control of a society--a society bound by laws to maximize the comfort of those who subscribed to those laws, and consequently, to marginalize or exploit outsiders, non-conformists, and persons of lesser caste. The fear that these "others" will someday rise up and take what they were deprived of--namely, the lifestyle and resources of those who oppress them--is an old fear. And yes, this is an old argument as well--far too tangential to go too deeply into here. Nonetheless, some parallels cry out. For instance, in Of Wolves and Men--Barry Lopez' famous exploration of the interrelationship between human beings and wolves-- the author argues that although there might be dozens of seemingly rational justifications for the killing of wolves, the ferocity, intensity, and often outright sadistic cruelty of the widespread drive to thoroughly annihilate Canis Lupus defies all rational logic. Lopez suggests a cause for this: "theriophobia" or "fear of the beast within"--a psychological scapegoating of wolves by human beings.⁹³ The wolf was "the lust, greed, and violence that men saw in themselves."⁹⁴ Whole passages of this book deserve to be quoted here. For instance, like rural Cape Bretoners, wolves were also regarded as "lazy." Lopez, in interviewing hundreds of wolf killers tells us that, "On the spur of the moment, men offered ridiculous reasons [for killing wolves]--because the wolves loafed and didn't have to work for their food."⁹⁵ Furthermore:

"The wolf became the symbol of what you wanted to kill--memories of man's primitive origins in the wilderness, the remnant of his bestial nature which was all that held him back in America from building the greatest empire on earth. The wolf represented "a fierce bloodsucking persecutor" (as Roger Williams called him) of everything that was high-born in a man."⁹⁶

Whether in America or Canada, the attitude was distinctly European and Judeo-Christian and was essentially the same throughout: the demonized were those tribes of people or species of creatures who live in such a way as to not conform to the presumptuous Western ideal of progress. Such castes reminded "high born" "Western Man" that his ideal of progress, at their core, often generated behavior  essentially far more "savage" and "bestial" than anything animals or native (or rural) people might typically engage in.

In some sense, the drive to control rural people and force them conform to the values of the world of industrial capitalism speaks of a continuation of the "pillage and dominate values" of Manifest Destiny and Colonialism. And yet, the ideology that drives these values remains fundamentally unchanged. In this kind of universe, the pioneer and colonist eventually morph into the stockholder and middle class suburbanite; the "wilderness" and its native people shapechange into the rural "hillbilly," the "backlander," the disenfranchised urban poor, the migrant worker, the wetback, etc. In this "New World," animals such as the wolf are represented by the rat, the cockroach, and yes, even the crabgrass afflicting the finely manicured suburban lawn.⁹⁷ The "problem" animals and plants need to be eradicated or "controlled"; the "problem" people must suck it up and fit in. In Fred McMahon's words, they must "take their fate into their own hands"⁹⁸--with the implied but unspoken caveat that, in doing so, they do not challenge the legitimacy of the status quo and its systems. In On Wolves and Men, Lopez tells us that "the pioneer's attitude towards wilderness was hostile and utilitarian,"⁹⁹ in other words, the environment and its resources were something that was there to be used; it was considered hostile to the degree it resisted efforts to forcefully (even violently) make it conform. Giovanna Di Chiro's warning becomes more explicit here: one cannot separate exploitation of the natural environment from the exploitation of the human beings that call that environment "home." Lopez tells us, "men considered that they had dominion over animals the way they had dominion over slaves, that they could do anything they wanted to them" [emphasis added]¹⁰⁰

Fortunately, humans are not wolves; when oppressed they often organize and fight back. And yet, for Cape Breton's immigrant Scots, such grievous struggles are centuries old. In particular, with regard to the history of labor in industrial Cape Breton, Del Muise notes that:

". . .[Cape Breton] is the only area east of Montreal to engage in protracted industrial unrest and to support alternative political representation. For Nova Scotia, the communities [of Cape Breton] represent a deviancy that is most striking. . ..the uniqueness of industrial Cape Breton is the product of a combination of circumstances unmatched anywhere else in the region."¹⁰¹

There is no need here to go into too much detail about nineteenth and early twentieth century labor history. The battle for the rights and welfare of industrial workers against capital interests is well known; the history of worker's rights in Canada closely parallels that of Europe and the United States. Still, in some ways the situation in Cape Breton was, perhaps, more pronounced than it was in other milieus. The reader will recall that I began this essay with a quote by William Bollan in 1746, in which he insists that control of the lands, resources, and settlements of Cape Breton should not be given over to "Companies. . .who generally set their Minds wholly upon getting rich in a little time; and abandon, or neglect every thing which does not immediately return large Profits."¹⁰² The amazingly prophetic Bollan further warns that these companies would care very little for the welfare of the inhabitants of the land they are exploiting.¹⁰³ In spite of such warnings, that is exactly what happened to Cape Breton.

The nature of corporate exploitation in Cape Breton plays out a common, reckless theme:

1) opening of the resources to capitalist-market (post-subsistence) use;
2) widespread speculation and entrepreneurialism;
3) corporate consolidation;
4) monopoly;
5) reckless exploitation of labor and resources;
6) depletion of resources and/or market resulting in
7) intensified "market reality"-justified exploitation of labor and natural resources, ending in inevitable degradation and/or abandonment;
8) nationalization of remaining resources and/or government welfare;
9) widespread poverty, unemployment, and forced emigration; possible physical and social legacies such as pollution and urban-industrial decay; and
10) subsidized attempts to establish other sources of economic sustainability in the capitalist system.

