The main downtown shopping street in Nanaimo, Commercial Street, is currently undergoing renovation. Like all renovations, it will be great when it is finished. It will have bike lanes and expanded sidewalks for outdoor restaurant patios, and will generally be more visitor-friendly.

In the process of doing the work the engineers discovered a large void underneath the original road. It was part of an old coal mine that was once the city’s main industry. This discovery delayed the reconstruction project as they figured out how best to fill the void and stabilize the other mine workings. That work has been completed and the upgrade to the shopping street is nearly finished.

While on my walk this morning I saw a sculpture dedicated to someone who unwittingly was the cause of all these problems. The information on the plaque includes the following:

Ki-Et-Sa-Kun (Known as Coal Tyee) 1810 (circa)-1881.

Revealed Nanaimo coal deposits to Hudson’s Bay Company in 1849.

Sculptor: Dorothea E. Kennedy.

Beneath that plaque is another which tells the story of the mine:

“Snuneymuxw Coal Story

The Snuneymuxw knew of pitst, the black rock outcrops around Nanaimo harbour, for thousands of years. The oral history warned that this black rock belonged to Qwunus, the black whale that migrated annually through the Georgia Strait. When the Hudson’s Bay Company established a post at Ts-Ah-Mus (Victoria) two Snuneymuxw men, Ki-Et-Sa-Kun and his young cousin Hay-Wa-Kum, gathered up a blanket of coal to trade with the blacksmiths for iron hoops. They were taken to Governor James Douglas who was highly pleased and gave Ki-Et-Sa-Kun a new name, Coal Tyee. When they returned home the Snuneymuxw were very displeased, as the two men had broken a traditional taboo by removing the coal. They were sent to watch the water and make peace with the whales.

Not long after, Joseph McKay was sent by Governor Douglas to visit the region. Hay-Wa-Kum remembered McKay dancing on top of the coal seams with great joy. McKay later established the Nanaimo Hudson’s Bay Company post beside the Snuneymuxw village on Commercial Inlet. The Snuneymuxw mined 2,000 tons of surface coal in the first year of the Hudson’s Bay Company mining operation. Women carried the coal in baskets to the waiting ships. When coal was dug underground, Snuneymuxw men worked side by side with the early miners. Later they worked as coal trimmers in the local wharfs.

Today few whales visit the Georgia Strait.

This account of Nanaimo’s coal history courtesy of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.“

Not only was the local mine recently made completely defunct by being filled in, but also this week saw the liquidation of all the Hudson’s Bay Company’s department stores in Canada. Their intellectual property, including the name, logo, and iconic stripes have been sold to another retail chain, Canadian Tire.

I spent a little time watching the water today thinking about whales, First Nations, coal mines, and the Hudson’s Bay Company before I headed home.