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Sylvanite Miners after shift

Black and white photograph of 22 miners wearing dirty work clothes of overalls, shirts, jackets, helmets or hats. Some men wear a lantern around their neck, and other men are holding lunch boxes. Men are sitting and standing in the background, in front of a mine building.

Title: Sylvanite Miners After Shift, 1930s

Photographer: Unknown

Museum of Northern History Collection

This photo of miners from the Sylvanite was taken during the 1930s, but the men with their work clothes, lamps and lunch boxes look identical to the mine photos taken in Kirkland Lake anytime between the 1920s and 1960s.

Miners spent 12-hour shifts underground. Conditions were uncomfortable with cramped tunnels and the men using loud machinery for hours on end. Water and ventilation were used to try to limit the amount of dust from drilling, but inhaling the dust was just one of the dangers that came with working underground.

Rockbursts and accidents claimed the lives of many miners along the “Mile of Gold”, and their sacrifice is commemorated on a large monument, the Miner’s Memorial, in Kirkland Lake.