Mining Community - Kimberly (1984)

[music] This is [music and singing] my home. This is where I [singing] live and grow. This is the land I [music] know. This is my [singing] own. [music] From mountain peak to salty sea. Rivers running free. [music] Come with me. Come with me. This is my home. Come with me. Come with me. This is my home. This is my home. [music] This is where I live and grow. This is the land [singing] I know. This is my own. [music] From mountain peak to salty sea, rivers running [music] free. Come with me. Come with me. This is [music] my home. Come with me. Come with me. This is my home. [music] BC. My name is Jason and I'm from Kimberly. >> I play pee-wee hockey and my dad coaches our team. >> Kimberly has lots of hockey teams. >> Most of them are in a league right here in our city. But I'm on a team that plays against Trail, Cranmer, Fernie, Sparwood, Castlegar, and other teams in the Coupney region. [music] >> Kimberly is in the Rocky Mountains close to the BC Alberta border. It's [music] the highest city in Canada and usually we get lots of snow in the winter. That [music] means our ski hill is a very popular place. [music] >> My brother Mikey and I like all kinds of winter sports. The Mac store is in our neighborhood and our mom manages the store. Mom puts up displays for advertising and she has to order all the groceries for the store. >> Hi guys, >> good >> Mike. You get the milk and I'll get the macaroni. Okay. Okay. >> The dairy products are trucked in from Vancouver and most of the other groceries come from Calgary, Alberta. Mom stocks the shelves, but she sometimes waits on customers, too. >> Cheese today. >> Doing anything after school tonight, Jay? >> Yep. Hockey. >> Me, too. >> Mom always treats us like real customers whenever dad sends us to pick up things for lunch. My dad is a minor. >> Thank you. >> Okay, >> there you go. Mike, good >> afternoon shift, gentlemen. >> When are you going to work? >> I got to leave at quarter after two. So, how many goals did you get last night, Mike? >> Two >> and you guys won. >> It was four. >> When dad's on afternoon shift, he makes lunch for Mikey and me. My dad and my grandpa are both miners. They always put lamps on their hard hats before they go underground. >> A lot of men who live in Kimberly are miners. They work for a company called Kamco. >> Kamco started to mine here in 1909. The mine is called the Sullivan mine. The Sullivan mine is one of the largest lead zinc mines in the world. The entrance to the mine is called a portal and a big truck called a man carrier takes the miners underground. My dad operates a drill. He drills holes in the rock and puts explosives into the holes for blasting. My grandpa is a slusherman. Slusher moves the rock away after the blasting. Broken rock is called muck. In another part of the mine, giant machines are used to do the mining. A machine called the scoop picks up the muck. Not all the muck is valuable. But the waste rock has to be taken out along with the ore. The ore is the rock that has lead and zinc in it. Miners have special names for everything. They call their underground lunchroom the dog house. >> Miners even have nicknames for each other. They call my dad Rube and my grandfather Coug. The lunchroom is really a refuge station. That's a safe place where the miners can go in case of an emergency. An electric train carries the ore out of the Sullivan mine. The ore is taken 6 kilometers away to the Sullivan concentrator. At the concentrator, they float the ore to separate it into all kinds of minerals. Lead, zinc, iron, and tin are just some of the minerals that come out of the ore. Trains take the lead and zinc to a smelter and trail. Minerals from our mine in Kimberly are sold all over the world. So mining is very important to the people who live here and work here. Every winter we have a winter fest. It's lots of fun because it's like a party and we invite the whole city of Kimberly and other towns too. Heat. Heat. [screaming] Thank you. Lots of people come to our Platzel. The Platel is like an outdoor mall. Downtown [music] Kimberly used to have a main street that looked like a plain mining town, but the shopkeepers decorated their shops so that more tourists would visit our city. Kimberly is still a mining town, but probably someday that will change. >> I wanted to learn more about how Kimberly is changing. So, I talked to my grandfather at the old portal. >> Well, this is the portal they used quite a number of years ago, Jason. >> Yeah. >> And I worked in here for 35 years. >> Yeah, that's a long time. We visited the abandoned crusher plant and I saw where they used to enter the mine. >> This is an or sample, Jason. This is the lead. This is the zinc. >> Both ora samples had sparkly lead on the outside. No one knows for sure how much lead and zinc are left in the mine, but Kaminko says they may have to close the Sullivan mine in about 25 years. [music] Grandpa says that without mining, this could easily become a ghost town. But our city has a good chance of surviving if we can get more and more tourists to visit [music] Kimberly. >> This trestle is a part of the new mini railway that's being built for the tourists. We talked to some men who are doing the work. >> What's going on here, Bo? Uh we're uh building a little tourist railway for uh the summertime. It was originally all underground mining equipment, underground train. >> Oh, I see. And uh where did you get all the equipment from? >> No, these were originally old coaches for underground and we're just stripping them down and rebuilding them for uh passengers use. >> The tourists who come next summer will be able to see some of our scenery while riding in old mining cars. More people are coming every summer, but winter will probably always be the best time for tourists because Northstar is one of the most popular ski areas in the Coupney. [music] >> [music] >> I like Kimberly because I think mining is exciting and it makes me sad to think that someday the people who live here won't be miners anymore. But I hope there'll be other jobs for the people who want to stay because I think Kimberly is a great place to live. [music] [music] >> [music] [music]