Such patterns play themselves out endlessly in capitalist economies. With a few minor adjustments, one can plug many such instances into the pattern laid out above. Consider, for example, the course of events leading to and proceeding from the Dust Bowl agricultural collapse of the Southern United States Plains (as detailed in Donald Worster's book Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains In the 1930's):¹⁰⁴

1) opening of the southern plains to pioneer farmers
2) widespread settlement of small farmsteads
3) consolidation driven by the international wheat market
4) "mega" farms begin to cultivate wheat monoculture
5) tenants and small farmers forced into poverty;
6) wheat monoculture fails in natural drought years; "dust bowl" disasters;
7) liquidation of farms resulting of further consolidation of land & intensified exploitation of remaining land through even more monoculture;
8) corporate welfare and government funded land rehabilitation;
9) emigration of rural culture and replacement by homogenous factory farm non-culture; pesticide legacy; dust storms; soil loss.
10) use of new technology to temporarily maintain an unsustainable level of resource use while such resources (in particular, aquifers and soil) continue to be depleted. . .ultimately resulting in future agricultural "crashes."

Another more obvious example would be that of the Scottish immigrants themselves fleeing Scotland in the wake of "Big Wool." At the heart of this, one can't help but witness a certain amount of blind greed and shortsighted entitlement. The human victims of these reckless cycles are most always the poor, the disenfranchised, the rural, the immigrants, etc. The "outside interests" simply pack their suitcases when things get rough, cash in their chips, and seek out new hosts. Any harm they suffer is not physical. As Jim and Pat Lotz wrote in their honest 1974 "biography" of Cape Breton Island:

"While outsiders seem to have done well from the island, many Cape Bretoners have been forced to leave or risk remaining unemployed. The obvious qualities of the Cape Bretoner--friendliness, a sense of independence, an ability to work hard when the need arises, a sense of pride in the island--seem at times to turn to anger and a sense of futility that the island's potential has not been developed for the benefit of its residents."¹⁰⁵

To tell this story of "cash and carry" capitalism in Cape Breton is to tell the story of Cape Breton coal mining (steel production was a spin-off of Cape Breton coal resources; its fate was entwined with the nearby coal mines that provided the fuel and coke necessary for the production of steel) . Until 1820, coal mining in Cape Breton was relatively "small scale," mostly seasonal operations. Following these operations was a thirty year monopoly of Nova Scotia mineral wealth by the General Mining Association (GMA), lessee to the Duke of York. Even then, mining did not experience the kind of expansive growth that occurred from 1856 to 1894, after the GMA was forced to surrender its monopoly and open coal mining to independent speculators. The 1856 breakup of the GMA monopoly saw the increase of smaller mining operations; there were eight of these companies in Cape Breton in 1873, including the GMA. Although working conditions were notoriously poor (they had been no better under the GMA monopoly), there were only a few strikes and labor disputes between 1856 and 1894--perhaps because there were more employment options--or, more to the point, the absence of a monopoly distributed power over a wider base and decreased the influence of corporate mining interests on government, economy, and individuals. Nonetheless, coal speculators in Cape Breton usually represented outside interests--typically American. From1894 until corporate abandonment and the nationalization of Cape Breton coal and steel in the 1968, steel and coal workers labored under several successive corporate monopolies: Dominion Coal Company (1894-1921), Dominion Iron and Steel Company (1900-1921), British Empire Steel Company (BESCO, 1921-1928), and Dominion Steel and Coal Company (DOSCO, 1928-1968).¹⁰⁶

These monopolies had a profound detrimental influence on local economies that went far beyond the extraction of coal and the production of steel. Companies often owned many of the houses, stores, and utilities in the towns that supplied their labor. The old song refrain " St. Peter don'tcha call me cause I can't go....I owe my soul to the company store" might well have been sung in the Sydney-Glace Bay industrial area. In response to the granting of a ninety-nine year monopoly of Nova Scotia's coal resources to the American syndicate Dominion Coal Company, a Nova Scotian Newspaper editorialized that "within five years" the monopoly

". . .will have rendered extinct the numerous classes of merchants, small traders, and co-operative store companies now doing business at and around the mines by compelling first the miners and then all others to purchase their goods at the Company's stores; will have reduced the miners and their families to a state of vassalage, as wholly dependent upon the Company for the food and clothes they wear as were the southern Negroes under slavery. . ."¹⁰⁷ [emphasis added]

The largest and most notorious of these monopolies was BESCO, the 1920's empire of bootstrap multi-millionaire Roy Wolvin, dubbed, interestingly enough, "Roy the Wolf" by Cape Bretoners. Already owning a virtual monopoly on Great Lakes and Canadian Pacific shipping and shipbuilding, he eventually bought up "almost everything in Nova Scotia related to the steel or coal industries." Wolvin "had been given a free hand to run the Nova Scotia industrial economy." BESCO had in fact become the "third largest employer of wage earners in Canada."¹⁰⁸ The potential for abuse was enormous.

The 1920's and 1930's were particularly difficult decades; labor-to-company relations were strained at best and combustible at their worst. The provincial police and the military were called to aid of the coal and steel management on nearly a dozen occasions to help resolve volatile labor disputes.¹⁰⁹ Violence and the threat of violence as a negotiation tool was common, as in this 1922 Cape Breton strike:

"The wage schedule was accepted under the muzzles of rifles, machine guns and the gleaming bayonets with further threatened invasion of troops and warships standing to. The miners, facing hunger, their Dominion and Provincial governments lined up with Besco, the men were forced to accept the proposals."¹¹⁰

"The Company," often owning the utilities and homes of miners and steelworkers, forced laborers and their families out of their houses or deprived them of necessities in retaliation for striking. The results were often violent, as in the famous 1925 "Battle of Waterford Lake":

"The town of New Waterford was especially hard hit by the strike. The town's water supply and electrical needs all came from New Waterford Lake, a few miles from the town and Besco police had control of this location. Besco police terrorized the people of New Waterford by charging through the town on horseback. On June 11 approximately 3,000 infuriated men and boys gathered at New Waterford and made their way towards the power plant. They were met at the site by approximately 100 armed police and the so-called Battle of Waterford Lake took place. Police were hauled off horseback and beaten, while others jumped in New Waterford Lake and swam to the other side. The police began to fire their revolvers and three of the miners were shot. . . . The miners overtook the police and marched them back to town to jail. . . The men were driven to this action because their supply of water and power to their homes and schools was cut off." ¹¹¹

