RECORDED: Cumberland (B.C.), 1979-08-14 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Arriving in Canada; timberman's helper; wages; Cumberland explosions; Orientals; boarding houses; entertainment; Blacks; ethnic; union; medical; pubs; company train; company houses.

RECORDED: Nanaimo (B.C.), 1979-05-24 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. First impressions; Granby; air shafts; strike; WWI; South Wellington flood; Reserve; Senini; Extension mine; Chinese; 1883 explosion No 1; mine smells; mules; into mine; lamps sulphur; Fiddicks; Morden; fun; the Depression; Cumberland; beer; bosses; Lewis dies.

RECORDED: [location unknown], [early 1979] SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Origins; No. 1 cage; protection cage; No. 8 cage, Cumberland; Northfield cage; No. 8 Cumberland; school; running winch; Granby; drilling; blowouts; Longwall; shovels; stall work; WWII; fire boss ticket; shooting; explosions; deaths; Draeger; strikes; housing; hotels; the Chinese; recreation.

CALL NUMBER: T4133:0001 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1984-03-28 & 30 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Birth at Peguis Reserve, Manitoba; early memories of Swampy Cree people at Peguis Reserve; memories of father, Reverend A.W. [Amos William] Mayse; father's tales of the Boer War; fraternizing with the enemy; father emigrated to Canada; worked as a carpenter, became minister; father was in WWI; war wounds; was in Boer prison camp; earlier release by Jan Smuts; YMCA rep in WWI; back to Winnipeg; refused commission in Black and Tans; rural ministry in Manitoba; took salary partly in trade and had first pick of charity clothes; Mr. Mayse hated school; his father was self-taught and had a good library; read everything, including religious material; moved to British Columbia. [TRACK 2: blank.]

CALL NUMBER: T4133:0002 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1984-03-28 & 30 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Living in [Port] Hammond BC; first work experience; father's church in Nanaimo; primitive conditions in the coal mines; clothing and equipment of miners; many beer parlours in Nanaimo; father's popularity; favorite fishing spots; anecdote of hazardous fishing trip; Turner rowboats prized; commercial fishing; early commercial fishing methods and boats; memories of Sointula fishermen; Sointula pukka fighting; Nanaimo miners fished for trout, not salmon; early trout fishing equipment; social consciousness; father never was a union miner; lied to get into army; South Africa; Reverend Mayse went underground in Nanaimo mine accidents; panic in town; miners invited Reverend Mayse underground, managers didn't argue; dynamite misadventure. TRACK 2: Continuation of dynamite misadventure with Rev. Mayse; vegetable garden; powder bosses; Reverend Mayse destroyed cars; pit ponies on islands; Italian miners; soccer important in Nanaimo; library; Millstream Park; rugby versus soccer; holidays with father; Chinese persecuted in Nanaimo; Chinese accused of taking jobs; few Chinese women or children; fight between Chinese and Haida boys; Chinese cooks; idyllic but racist town; Mr. Mayse and friends made a water cannon to frighten Chinese; backfire; collecting cascara bark for money; cruel pranks; fights with air guns and crossbows made from umbrellas; good shot with slingshot; gangs racially mixed; miners lived in southern Nanaimo; some of the cottages still there [as of 1984].

CALL NUMBER: T4133:0003 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1984-03-28 & 30 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Nanaimo childhood; Guy Fawkes day was celebrated as Bonfire night; Hallowe'en destructive; Nanaimo's tamale wagon; miners' children; fishing and writing at Cowichan Bay; Reverend Mayse sided with the workers; holidays at Cowichan Bay; acquiring a dugout canoe; shaman procured canoe by threats; Indian fishing methods; most gear was cedar; old style Cowichan sweaters described; Padre Cook of Cowichan; Queen Victoria medal; John Page and the medal; shaman had grape arbor and soul box; healing and hurting with soul box; rite of boys purification among Cowichans; Wolf Song was stolen from the Haida after the Battle of Sansum Narrows circa 1820 to 1840. Haida blamed for other raids; Haida slaughters and weapons used. Reverend Mayse left Mr. Mayse to his own way on holidays. TRACK 2: 38; pound salmon won prize; Bruce McKelvie; first sale of fiction; principal angry but kept on; Oyster River with Reverend Mayse; memories of old-timer James McIvor; washed ashore from sloop; McIvor ran cattle; threatened loggers; tea with McIvor; McIvor's customs; McIvor angry when offered help; McIvor's nephew visited briefly; tried to buy wife; McIvor fishing with haywire; hated cities; died in Comox in 1940's. Walter Woodiss, Oyster River old-timer, storyteller; tall tale of salmon; Woodiss's feud with a black bear and accidental killing of same; Woodiss's Inn; Percy Elsie "mayor of Oyster River"; fried chicken known as fried seagull; ghost at Comox; WWII airman at Comox rode his bicycle through "Dancing Annie".

