Odds ‘n’ Sods — Downhill miners

My mind often returns to Red Mountain in Rossland, B.C., site of the pro- vince’s mining school, perched at the top of the northern face of Red Mountain.

There we were, training young miners-to-be in the art of drilling, blasting and loading, when, all the while, adjacent to us, the slopes were loaded with skiers.

The “lift” terminal was in the midst of our operations, so that the exuberant revelers were discharged by the hundreds at the border of our training ground. Old and young emerged daily and trafficked the challenging runs on Red Mountain. The snow would fall, it seemed, endlessly, disrupting our access but enticing more and more dauntless skiers.

We could not help but be bewitched and stimulated by the mountainous, tree-lined, snowy scarp. The setting was most sublime on a wintry eve, with the lights gleaming on the slopes and the the chalet glowing at the base of the mountains. Towering above our site was Granite Mountain, with its extensive ski runs and breathtaking descents. Small wonder that our faculty and students persisted in their efforts, elated by the bright panorama of snowy slopes and hills whose heads touch heaven.

When summer arrived, the blanket of snow melted away to reveal a multitude of brightly coloured mountain flowers and lush, grassy meadows. The warm southerly winds coursed across the now-vacated ski hills, and we, for our part, were now free to tackle our training objectives clearly and with little distraction. Yet it was not long before the service people would start preparing the lifts in anticipation of the first snowfall of the season, and we knew that we would soon be enmeshed, once again, in the world of the skier.

It followed that we became less and less preoccupied with our training tasks, and more and more bemused by the skiers, who, young and old, returned to infuse the slopes with their gaiety and vitality.

Red Mountain in Rossland was a stimulating and spectacular training ground for young miners.

— S.J. Hunter, a retired mining engineer and regular contributor, resides in Vancouver, B.C.