"Looking at it now it is hard to believe there was a mine there."

For a man who did not think he had much to say, Dave Setso definitely had a lot of stories to tell about mining iron ore in Zeballos. Although he made it sound as though life was easier then, and fun was waiting around every corner, he also conveyed to us how hard things could be if you were not careful and that you really needed to pay attention to what you were doing.

We interviewed Dave together with Dave Baker, his partner in crime, and we all had fun - we could not stop laughing.

Dave lived in Zeballos from 1957 to 1958 and then again from 1960 to approximately 1968. He moved his family to Port Moody when the Zeballos Iron mine changed hands but returned on his own to work for Falconbridge Nickel until the mine closed for the last time in 1968.

Dave’s Story

“I moved to Zeballos for the first time in 1957. My stepfather worked at the Tahsis sawmill, but there was no housing available in Tahsis for the family at the time. When I was fourteen years of age, my mother, brothers, stepfather, and I lived in Zeballos and my stepfather commuted to work by boat. The following year, housing became available for us in Tahsis so we moved there, where I went to school until grade twelve.