Paul MacEwan describes the events in more intimate detail:

"Immediately a battle was on between men armed with sticks, stones, and their bare fists, and the Besco police, mounted and firing their revolvers. The huge crowd of three thousand was so enraged that saddles were emptied in seconds and men were dragged from their mounts to be clubbed, beaten, and stomped on. Wounded policemen fled into the woods, while riderless horses galloped about. . .The miners combed through the woods, rounding up some thirty unhorsed Besco police, many of whom were dazed and bleeding. These were forced to march back to New Waterford, and those who could not march were dragged. They were beaten and manhandled all the way."¹¹²

Company stores and mine buildings were burned to the ground, and ultimately, the military was called to aid Besco in suppressing union activities. The Battle of Waterford Lake was part of a larger 150 day strike. Prior to the strike, tenant laborers and their families were being evicted from company housing because they could not afford to pay their rents.¹¹³ Families were on "the verge of starvation."¹¹⁴ One commentator noted that "the people of Cape Breton are peace-loving, hard working people. Give them work and a fair show, and you will not hear a murmur from them. But some of them are being asked to do an impossible thing. They are being asked to live on nothing."¹¹⁵ For a people whose grandparents had lived through evictions and starvation at the hands of Scottish landlords, such treatment must have seemed particularly intolerable.

The Battle of Waterford Lake serves as perhaps the most dramatic illustration of the strife that regularly occurred during the industrial monopoly years. And yet, in many ways, it is the legacy of these monopolies that is most tragic: the pollution, the unemployment, the sense of despair and urban-industrial decay that haunts Cape Breton even today. Historian David Frank sums up the roots of that legacy:

"The growth of the coal industry in Cape Breton expressed above all the financial opportunism of its successive owners, rather than any commitment to principles of regional economic welfare. Spokesmen for the coal industry. . .endorsed industrial development as a strategy for utilization of the local coal and iron resources, but in practice they sought trading links with distant markets and pursued policies of rapid resource depletion".¹¹⁶

And in this 1967 quote by Sydney's Metropolitan Action Committee, written on the eve of the collapse of DOSCO, we see the results of that legacy:

"Our area of Cape Breton is a microcosm of North American industrial society. Our people are subject to all the pressures of that society even though sometimes deprived of its benefits--alienation of youth; a sense of hopelessness among many people, young and old; bafflement, frustration, and even despair in facing increasing complexity in day to day living; pollution of the environment; the growing helplessness of the individual confronted by big government, big labor, big business; the whole range of ills that attack the human spirit in the age of technology. . .The fundamental need is to restore the average man's faith in the possibility of his having some influence on his own destiny, and that of his family and his community. People who lack that conviction--and their number is increasing alarmingly, especially among the young--lack the fundamental ingredients of citizenship, in fact, of humanity."¹¹⁷

The economic solution most toted as the cure for the plight of Cape Bretoners is tourism. Since the opening of the Canso Causeway to the mainland and the dedication of the Cabot Trail in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, tourism has been important in Cape Breton. "The people in their native wilds" have a lot to offer the tourist: stunning natural beauty and a quaintly fossilized offshoot of Scottish Highland culture. In response to proposals that the people of post-industrial Cape Breton would best benefit from a tourism-based economy, Don MacGillivray quips,

"There we have it--right back to "nature's Ladies and Gentlemen." While the miner still wanted "to continue to live in his community to earn his living in dignity" and to enjoy "modest benefits". ..he was prepared to have them in a pre-industrial setting, or at least as a service industry for the post-industrial society. The miners have been better served."¹¹⁸

Parks Canada and the Canadian Tourism Commission indicate a few specifics about the threats of tourism in Cape Breton: ¹¹⁹

Threats
Uncontrolled influx of more tourists or tourists seeking inappropriate experiences
Damage to ecosystem from misuse
Resentment from communities due to lack of benefits or due to impact on key community values
Deterioration of key infrastructure

However, this list is somewhat lacking in descriptiveness. The problems of a tourism-based economy are plain: gentrification; increase in property values, overhead, and base cost of living which forces emigration of real culture and replaces it with transient seasonal non-culture; exploitation of local labor in low paying seasonal service jobs; commercial sprawl; off-season economic hibernation and the creation of off-season ghost towns; property sellouts to outsiders with no real community interest or investment; etc. Ultimately, this kind of economy generates the eventual annihilation of the natural and cultural resources that drive such an economy in the first place: rich history, beautiful landscapes, and a strong, vibrant culture. Areas protected as public reserves, such as Cape Breton Highlands National Park, become fossilized remnants in an outdoor museum of "the way life should be" (to steal the popular oxymoron of the state of Maine, with its over-gentrified coastal hot spots such as Camden and Bar Harbor), while collapsing industrial areas such as Sydney become homogenous and forgettable "sprawl centers" that serve only to support the commercial needs of upper middle class tourists from the United States and other parts of Canada. In this world, tourism functions at its most base level; tourists don't really learn any appreciation for the culture and landscape any more than to regard them as consumables. Both landscape and culture are made to conform with the tourist ideal of quaintness. Aspects of real culture, landscapes, and history that are seen as less than desirable to tourists are lost, hidden, or destroyed.