CALL NUMBER: T4133:0004 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1984-03-28 & 30 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Indian rancherees; shaman Cultus Tommy; Chinook trade jargon terms; Padre Cook well loved; friend at Cumberland; stories of Ginger Goodwin; Cumberland memories of Ginger Goodwin and hostility to trial and government; Dominion police were hated, man hunters; no shame in evading the draft; met Cougar (Cecil) Smith; Mr. Mayse now lives in Cougar Smith's house; Cougar Smith's peculiarities; Roderick Haig-Brown, great Canadian writer; friendship with Haig-Brown; dam on the Campbell River broke his heart; last meeting with Haig-Brown; last impressions; better known outside Canada; Haig-Brown a fine and pioneering fisherman; fished steelhead. Mr. Mayse disliked high school; paid for clothing with poetry prize won at UBC three years in a row. TRACK 2: Mr. Mayse paid UBC tuition by logging in the summer under a false name; BC loggers and equipment; railroad logging; unions; woods accidents; logged Upper Vancouver Island; logging camp cooks; anecdote of 'foul feeder'; fight between logger and foul feeder; logging camp cook; flunkies, bed makers, logging camp pump tenders; eccentric and proud train men; high riggers; Harold Larson would post on a spar; woods near-misses; spark catchers jobs; bunkhouse moving accident; Paddy the straw boss; Paddy nearly caught in a blast; lemon extract mad man incident; bringing out man lost in the woods; gone mad, tried to escape his friends; wild Great Dane dogs abandoned in woods; harassed spark catchers; Mayse had to shoot one.

CALL NUMBER: T4133:0005 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1984-03-28 & 30 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Great Danes hunted in Pike's Peak area; shot one; partner Paddy Gorman; Paddy attacked by a cougar while snoozing; scraps of loggers songs; never wrote them down, always regretted it; logging; company owners were remote; unions starting camps; decision logging versus writing; went to the Vancouver Province; space writing for Province; offered staff job; clannish and proud reporters; story of ascent of Mount Waddington; two expeditions at once; Mr. Mayse carried homing pigeons in a basket to file the story; rough country; beauty and tragedy of the pigeons; walking out to tidewater hungry; a ghost story at Leefall Point, Mount Waddington, where a climber had fallen to his death. TRACK 2: Worked at the Vancouver Province as Torchy Anderson's junior man; they covered a huge forest fire that threatened Campbell River and Courtenay on Vancouver Island [Sayward fire, 1938]; Torchy was Mr. Mayse's mentor and friend; longshoremen riots; Torchy was fearless; Torchy squealed when angry; his grandfather saw a Sasquatch; the Rum Tum Club and the Sonofabitch Club; creating a story on injured trapper at Mission. Mr. Mayse wrote police constable's report while drunk; cop demoted; Torchy and his wife Marion; moved to Saltspring Island; memories of Province newspaper women in 1930's Vancouver; wild party on Grouse Mountain; Christmas cheer and story of upside down reindeer; camps for single unemployed men; joining the American Newspaper Guild; had BC union card number 3; union's failure; left holding the bag; not fired but put behind the eight ball; refused marrying raise.

CALL NUMBER: T4133:0006 RECORDED: [location unknown], 1984-03-28 & 30 SUMMARY: TRACK 1: Mr. Mayse quit the Vancouver Province and joined the Vancouver Sun. The Sun was tougher and wilder; front page exclusives as revenge; union succeeded later; hostility to union. Mr. Mayse drafted and discharged for TB scars; army lost files; returned to the Sun as military writer; Mr. Gallagher, an alleged spy; moved to Toronto with no job, $100, a wife and a dog. Selective service twits said there were no jobs; walked into a job at Maclean's. Toronto run of luck; sold short stories to the Saturday Evening Post; break fiction editor of Maclean's; a few good Canadian writers; editor bought fiction; Calvinist, liked gloomy tales, had to trick him; Canadian writers were "cry-babies"; Americans were pros. TRACK 2: Canadian writers resented criticism; Mayse emulated American writers; today's market poor for short stories; in the 1940s and 1950s the stories were not literary but a good product; wrote serials for Saturday Evening Post; later published as novels; approached by an agent; returned to the coast; end of fiction markets; never seen as a serious writer; writing is lonely work; Jack Scott criticized Mr. Mayse's success in the U.S.; considered a move to the U.S.; writer's; work should speak for itself; but book tours are necessary; dislikes writer's grants except for poets; many writers are poseurs; major literary figures in Canada; dislikes commercial versus literary distinction; Mr. Mayse now writes a newspaper column; wrote for "The Beachcombers"; column is a good platform; a lucky and happy man; importance of luck.

