BOOK REVIEW — Book examines murders at Giant gold mine

.BREVIEWED BY VIVIAN DANIELSON

Dying for Gold: The True Story of the Giant Mine Murders

By Lee Selleck and Francis Thompson

$28 — Available from Harper Collins Publishers

Dying for Gold generates more questions than answers as it examines events surrounding the Sept. 18, 1992, underground explosion that killed nine miners at the Giant gold operation in Yellowknife, N.W.T.

Authors Selleck and Thompson attempt to build a case that Roger Warren, a veteran miner from Giant, might not be guilty of committing the murders for which he is now serving a life sentence. Not much is put forward to support the theory, or to give weight to the possibility that others might be involved, in particular a striking miner of dubious character suspected of being an agent provocateur.

Surprisingly, many pro-union sympathizers shared this not-so-subtle inference that Warren is innocent and that Royal Oak was somehow behind the explosion.

The authors relate an incident in which (according to the notes of a forensic psychologist) Warren had told his lawyer, “I did do it,” though he later recanted this and other confessions. The account goes on to relate how Leo McGrady, the union lawyer, had visited Warren in jail before the trial, wanting to know if Royal Oak had paid him to set the explosion. Warren’s reply: “I told him no way. I did it on my own, no one paid me to do nothing.” Dying for Gold is a worthwhile read, for it provides a candid portrayal of the mindset of striking workers and the militancy of certain union officials.

It also provides a dispassionate account of Warren’s confession, showing him to be a depressed man heavily burdened with guilt, even if, as some evidence suggests, his intent was to cause damage and interrupt production, rather than kill or maim mine workers.

The book’s pro-union bias is, at times, blatant, and there is scant attention paid to the mine’s history of labor problems and its declining profitability, or to the reasons why some union members “crossed the line.” The authors are critical of the role of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which plays well in some quarters of Yellowknife, but falls flat in the rest of the country in light of the numerous acts of violence committed by striking workers and the eventual deaths of the nine miners.

And the author’s notion that the miners died “for gold” is as skewed as the statement, attributed to Royal Oak, that they died “to keep the Giant mine open.” The nine miners died because they were murdered by another miner who put ideology above human life.

To their credit, the authors hit the nail on the head when they state that, essentially, the Giant dispute was about power, rather than about wages or safety issues. Unfortunately, the reader is not left free to decide which (if any) party bears the burden of responsibility for the abuses of power and escalation of violence that led to the deaths of Vern Fullowka (36), Norman Hourie (53), Christopher Neill (29), Josef Pandev (55), Shane Riggs (27), Robert Rowsell (37), Arnold Russell (41), Malcolm Sawler (38) and David Vodnoski (25).