We can see this trend as early as the 1930's in travel literature such as Gordon Brinley's book Away to Cape Breton, in which the author (he changes his name to "Dan") and his quasi-fictional socialite companion "The Duchess" take a road trip from New York City to Cape Breton.¹²⁰ The couple travel all around the island by car and by boat (almost half of the vacation seems like nothing more than a glorified trophy fishing trip for Brinley), but neatly avoid describing the harsh industrial landscape of Sydney which they pass through on two occasions--once even stopping to "window shop" and catch a movie in a North Sydney cinema. The only visual of Sydney that we get is that of the small bucolic cottage they spend the night in. And yet, photography from that time indicates that the area was an industrial eyesore. Surely "Dan" Brinley and The Duchess must have smelled something when they motored through Sydney--Jim and Pat Lotz note that industrial fumes were noxious enough in that region to kill and stunt conifers.¹²¹


Efforts by industrialists to make the steel and coal industry seem "Beautiful"--for instance, in this image from DOSCO's employee relations magazine Teamwork--were notwithstanding in Brinley's decision to exclude, in the words of DOSCO, "the massiveness of industry, the wonders of its production facilities, the intensiveness of its research efforts."¹²² In the couple's dialog, history becomes distorted for the sake of coziness and palatability; poor Scottish crofters and cottars forced to emigrate to Cape Breton by unscrupulous landlords and rapacious political economics turn into willing romantic "pilgrims." These "pilgrims" "sail to" Cape Breton seemingly of their own volition as if they themselves owned the boats and manned the sails and anchors. Perhaps the most memorable and telling dialog in the book is that of The Duchess telling Brinley her theories of immigrant "Scottish Fairies":

"Of course, that's exactly it!" she exclaimed. "I might have known because old Scotland is full of fairies. Probably when the Reverend Norman MacLeod sailed away from Scotland in the year 1817, there were stowaway brownies on board-- brownies, you know, are the good Scotch fairies."¹²³ [the emphasis here is original]

Tourism often has a warping effect on cultural reality--we only see the good Scotch fairies. The Sydney Tar Ponds, which the non-commercial Lonely Planet Guide to Canada describes as "a scene of utter desolation that you'll only want to see once in your life,"¹²⁴ isn't on the mental or physical maps of tourists. Neither are the harsh realities of urban-industrial decay in the Sydney-Glace Bay area. In Away to Cape Breton, there is no mention of the despair-induced alcoholism, "the barrooms from which tumbled drunken men to fight on the sidewalks and stain the area with blood,"¹²⁵ and no mention of the battles won and lost during conflagratory labor disputes that were at their worst around the time of Brinley's road trip. Brinley drives through the heart of industrial Cape Breton--twice--and doesn't even mention seeing so much as a smokestack.

In Sacred Places, John Sears' book on tourist attractions in the United States, the author notes that "the picturesque often protected tourists from too close an encounter with poverty, misery, and exploitation."¹²⁶ Sears tells us the story of another coal mining town--Pennsylvania's Mauch Chunk (later renamed "Jim Thorpe" after the local football hero in an attempt to stimulate the failing post-industrial tourism industry). Sears describes how tourists turned a blind eye to the social and environmental woes of coal mining in Mauch Chunk--even to the point of grotesque re-characterizations of the realities of the "breaker boys"--young children "between four and ten years old" employed to separate coal from stone. These so described "merry, bright eyed, dirty little urchins" had become quaint in the eyes the tourist. Here, Sears quotes a 1863 travel article in Harper's Monthly and offers his conclusion:

"Nothing can be more amusing than the expression of countenance and the movements of these little fellows, nothing more ludicrous than their ragged and ungainly habilimnents. They seem to be rather amusing themselves than working, as they lazily pick out and drop underneath the pieces of slate-rock, which the casual visitor could not tell from genuine coal, but which they detect by sort of indolent intuition."

"The amusement at their appearance and behavior, the attitude that they were cute in a grotesque way, and the suggestion that they worked joyfully and were indolent indicate how thoroughly the picturesque could obscure oppression."¹²⁷

Changes in modern child labor ethics aside, we inevitably must ask the question of tourism in Cape Breton: at what point does tourism cause the erosion of culture and enable the exploitation of local people, their economy, and their environment? Going further back: Did tourism in the Cape Breton Highlands help obscure the social and economic plight of industrial Cape Breton? Did the popular image of Cape Bretoners as "Nature's Ladies and Gentlemen"--the Noble Savages "in their native wilds"--encourage a general tolerance of the oppressive labor and economic policies of Big Coal and Steel?

Alan Sekula, commenting on tourist-centered "coffee table" photography books of rural Cape Breton writes,

"Within these books, landscape is offered as the antithesis of an industry that is not pictured. We should note, however, that the actual landscape of Cape Breton is not exempt from the pressures of industrial development. . .And so perhaps, today, the very idea of "landscape" has to be defended, but in a politically organized and ecologically sensitive fashion."¹²⁸

Yes--politically organized and ecologically sensitive, to be sure--but we should not forget to include a sustainable human society in our portfolio of "landscape." The reality of a tourism that is rooted in the consumption of popular images of the "wild" or the "rural" too easily helps us dismiss those undesirable aspects of the landscape--including the blue collar industrial worker-- that in reality make the consumption of those popular images possible. Cape Breton's only city and only big industrial center, Sydney, becomes divorceable from the rest of Cape Breton---its history, its reality, and its people become a lost cause of sorts, simply because it is a blue collar industrial area--it and its problems may as well fall into the sea. The part of Cape Breton that is still "pure" is walled off from the part that is considered "diseased." The Canadian Tourism Commission and Parks Canada have adopted this interesting definition of ecotourism:

". . .tourism that consists in traveling to relatively undisturbed or uncontaminated areas with the specific objective of studying, admiring, and enjoying the scenery and its wild plants and animals as well as any existent cultural manifestations found in these areas."¹²⁹ [emphasis added]

Richard White, in his analysis of the dualism we engage in when looking at nature and labor, writes, "We turn public lands into a public playground; we will equate the wild lands with rugged play; we will imagine nature as an escape, a place where we are born again
. . .Nature may turn out to look a lot like an organic Disneyland, except it will be harder to park."¹³⁰ White notes that "nature" will become "a paradise where we leave work behind";¹³¹ if that is so, then we will be also leaving the worker behind as well--we will end up forcing him and his plight out of our purified "Eden"--at first psychologically, then physically. In the same vein, Giovanna Di Chiro tells us that efforts to get popular environmental organizations to recognize urban pollution and oppression as an "environmental problem" often resulted in the shrugging off of cities and the people who live in them as unworthy of attention by these groups.¹³² And yet, the fate of urban-industrial Cape Breton and rural Cape Breton are, and always have been, inextricably entwined. Tourism unnaturally obscures that reality.

