They had big metal-sheet shields that they put on their backs when they worked in the hold in the boat because the coal would be coming down on top of them. They would have to spread the coal around to make the load balance. The Chinese boss had a family but most men were single. They lived differently then we did. I do not know if they would have been very happy living outside Chinatown, or whether they would have been welcomed living next door, yet some used to visit and we knew them all by name. Not many, but a few, used to go to the pub, and a couple were favourites with the locals. They were really a part of what went on at Union Bay. We used to go knock on their doors on Chinese New Year and they would always be glad to see us.

“Cumberland was first named Union because of the Union Coal Company, which was what the Dunsmuir Company was first called. They sold coal to the Union Pacific Railroad in San Francisco. The name Union Bay has nothing to do with labour unions, although some people think it does. Union Bay was first Union Wharf, but when the post office opened in 1888, the name was changed. There was nothing here until then. I was born and raised in Union Bay. One set of my grandparents came here in 1904 and the other set came in 1916. My dad was Harry Glover. Originally, my grandfather, Herbert Glover, came up to work for Dunsmuir as a shipping agent. He worked for him in Wellington and then moved here and worked for Dunsmuir until Canadian Collieries own men came, who took over his job. He was also the immigration officer for the Island. My dad remembered that often sailors would jump ship, because of this, those leaving the ship legally would post a bond with the immigration officer, which insured that they would return to the ship. When I was growing up, there were half a dozen older fellows who had come here by jumping ship; they stayed and became part of the community.

“The coal wharf came out by the breakwater, which is quite recent; it went right out, almost to the school. I think they dismantled it in the late 1960’s. The boats tied up and were loaded on both sides of it.

“The names Dunsmuir and Canadian Collieries Company, Dunsmuir Limited, did not have the feeling here that it did in Cumberland. The postmaster’s wife and family grew up with the Dunsmuir family. They visited here and stayed at the bottom of Russell Road in a big red house. Sometimes James Dunsmuir would come and stay. There were union problems here, as well, but not in the same way as for the working miner. Miners down the mines had a pretty raw deal a lot of times. There were explosions, bad working conditions, and so on.

“Union Bay was not only a shipping port, there was also a huge machine shop where all the locomotives where maintained. There was also a big car shop, where all the coal cars were built, and a boilermaker, blacksmith shop, the foundry and a store. It was a big area with a lot of shops; that is where all the people in Union Bay were employed, and of course at the washer and coke ovens. My dad, Harry Glover, was the foreman of the machine shop, and Wilf Glover, his cousin, and his dad worked there too. They built the coal cars there; the wheels and axles were made in the machine shop then railed to the next shop where the boxes were built, then they were brought outside and painted red.

“The last ship was the Pamir, in 1946, it left loaded with coal and lumber. We always knew the ships that were coming in. The coal boats came from everywhere around the world.

“Through the war a group of six or seven ships from Greece were sent with scrap to Japan. They got as far Union Bay and were coaling up to go across the Pacific. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, so of course the sailors were afraid to go, and Greece was such a mess that they were here for a couple of months. They were a part of the town. We used to pass the sailors all the time on the street and in those days kids just went where they wanted, and little girls never had any incidents.

“There was an apprenticeship program in the shops and a lot of boys went from grade eight into blacksmithing, boiler making, or carpentry. Wilf was the draftsman; if they wanted to fix something or build something new he would draw it up, and then the carpentry shop would build the form and send it to the foundry. I have a gear made of wood that they would have used as a form. They would set the form in sand to make a mould. If they needed it - they built it. All kinds of tools and machine parts were forged in the blacksmith shop and the foundry. All of the shops were in the same little area and between each shop was a set of rails, so the cars being built could be moved from one shop to the next. There was a big powered belt that went all the way around the machine shop and, if you pulled it, it would start a saw or a drill or all the machines around the shop. It also went over to the car shop and did the same.

