Book digs deep into the roots of coal mining in province

NEW GLASGOW - On May 9, 1992, John DeMont, a Halifax-based journalist working for MacLean's magazine, got a call from a Toronto editor. There was a major story breaking in a place called Plymouth - an explosion in a coal mine there had trapped 26 underground.
Our readers remember the day all too well, an early morning explosion of methane and coal dust, the rescue efforts - and resulting years of inquiry and investigation into the Westray mining disaster, the worst in this province since the Springhill bump.
Covering the story, in the midst of the tragedy, DeMont found himself disconnected from those affected by the events that day, which didn't entirely make sense to him. After all, like thousands in this province, his family history was woven in Nova Scotia's coal industry.
This is where his book, Coal Black Heart, begins.
"I have these deep roots in coal mining, and somehow it was bizarrely forgotten. So over time, I found myself just being drawn back to the coal story," he said in a phone interview this week.
His coal story stretches as far back as the forming of the cliffs in Joggins, and moves into coal's contemporary history.
He writes of Victorian-era geologists and surveyors who could spot the black threads of it on the ground, to the companies who industrialized this province - the boom and bust of coal economics - and finally the collapse of the industry throughout the 20th century.
It's told in a first person narrative, which DeMont says he used to emphasis his family's storyline. And, on some level, it also helped the book keep focus. That was important, he said, because when he went digging for information about the history of coal, his biggest challenge was reining all of it in.
But in the end, DeMont makes the importance of coal to the history of Nova Scotians, and to Canadians, abundantly clear.
"I think it speaks to people who take the larger view on things, because I think coal in Nova Scotia, it built a big chunk of this country during the industrialization," he said.
But, it's also a story of scandalous abuse of power and politics.
"Everything about coal and about industry in Nova Scotia - it's always struggled economically, so everything about it is going to be political in some respect," he said. Westray, in many ways, was the last of coal's industrial legacy in Canada, and the book comes full circle there.
"I guess, the thing is - in Nova Scotia, people know the stories. It's interesting because it's all our stories. Here's this forgotten, but yet very important part of Canadian history, which people may not know about or their parents may have known about years ago, but have since forgotten now," DeMont said.
"You can view the whole story of coal as some sort of tragedy or sort of life affirming, because of the tenacity people have had."
"The heartaches and the great battles and how nobody ever gave up and they always sort of managed to overstep and rise above it all. And I find that a great life-affirming story.
Coal Black Heart was published by Doubleday Canada and was released on April 14.