My intent is not to advocate the eradication of tourism in Cape Breton, but rather to suggest that the growth of tourism not happen without some forethought towards sustainability. The World Tourism Organization defines "sustainable tourism" as:

"Development that meets the needs of present tourists and hosts regions while protecting and enhancing opportunities for the future. It is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems." ¹³³

This is a good definition to consider, as there is a real and obvious danger that tourism without local restraint will leave the people of Cape Breton in no better a situation than the coal monopolies did--perhaps even worse. At least BESCO and DOSCO didn't destroy the will and unique culture of Cape Bretoners. As Don MacGillivray rightly points out, it is the strong sense of culture and tradition that allowed the Cape Bretoners to survive the hardships they were forced to endure.¹³⁴ Whether or not they will succumb after all this time to unchecked tourism will ultimately depend how dependent on unchecked tourism the island becomes.

If it is true that one cannot separate the environment from the people that live there, then it is also true that what you do to one, you do to other other. I am inclined to accept this hypothesis--especially with regard to those groups of people whose survival is most closely tied to the dynamics of the landscape they call home. I borrow from Giovanna Di Chiro who provides a quote from anthropologist Stephen Feld that illustrates my point:

"When I read that we lose 15-20,00 species of plants and animals a year through the logging, ranching, and mining that escalates the rainforest destruction, my mind immediately begins to ponder how to possibly calculate the number of songs, myths, words, ideas, artifacts, techniques--all the cultural knowledge and practices lost per year in these mega-diversity zones. Massive wisdom, variations on human being in the form of knowledge in and of place: these are the co- casualties in the eco-catastrophe. Eco-thinout may proceed at a rate much slower than cultural rubout, but accomplishment of the latter is a particularly effective way to accelerate the former. The politics of ecological and aesthetic co-evolution and do-devolution are one."¹³⁵

Feld's point is well taken: the destruction of culture proceeds simultaneously with that of environment. But even then, I think the paradigm needs to be pushed further: we need to stop defining culture and environment as two different things.

The famous ecologist and writer Aldo Leopold once noted that the ultimate result of environmental exploitation is violence.¹³⁶ When we witness the history of Cape Breton, we are seeing how that violence plays itself out socially and environmentally. Both society and environment have experienced massive blows; both continually impact each other. Leopold warned that we should "quit thinking about decent land use a solely an economic problem." Instead, we should analyze how we think about landscape in terms of what is "ethically and esthetically right as well as economically expedient." "A thing is right" Leopold explains, "when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."¹³⁷ We must not forget to include human culture as a living dynamic in our definition of "biotic community." When this "biotic community" exists solely for the exploitation of others with no thoughts as to the local costs of such usage, violence is ultimately the result. The point then, is to recognize violence as violence--regardless if it is active or passive--and to stop labeling it otherwise. With regard to Cape Breton, I have shown how outside interests pillaged biotic resources recklessly and violently--leaving a legacy of biotic disenfranchisement. I have also shown how this disenfranchisement is so often met with denial and victim-kicking rhetoric.

Antagonists such as Fred McMahon, offering capitalist solutions to Cape Breton's economic woes, aren't acknowledging that it was the headlong thoughtless drive of capitalism that caused these problems in the first place. Not to say that capitalism can't offer any solutions; quite possibly it can. And yet, by not acknowledging the glaring failures of that system and how they played themselves out in Cape Breton, and by not learning from them, it is likely that history will be doomed to repeat itself. As Richard White tells us, "if work is not perverted into a means of turning place into property, it can teach us how deeply our work and nature's work are entwined."¹³⁸ Gary Snyder, in his essay "The Place, the Region, and the Commons" suggests a "commons" that truly belongs to the people, rather than industries (such as Big Wool or Big Coal).¹³⁹ The "commons" are what belongs to all Cape Bretoners--the biotic total of culture, economy, and environment--the sum expressed in the term "place." Big business sees that biota as private property--and that is the root of the problem. Or, as Gary Snyder eloquently expresses:

"Locally based community or tribal landholding corporations or cooperatives seem to be surviving here and there. But operating as it seems they must in the world marketplace, they are wrestling with how to balance tradition and sustainability against financial success. .. The challenge is to bring the whole victimized world of "common pool resources" into the Mind of the Commons. As it stands now, any resource on earth that is not nailed down will be seen as fair game to the timber buyers or petroleum geologists from Osaka, Rotterdam, or Boston. The pressures of growing populations and the powers of entrenched (but fragile, confused, and essentially leaderless) economic systems warp the likelihood of any of us seeing clearly. Our perception of how entrenched they are may also be something of a delusion."¹⁴⁰

The 1B Colliery Garden can be seen as a local expression of such an ideal. Not only did the communal underground garden stand for the psychological center of an agrarian culture many centuries old, it was also was central to the hopes of those people who emigrated from Scotland (and other places as well)--that they might have a tiny bit of earth to call their own; that they might prosper where before there had been oppression. Although forced into the brutal occupations of coal mining and steel making by economic pressures, they never lost sight of their cultural roots--they were, at the heart, a people in love with life. That a garden might grow in a coal mine is nothing short of a small miracle. It is an expression of joy and culture in a world intent on crushing and subjugating both; it is emblematic of the spirit of the Cape Bretoner. When I saw the Ocean Deeps Colliery Garden, I knew what I was looking at--a psychological symbol of a people's determination to resist oppression and control; a symbol of the sustainable world they all craved in their hearts--what they had traveled across the Atlantic to claim, what they are still trying to claim.

_______________________

There are many ways to approach the understanding of place--a term I use to encompass both people and environment. I chose the symbolic route--by examining the significance of a small light-bulb dependant garden in a Glace Bay coal mine. Through that garden, and the compelling narrative of its true high priest, Hinson Calabrese, I have unraveled a history that spans centuries--a history that binds land and people in inextricably beautiful and terrifying ways. 

