Now, armed with all the photographs I took, plus sound recordings of conversations and the
shriek of machinery at 1000 feet (
Wabowden) and 4550 feet below the earth (T-1) I am trying to sort out everything. I have corrected some mistakes in the manuscript for "Escape the Mine" and I am working on some changes to three other manuscripts which are in various stages of writing. (Not all of them are about mining) As a long term project I was hoping to hear some more creepy mine stories, mine lore and pranks played by those who work underground as part of my research but I wasn't as successful as I would like to be. When I was first working there (37 years ago!) I got to know a lot of guys who could spin tales - most of them in the b.s. category - of mining and miners. Now the typical miner is more educated, more serious and less likely to play pranks on their fellow workers...
This first ladderway is an escape manway which goes from surface to the very bottom of the mine. It is one of the ways out of the mine in an emergency. In my novel, a young fellow will sneak underground by descending these ladders.
Below is a scoop-tram loading ore into a mine truck
A rock face ready for a blast
The escape manway at 4000 feet. It is much wetter and slimier, but also much warmer.
This is a small platform above a mine drift, where the young heroes will hide from the murderers in the "Escape the Mine" story. 
Don and Joyce Belton. Don is wearing the gold helmet he was given at retirement. Don was a great source of information.
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