John Bowles spoke to the Mosaic of Mining Memories team via telephone:

“In Zeballos there was a whole mountain of iron ore.”

Mr. John Bowles Sr. moved from Alberta to B.C. in 1936. John and Grace Bowles wed in Nelson, B.C. in 1939. After hearing about work, John went to Zeballos in 1939.

John joined with three other miners to contract gold mining at the Privateer Gold Mine. John worked the Privateer as a driller & blaster working eight-hour shifts for pay of $5.65/day, a very good income in those times.

“John worked with drifts and raises. A drift is a horizontal tunnel and a raise is a tunnel from one drift to the next. There was a main drift going horizontal on ground level, this is the level ore cars pick up, and return to the mill. Boards had to cover the drifts and the holes on the top of the raises before the blasting was done.

Going into the raises was dangerous work and the boards needed to be removed as you went. The danger was the loose bits of unstable rock after the blast. At that time tones of debris could drop down. All ore, being quartz, iron and gold, was dropped through a riser into the rail ore cars. In Zeballos there was a whole mountain of iron ore.”