Miners Park Flume - Sparwood, BC
Posted by: Bon Echo
N 49° 43.944 W 114° 53.215
11U E 652271 N 5511022
Man-made waterfall in Miners Park
Waymark Code: WMZ74N
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 09/21/2018
Views: 0
Coal mining has always been a way of life in Sparwood BC. In the earlier days, the coal was mined underground, before it became feasible to move the mountains at which time strip mining became the way to mine coal in this area.
For a time water was used to both cut the coal seams and to move it out of the mine shafts. Located a Miners Park in Sparwood is an installation which pays tribute to that method coal removal. A retired Hydraulic Monitor is on display (
visit link) , lazily spraying water into a mock mine-shaft. Not far from there, water tumbles down an 8-foot high waterfall, presumably representing the flume. Nearby is a sign that reads:
Cutting coal, ... with water!
Water, under pressure, can move a mountain! The hydraulic monitor did exactly that, removing the coal that was carried - in a water-transport slurry - out of the mine in a flume.
"You had to be very careful where she was aimed! She'd cut through mine timbers faster that a chain saw - like a hot knife through butter! Mining with water was faster and easier that with the continuous miner, but it was cold and damp! All that water in the mine, ... makes me shiver just thinkin' about it"
"Did I say dangerous? You could never be too careful! I watched a guy fall into the flume. He was simply swept away ... last time I saw him alive!"