The place where we begin our point of departure from the ignorance of un-questioning and non-thinking matters less than the point where we do find our place and begin. I am not a resident of Cape Breton; I admit that my exploration was limited by what I could read in books, journals, and on the web; and by what I chose to explore or happened upon during the course of several long vacations in Cape Breton Island over the span of three summers. All told, my visits there barely add up to a total of a month's stay--and all of that in the summer. I have not watched the sea crystallize over Bay St. Lawrence in the winter; I have not visited the Acadian quarter of Cape Breton--the Isle Madame--nor, sadly, have I had much to say about the real natives of Cape Breton, the Mi'kmaq Nation. I did attempt to participate in a traditional Scottish square dance one night while staying in the town of Mabou. Frankly, I was terrible at it. 

1. Bollan, William. The Importance and Advantage of Cape Breton. (London: Printed for John and Paul Knapton at the Crown in Ludgate-Street, 1746. [Facsimile edition. Toronto: S.R. Publishers Limited, Johnson Reprint Corporation. 1966] ), 74.
2. as qtd. in MacEwan, 180.
3. MacGillivray, Don. "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions." In Mining Photographs and Other Pictures: A Selection from the Negative Archives of Sheddon Studio, Glace Bay, Cape Breton. Edited by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and Robert Wilkie. (Halifax: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1983), 188.
4. Brinley, Gordon. Away to Cape Breton. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1936), 183.
5. MacGillivray, Don. "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions." In Mining Photographs and Other Pictures: A Selection from the Negative Archives of Sheddon Studio, Glace Bay, Cape Breton. Edited by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and Robert Wilkie. (Halifax: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1983), 187.
6. "Changing and Increasing Demand for Coal." Canada, Government of. 1997. Electronic archive. The History of Mining in Cape Breton. [cited April 26, 2004] http://collections.ic.gc.ca/coal/minetext.html
7. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions", 188.
8. McMahon, Fred. "Sweeping Away the Coal Curtain." paragraph 3. Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. February 1999. [cited May 20, 2004]. http://www.aims.ca/Media/1999/prfeb99.html
9. Canada. 8th edition. (Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet Publications Limited, October, 2002), 498.
10. Ibid., 496.
11. Lotz, Jim, and Pat Lotz. Cape Breton Island. (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1974), 62.
12. Canada, 495.
13. Calabrese, Hinson. Narrative during a guided tour of the Cape Breton Miner's Museum. Recorded by author, July 31, 2003.
14. Brown, Richard. A History of the Island of Cape Breton. (London: Sampson, Low, Son, and Mason, 1869. [Facsimile edition. Bellville, Ontario: Mika Publishing Co., 1979] ), 423.; Canada, 486.
15. "Report on Gaelic Development Released." et.al. Gaelic Council of Nova Scotia. [cited May 9, 2004]. http://www.gaelic.net/novascotia/english/news/reports.html
16. Calabrese, Hinson. Narrative during a guided tour of the Cape Breton Miner's Museum.
17. Canada, 496.
18. "Tar Ponds Residents Plan Protests" CBC News, July 11, 2001. [cited May 9, 2004] http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/07/11/tarponds010711
19. --Ibid.;
    --Joint Action Group for Environmental Clean-up of the Muggah Creek
    Watershed. Website. [cited April 26, 2004] http://www.muggah.org/ ;
    --"Tar Ponds Neighbours Begin Tax Revolt." CBC News, Mon July 9, 2001.
    [cited May 9, 2004] http://cbc.ca/cgibin/templates/view.cgi?category=Canada
    &story=/news/2001/07/09/sydney_tax010709 ;
    --"Tracking the Tar Ponds." CBC News, May 6, 2004. [cited May 9, 2004]
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/tar_ponds.html .
20. Calabrese, Hinson. Email to author, May 02, 2004.
21. MacEwan, Paul. Miners and Steelworkers: Labour in Cape Breton. (Toronto: Samuel Stevens Hakkert & Co., 1976), 334.
22. Calabrese, Hinson. Narrative during a guided tour of the Cape Breton Miner's Museum.
23. MacEwan, 5.
24. Sekula, Alan. "Photography Between Labour and Capital." In Mining Photographs and Other Pictures: A Selection from the Negative Archives of Sheddon Studio, Glace Bay, Cape Breton. Edited by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and Robert Wilkie. (Halifax: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1983), 251.
25. Schuyler, David. The New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth Century America. (Johns Hopkins U.P. Baltimore, 1986), 85.
26. MacKaye, Benton. The New Exploration: A Philosophy of Regional Planning." (1928. Facsimile: Chicago: ATC and U of Illinois P., 1978)
27. Muise, Del. "The Making of an Industrial Community: Cape Breton Coal Towns 1867-1900." In Cape Breton Historical Essays. Edited by Don MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson. (Sydney, Cape Breton Island: College of Cape Breton Press, 1980), 81-82.
28. Hornsby, Stephen J. Nineteenth Century Cape Breton: A Historical Geography. (Montreal: McGill-Queens U.P., 1992), 63-78.
29. Lotz, 12, 23.
30. Hornsby, 119.
31. Muise, 81.
32. Hornsby, 169.
33. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions", 175.
34. MacEwan, 8.
35. Muise, 82.
36. Hornsby, 3.
37. Ibid, 25.
38. Harvey, D.C. "Scottish Immigration to Cape Breton." In Cape Breton
    Historical Essays. Edited by Don MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson. (Sydney, Cape Breton Island: College of Cape Breton Press, 1980), 33.
39. Hornsby, 3; Lotz, 54.
40. Ibid, 48; Harvey, 31.
41. Hornsby, 31.
42. Ibid., 32.
43. Muise, 81.
44. Hornsby, 31.
45. Canada: 486.
46. Lotz, 41.
47. Brown, 423.
48. Hornsby, 48.
49. Ibid., 33.
50. Ibid., 30-47.
51. Ibid., 46-47; Harvey, 31-32.
52. Harvey, 31-32.