RECORDED: Cumberland (B.C.), 1979-08-14 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Christmas turkeys; young man into mines; origins; strike; riot; Chinese; union; blacklisting; No. 6 Cumberland explosion; football; bosses; wages; ticket; Tsable River; pension; "Cellar Gang"; tipple; police; telephone shifts; No. 4 Cumberland; later strike; the Depression; doctor; funds; No. 5 Cumberland; No. 8 Cumberland; Japanese; picking coal.

RECORDED: [location unknown], [1975?] SUMMARY: Interview with Ben Horbury.;

RECORDED: [location unknown], 1975-08-10 SUMMARY: Interview with Ben Horbury.;

RECORDED: [location unknown], 1976-08-07 and-or 09 SUMMARY: Interview with John Horbury.;

RECORDED: [location unknown], [1975?] SUMMARY: Interview with Ben Horbury, Bob McAllister, and Henry Gibson.;

RECORDED: [location unknown], 1975-08 SUMMARY: Interview with Cumberland miners Bob McAllister, Henry Gibson and Jack McAllister.;

RECORDED: Cumberland (B.C.), 1984-02-02 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. TRACK 1: Italian immigration; Scavarda family; Cumberland fire; Bono family; family s;ize; Graham family; widows; Italian community; Marocchi family; domestic coal; union camp; travel; bootleggers; brewery; bakery; doctors; roads; Union Bay; Tom Ripley; Union Coal Company; Robert Dunsm;uir. TRACK 2: Walker family; Robert Dunsmuir; Fort Rupert; Minto; Royston; 1912-14 strike; riot act; union camp; old miner; attempted suicide; Italian community; Chinatown; bakery; widows; Waverly Ho;tel; Union Bay; Graham family; Scots; McGarrigles; midwifery; dirty town; Pigeon Lake dump; subsidence; No. 6 explosion.;

RECORDED: Nanaimo (B.C.), 1979-01-03 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Bicycle; Dickinson; small mines; travel to Cumberland; coal explosions; Welsh chorus; ventilation; Jordan Mine; conditions; origins; miner's ticket; father dies; trip to Canada; Superintendent of Canadian Collieries; end of coal; arriving in Cumberland; the Depression; salt water cure; learn from father; Dunsmuir; strike; Christmas Eve fire; Mr. Grant; Canadian Collieries; shovelling snow; houses; coal promotion; retirement; Hawthornthwaite; Alvo von Alvensleben; Chinese; marriage; Jingle Pot mines; fire boss; Wald.

RECORDED: Cumberland (B.C.), 1979-08-13 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Born in Northfield; blacklisting; school in Cumberland; wages; 1909 explosion; open No. 1; powder works explosion; living conditions; Jingle Pot with Joe Mair; working conditions; strike; medical coverage; scabs; union; Japanese, Chinese; militia; entertainment; Cumberland; Extension riot; red light district; 1919 No. 1.

RECORDED: Nanaimo (B.C.), 1978-12-20 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Panwall; wages; interior of mine; pillars; brattice; rebirth of union; WeeToo; cave-ins; tunnels; harassing strikebreakers' wives; mules and horses; night of the riot; scabs; rope riders; mules; Cumberland; quitting time; start of the strike; double shifts; flood in Southfield; February 9, 1915; widows; lodges; stores.

RECORDED: [location unknown], 1979-05-30 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Origins; starting age; working with dad; shifts; no daylight; miner's tickets; wife's worries; company farm; mules; union; prostitutes; Chinese; harbour; Oscar; contract work; slopes and shafts; fire bosses; strike breakers; bars; May 24; strike; Nanaimo; Glove Hotel; the Depression; No. 4 Cumberland; politics.