“They had toilets, outhouses three in a row apparently, and a little ditch underneath which took it out to Baynes Sound. If the old guys where in there too long some of the fellows would get an oily rag and light it and put it down the ditch. We do what we call History and Humour and I usually show my slides and then have little reenactments. We have three men sitting there and somebody lights a rag on a fishing line to pull it along!

They would put the coke in cooling sheds on either side of the ovens. The ovens were still hot inside so then the little train would come down, fill the charging hole again, and once it got going they put the lid back on.

The Japanese and a few Chinese worked the coke ovens. They brought the bricks and the bricklayers from Scotland to build the ovens. Ovens stayed at about 600 degrees Fahrenheit and were never allowed to cool. As soon as the coal was spread out on the twelve-foot oven floor they would brick up the opening using mortar with no cement. They would brick it up so it was solid, and when they were ready to pull it, they just knocked the bricks out. They were dome shaped and the bricks were narrow at one end and wide at the other. There were fifty coke ovens back to back in a row, and the same on the second row, 681 feet long with one hundred foot high smoke stacks. When it burnt, before they put charging holes on the ovens, there were huge flames; it was just beautiful at night.

“They sold the coke down the coast around Seattle and up to a copper smelter place by Ocean Falls. The reason they wanted it was because it burnt at such a high heat, but the smelters eventually built their own, which was the demise of our ovens here.

They took out the coke ovens in the sixties, about the same time as the wharf. The coke ovens were built in 1896 and only ran until the end of the twenties.

“The 1912-1914 strike in Cumberland affected Union Bay because the men were on strike. The Collieries owned property all the way to the store; they donated land for the church, the school, and the post office. The manager’s place was beautiful with tennis courts and gardens; there used to be garden parties there. During the strike, they kicked the workers out of the private houses built on company land, some just lived on the beach, and one family took the house board by board and rebuilt on McLeod Road. The homes were like the Cumberland houses and there were three rows of them. From the community hall to the gas station was a row of houses with another two rows behind them. They were quite nice and well kept. Every so often, they would repaper and paint. There were two different size houses; at a cost of about $12.50 per month for the big ones. Beyond the Collieries land, people built their own homes on McLeod Road and a few farms further on. My grandfather built on McLeod Road.

“In about 1926 prefab houses were brought in, we called them Aladdin houses. They were actually bought through a catalogue, but BC #26 was not nearly as interesting as calling them Aladdin houses. The store, which is on one side of McLeod Road owned this property up to Canadian Collieries land, and one of the store owners lived there. On the other side, going to the train station was the Nelson Hotel that was built in 1895, and it gradually grew bigger. The Wilson Hotel was built in 1898 on property next to where the fire hall is today; wonderful dances were held there and the first motion picture. The same people owned the store and the hotel and it was right on the tourist line because it was on the beach. The original store was on the beach, and it included the post office. The new post office was built in 1913. The Union Bay Historical Society has restored the post office and rents space to Canada Post.

“The reason they chose this bay for the port was because of the deep bottom. The original group of men, who owned the mine before Dunsmuir bought them out, and were going to use Royston but because it was flat, they considered going around to Comox, but people would not sell them the land.

Kensington is proposing to level and cap it with three meters of soil and dirt to seal it and keep it from leaching into Baynes Sound. The creek used to eat away at the coal hills so that is why they diverted it; it was a big controversy.

“What would you do with all that slag? It was huge! You cannot dump it into the ocean, and you cannot put in the bush, you cannot do anything with it. There are many coal hills all over England and Pennsylvania and they have dealt with them there. They would have to have proper footings and so on if they wanted to build on it.

“The postmaster, Fred Brown, originally came with Dunsmuir and then went back to Victoria. He came back as postmaster and telegrapher when they built the new post office. He was postmaster for thirty-five years then his daughter took over and was postmistress until the 1960’s, so there is a long family connection, and they are just wonderful for supporting and donating to the Historical Society. Now, the post office belongs to the Historical Society and Canada Post rents from us. The church was built in 1906 and the Goalhouse in 1901, but it was not here originally; they moved it here for twenty-five dollars with the help of volunteers. It sat here for a long time, and then we decided we better do something with it.”