53. Ibid., 36.
54. as qtd. in Ibid., 36.
55. as qtd. in Ibid., 37.
56. Ibid.
57. Brown, 423.
58. Snyder, Gary. "The Place, the Region, and the Commons." The Practice of the Wild. (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990), 31.
59. Bollan, 93-94.
60. Hornsby, 45.
61. Ibid., 31.
62. Muise, 81.
63. Hornsby, 76.
64. Muise, 81.
65. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions",172.
66. Bollan, 25-27.
67. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions",171-175.
68. Bollan, 27-28.
69. Di Chiro, Giovanna. "Nature as Community: The Convergence of Environmental and Social Justice." In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. Edited by William Cronon. (New York: Norton, 1996), 302.
70. Ibid., 311.
71. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions",172.
72. as qtd. in Tennyson, Brian. "Economic Nationalism and Confederation: A Case Study in Cape Breton." In Cape Breton Historical Essays. Edited by Don MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson. (Sydney, Cape Breton Island: College of Cape Breton Press, 1980), 60.
73. Ibid.
74. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions",171; The reader can also find numerous instances of this mentioned throughout MacEwan.
75. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions",171.
76. Cooper, Douglas. "Canadian Gothic." Page 5. WWW.Traveland Leisure.Com March 2003. [cited May 23, 2004]. http://www.travelandleisure.com/invoke.cfm?page=5&ObjectID=B67F8CAF-361D-482B-9D03C1F29D50E198
77. McMahon.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid.
80. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions",175.
81. Hornsby, 75.
82. Ibid.
83. Cronon, William. Changes In the Land. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2003), 85.
84. as qtd. in MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions",175.
85. MacLean, 72.
86. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions",175
87. Ibid.,176.
88. Ibid., 176-178.
89. Muise, 82.
90. Sekula, 232.
91. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions", 179.
92. One can find ample mention of this throughout MacGillivray and MacEwan, and in many other sources.
93. Lopez, Barry. Of Wolves and Men. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978), 140.
94. Ibid., 145.
95. Ibid., 138.
96. Ibid., 142.
97. With regard to lawns and crabgrass, see Pollan, Michael. "Why Mow?" Second Nature: A Gardener's Education. (New York: Laurel, 1991),
98. McMahon.
99. Lopez, 143.
100. Di Chiro, 146.
101. Muise, 76.
102. Bollan, 74.
103. Ibid.
104. Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930's. (New York: Oxford U.P., 1979).
105. Lotz, 103.
106. MacEwan, 3-8.
107. Ibid., 6.
108. Ibid., 60-61.
109. MacGillivray, Don. "Military Aid to Civil Power: The Cape Breton Experience in the 1920's" In Cape Breton Historical Essays. Edited by Don MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson. (Sydney, Cape Breton Island: College of Cape Breton Press, 1980), 95.
110. Canada, Government of. 1997. Electronic archive. The History of Mining in Cape Breton. Page titled, "United Mine Workers of America-Page 2"
     [cited April 26, 2004] http://collections.ic.gc.ca/coal/minetext.html
111. Ibid.
112. MacEwan, 139.
113. Ibid., 67.
114. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions", 172.
115. MacEwan, 67.
116. Frank, David. "The Cape Breton Coal Industry and the Rise and Fall of the British Empire Steel Corporation." In Cape Breton Historical Essays. Edited by Don MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson. (Sydney, Cape Breton Island: College of Cape Breton Press, 1980), 128.
117. as qtd. in Lotz, 131.
118. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions", 187.
119. Georgescu, Denisa and Per Nilson. "A Canadian Study of Indicators Relating to Sustainable Tourism and Ecotourism: The Case Study of Northern Cape Breton." Power Point Presentation, HTML version. For the Cansee Conference, October 16-19, 2003, Jasper, Alberta. Parks Canada and the Canadian Tourism Commission. [cited from the web May 24, 2004]. http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:vBOWvOpNgokJ:www.cansee.org/documents/CANSEE%25202003/Georgescu,%2520Denisa.ppt+%22
     cape+Breton%22+%2B+%22sustainable+development%22&hl=en
120. Brinley, Gordon. Away to Cape Breton. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1936).
121. Lotz, 31.
122. as shown in Sekula, 260.
123. Brinley, 183.
124. Canada, 496.
125. as qtd. in MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions", 171.
126. Sears, John F. "Tourism and the Industrial Age: Niagara Falls and Mauch Chunk." Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century. (Amherst, Massachusetts: U. of Massachusetts P., 1989), 204.
127. Ibid., 206.
128. Sekula, 261.
129. Georgescu and Nilson.
130. White, Richard. "'Are You an Environmentalist, or Do You Work for a Living?': Work and Nature" In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. Edited by William Cronon. (New York: Norton, 1996), 185.
131. Ibid.
132. Di Chiro, 299.
133. Georgescu and Nilson.
134. MacGillivray, "Glace Bay: Images and Impressions", 188.
135. as qtd. in Di Chiro, 317.
136. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. (New York: Oxford U.P., 1948), 217-218.
137. Ibid., 224-225.
138. White, 185.
139. Snyder, Gary. "The Place, the Region, and the Commons." The Practice of the Wild. (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990).
140. Ibid., 36.

Bibliography

Bollan, William. The Importance and Advantage of Cape Breton. London: Printed for John and Paul Knapton at the Crown in Ludgate-Street, 1746. (Facsimile edition. Toronto: S.R. Publishers Limited, Johnson Reprint Corporation. 1966).

Brinley, Gordon. Away to Cape Breton. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1936.

Brown, Richard. A History of the Island of Cape Breton. London: Sampson, Low, Son, and Mason, 1869. (Facsimile edition. Bellville, Ontario: Mika Publishing Co., 1979).

