Морден Кольери тарихи провинциялық паркі

Historic provincial park in Nanaimo Regional District, British Columbia

Morden Colliery Historic Provincial Park is a historic provincial park near the east coast of southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The location off BC Highway 19 is about by road northwest of Victoria, and south of Nanaimo.

In 1909, the Pacific Coast Coal Mining Co. (PCCM) opened a standard gauge railway line from Fiddick's Junction on the E&N Railway line to Boat Harbour for loading coal into the holds of vessels. The next year, the line extended westward to the Fiddick Colliery. In early 1915, 19 men drowned in the Fiddick mine disaster. Late the next year, all production ceased, and all workers transferred southeast to the PCCM Morden Colliery.

On the existing PCCM Fiddick railway line, and 40 ore cars and 2 locomotives at the mine were sold for scrap. In 1980, Westland Resources spent $500,000 on exploratory drilling for coal on Morden property, no doubt outside the park boundaries.

Although the mine was abandoned, the adjacent settlement remained stable. Logging was prevalent throughout the 1940s and 1950s. The area, which is largely small holdings, soon became a bedroom community for Nanaimo.

In 1972, recognized as a National Historic Site, and designated a provincial historic park, the day use park remained undeveloped in subsequent years. In 2003, the Friends of Morden Mine (FOMM) organized to save the seven storey high headframe/tipple. After the structure continued to deteriorate behind a chain link fence, the society was on the verge of giving up in 2015. In 2019, securing a $1.4 million BC government grant, FOMM coordinated the restoration. Temporarily stabilizing the structure with 16 shipping containers, a technique adopted after the Christchurch earthquake, repairs were carried out. Apart from the Muddy, Illinois example, this structure is unique in North America.

In 1995, the Regional District of Nanaimo began developing a trail eastward through the park along the former PCCM railway right of way to the Nanaimo River. Since that time, interpretative plaques have been added. In 2017, a cairn was erected to memorialize the three men who died at Morden, and the estimated 1,000 miners who died in Vancouver Island coal mines.