Welcome to our blog – Digging Deeper – digging into Cumberland history.
Keep an eye out for monthly articles written by locals about our community history.
About the blogger, Dawn: I don’t have coal dust in my blood but I spent my childhood in a mining town just outside of Sudbury, Ontario, the site of the first-ever Miner’s memorial held in Canada in 1985 My great grandfather, my grandfather and my dad all worked at various times at the nickel mines in the Sudbury Basin. First for Mond Nickel, then later for Inco (now Vale). When I moved to Cumberland with my family in 1992 it was like coming home: same rolling hills (just a bit taller), with warmer winters and fewer mosquitoes.
The Heart Of A Community
Cumberland has always been the path between – part of a cross-island trading route first developed by ancestors of the K’omoks First Nation. Once coal
Oh those beans
Oh those beans Oh those beans bacon and gravy They almost drive me crazy I eat them till I see them in my dreams When
Where the coal lay dinted
I’ve only ever heard the word dinted used in the Christmas carol “Good King Wenseslas” In his masters step he trod Where the snow lay
Close To My Heart – Part Two
Sometime this month, ornamental cherry trees will bloom at Coal Creek Historic Park. Planted in 2009, the trees commemorate thirty-one Japanese Canadian families removed from
Close to My Heart – Part One
Historically, Cumberland was home to several different populations of primarily working-class people. The first settlers had rudimentary accommodations, but once the mill was operational, company
Coal Goes Better with Coke
The mine workings in Cumberland (originally Union) are first developed in the 1860s and 1870s by the Union Colliery Company, but the original group of
A Token of Gratitude
Dr. Robert Lawrence, an allopathic* physician and farmer was hired by Union Collieries as the first senior Colliery physician at Union (now Cumberland) in 1892.
The Circus Comes to Town
By Guest Contributor Kim Bannerman Here we are, December 2020. What a year it’s been! Elections, pandemics, wildfires, lockdowns — it’s been an absolute circus.
We Shall Not Rest
The cenotaph in front of Branch No.23 of the Royal Canadian Legion in Cumberland bears brass plaques to commemorate the war dead from wars over
With Fatal Results
What is it about ghost stories that are so appealing? Autumn is the time of year to believe that spirits move among us. It is
Strangers In A Strange Land
Imagine two journeys in the early 1900s: The first starts in a mining town in England where recruiters from Canadian Collieries (Dunsmuir) Ltd are trying
Up the Lake
In 1880 Comox Lake is a beautiful wilderness lake teeming with fish: rainbow and cutthroat trout, char, dolly varden (aka mud sharks), kokanee. coast range