RECORDED: Ladysmith (B.C.), 1978-12 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Gas committee; Cumberland; scabs; miners' relief; coping during strikes; working alone; mules; rent; contract work; union; Great Strike; Chinese; immigrant workers.

RECORDED: Nanaimo (B.C.), 1979-07-05 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Class; pinned; union; No. 10; gas; earthquake; family arrives; closing No. 1; housing; Cumberland soccer team; jobs in the Depression; hats; winch kid; million dollar mystery; tally; drivers; mining in Cumberland; mine noises; building; accident with arm; protection; No.1 explosion; WWII; wages; seventy foot seam; bus to South Wellington Mine.

RECORDED: Nanaimo (B.C.), 1979-07-03 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Father from Italy; Chinese; hotels; bar; Ladysmith; stable; snow; fire department; school; strike; lodges; Italians; doctor; Granby; blow-outs; Cumberland.

RECORDED: Courtenay (B.C.), 1979-08-14 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Origins of family in Wales; union; safety; mine closes; housing; Cumberland area; entertainment; mules; strikes; Cumberland; working conditions; food; washing; medical clothing; WWII; pay; compensation; church; Chinese; heating; Japanese; No. 8 Courtenay; Tsable River mine; danger of mining; unions; tickets.

RECORDED: Parksville (B.C.), 1979-08-16 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Beban; post office; the Depression; strike; houses; childhood; managing on strike pay; Christmas; shifts; pension; scabs; shopping; Cumberland Hospital; Cumberland riot; ticket; "Cellar Gang"; 1922 explosion; No. 5 Cumberland; Burns Night; union; boys into mine; social life; Ginger Goodwin; soccer; widow; No. 4 Cumberland.

RECORDED: Cumberland (B.C.), 1979-08-13 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Origins; pithead; war bonus; contract digging; housing; union; No. 5 Cumberland; No. 8 Cumberland; Tsable River; entertainment; post-union strike; trapped into mining; ticket; red light district; church; transportation; first aid; A & B fund.

RECORDED: Nanaimo (B.C.), 1979-03-18 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Lunch bucket; museum display; longwall; No. 1; Protection; Reserve; teachers; wet; low place; wash house; ethnic; horses; No. 10; timber; Granby; man injured; safety; Bevan; No. 8 Cumberland; Chinese; explosions; young miners; cave-in; fire boss; doctors; union; Draeger; men killed; shots rock work; ticket; origins; floods.

RECORDED: Cumberland (B.C.), 1979-08-14 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Stove; red light district; Cumberland museum; Christmas; Chinese; early Cumberland; Japanese; church; Cumberland explosions; entertainment; wife worries; childhood; the Depression; union; No. 6 Cumberland; flu; miners' fears; young men into mines; child sees mine; widow; transportation.

RECORDED: Parksville (B.C.), 1979-08-16 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Father comes to Cumberland; class; strike; pubs; goes into mines; Beban explosion; working conditions; church; Orientals; soccer; company; red light district; coal burning; union; Ginger Goodwin.

RECORDED: Nanaimo (B.C.), 1984-10-18 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. TRACK 1: Explosion 1887; gas; Chinese; Cumberland; Dunsmuir; miner's certificate; coa;l dust; shot firing; blown out shot; ventilation; feeders; Sam Robins; gold mine explosion; fire bosses; William Griffiths; Seiriol Williams; silicosis; shotlights; gas committee; Extension explosion ;1909; wages; union; partners; relief days; Yugoslavs. TRACK 2: Timbering; Michaels; Malpass; Martell; Hindmarsh; Nanaimo Herald; newspapers; William Griffiths; Stove family; Cowie; Randall; explosion; 1887; shot firing; ethnic groups; South Wellington No. 5 mine; Archibald Dick; shotlights; coal hustlers; dip of the slope; pillars; cave-in; runners; rope rider; goat; eight hour day; Old Incline.;

RECORDED: Nanaimo (B.C.), 1979-02-13 SUMMARY: One in a series of interviews about the history of Vancouver Island's coal mining industry and mining communities. Mining techniques, shovels, dynamite; mules; union; arriving in Canada; productivity; effects of sulphur; living at Cumberland; cane-in; no work and strikers; hunting; check numbers; working in England; soccer; Guy Fawkes; payday; beer; leaving England; wages; injury; Reserve; commuting to Cumberland; Chinese; Italians; Swedes; Yugoslavs; no baths at mine; food; shifts; black damp; British; the Depression.