Calabrese, Hinson. Email to author, May 02, 2004.
----Narrative during a guided tour of the Cape Breton Miner's Museum. Recorded by author, July 31, 2003.

Canada. 8th edition. Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet Publications Limited, October, 2002.

Canada, Government of. 1997. Electronic archive. The History of Mining in Cape Breton. [cited April 26, 2004] http://collections.ic.gc.ca/coal/minetext.html

Cape Breton Miner's Museum. Website. [cited April 26, 2004] http://www.minersmuseum.com/

"Cleaning Up Sydney." Sydney Tar Ponds Agency. April 6, 2004. [cited April 26, 2004]. http://www.gov.ns.ca/stpa/

Cooper, Douglas. "Canadian Gothic." Page 5. WWW.TravelandLeisure.Com
March 2003. [cited May 23, 2004]. http://www.travelandleisure.com/invoke.cfm?page=5&ObjectID=B67F8CAF-361D-482B-9D03C1F29D50E198

Cronon, William. Changes In the Land. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003.

Di Chiro, Giovanna. "Nature as Community: The Convergence of Environmental and Social Justice." In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. Edited by William Cronon. New York: Norton, 1996.

Frank, David. "The Cape Breton Coal Industry and the Rise and Fall of the British Empire Steel Corporation." In Cape Breton Historical Essays. Edited by Don MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson. Sydney, Cape Breton Island: College of Cape Breton Press, 1980.

Georgescu, Denisa and Per Nilson. "A Canadian Study of Indicators Relating to Sustainable Tourism and Ecotourism: The Case Study of Northern Cape Breton." Power Point Presentation, HTML version. For the Cansee Conference, October 16-19, 2003, Jasper, Alberta. Parks Canada and the Canadian Tourism Commission. [cited from the web May 24, 2004]. http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:vBOWvOpNgokJ:www.cansee.org/documents/CANSEE%25202003/Georgescu,%2520Denisa.ppt+%22
cape+Breton%22+%2B+%22sustainable+development%22&hl=en

Harvey, D.C. "Scottish Immigration to Cape Breton." In Cape Breton Historical Essays. Edited by Don MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson. Sydney, Cape Breton Island: College of Cape Breton Press, 1980.

Hornsby, Stephen J. Nineteenth Century Cape Breton: A Historical Geography. Montreal: McGill-Queens U.P., 1992.

Joint Action Group for Environmental Clean-up of the Muggah Creek Watershed. Website. [cited April 26, 2004] http://www.muggah.org/

Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford U.P., 1948.

Lopez, Barry. Of Wolves and Men. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.

Lotz, Jim, and Pat Lotz. Cape Breton Island. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1974.

MacEwan, Paul. Miners and Steelworkers: Labour in Cape Breton. Toronto: Samuel Stevens Hakkert & Co., 1976.

MacGillivray, Don. "Military Aid to Civil Power: The Cape Breton Experience in the 1920's" In Cape Breton Historical Essays. Edited by Don MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson. Sydney, Cape Breton Island: College of Cape Breton Press, 1980.

----"Glace Bay: Images and Impressions." In Mining Photographs and Other Pictures: A Selection from the Negative Archives of Sheddon Studio, Glace Bay, Cape Breton. Edited by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and Robert Wilkie. Halifax: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1983.

MacKaye, Benton. The New Exploration: A Philosophy of Regional Planning." 1928. Facsimile: Chicago: ATC and U of Illinois P., 1978.

MacLean, M.C. "Cape Breton Half a Century Ago" In Cape Breton Historical Essays. Edited by Don MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson. Sydney, Cape Breton Island: College of Cape Breton Press, 1980.

McMahon, Fred. "Sweeping Away the Coal Curtain." Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. February 1999. [cited May 20, 2004]. http://www.aims.ca/Media/1999/prfeb99.html

Muise, Del. "The Making of an Industrial Community: Cape Breton Coal Towns 1867-1900." In Cape Breton Historical Essays. Edited by Don MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson. Sydney, Cape Breton Island: College of Cape Breton Press, 1980.

Pollan, Michael. "Why Mow?" Second Nature: A Gardener's Education. New York: Laurel, 1991.

"Report on Gaelic Development Released." et.al. Gaelic Council of Nova Scotia. [cited May 9, 2004]. http://www.gaelic.net/novascotia/english/news/reports.html

Sears, John F. "Tourism and the Industrial Age: Niagara Falls and Mauch Chunk." Sacred Places: American Tourist Attractions in the Nineteenth Century. Amherst, Massachusetts: U. of Massachusetts P., 1989.

Sekula, Alan. "Photography Between Labour and Capital." In Mining Photographs and Other Pictures: A Selection from the Negative Archives of Sheddon Studio, Glace Bay, Cape Breton. Edited by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and Robert Wilkie. Halifax: The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1983.

Schuyler, David. The New Urban Landscape: The Redefinition of City Form in Nineteenth Century America. Johns Hopkins U.P. Baltimore, 1986.

Snyder, Gary. "The Place, the Region, and the Commons." The Practice of the Wild. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990.

"Tar Ponds Neighbours Begin Tax Revolt." CBC News, Mon July 9, 2001. [cited May 9, 2004]
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?category=Canada&story=/news/2001/07/09/sydney_tax010709

"Tar Ponds Residents Plan Protest.s" CBC News, July 11, 2001. [cited May 9, 2004]
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/07/11/tarponds010711

Tennyson, Brian. "Economic Nationalism and Confederation: A Case Study in Cape Breton." In Cape Breton Historical Essays. Edited by Don MacGillivray and Brian Tennyson. Sydney, Cape Breton Island: College of Cape Breton Press, 1980.

"Tracking the Tar Ponds." CBC News, May 6, 2004. [cited May 9, 2004] http://www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/tar_ponds.html

White, Richard. "'Are You an Environmentalist, or Do You Work for a Living?': Work and Nature" In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. Edited by William Cronon. New York: Norton, 1996.

Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930's. New York: Oxford U.P., 1979.

© 2004 by Paul William Gagnon