Swedish physicist Alfred Nobel developed dynamite in the 1860s as an alternative to nitroglycerin, an unstable compound that had a habit of exploding at inopportune times. Nobel was allegedly so pleased with his invention that he predicted it would do away with war.
鈥淥n the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second,鈥� he supposedly said, 鈥渁ll civilized nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops.鈥�
Nobel鈥檚 new explosive didn鈥檛 end war, just made it easier for men to kill each other on a grand scale. The substance had a myriad of other, more benign uses, though. If you needed to remove something large, heavy, or hard鈥攁nd didn鈥檛 care what happened to it in the process鈥攄ynamite was the tool for the job. It was a thousand times more powerful than black powder, and there weren鈥檛 initially a lot of restrictions on its use. For these reasons, it became popular with miners, farmers, and construction workers.
Yet as they soon learned, it wasn鈥檛 something to be trifled with.
Men working for railway contractors Foley, Welch & Stewart used dynamite extensively during construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific line through the Lakes District. Teamsters hauled it here by the case or keg and stored it in temporary structures along the right-of-way. A watercourse between the communities of Decker Lake and Palling earned the name 鈥淧owder House Creek鈥� because construction crews cached their explosives nearby.
Blasting powder helped men remove the side of a mountain east of town between 1912 and 1914. One common practice on the 鈥淏ig Cut鈥� was to drive a short T-shaped section of tunnel into the rock face and fill the right and left passageways with explosives. When everyone was a safe distance away, the man in charge of the blast (often called a 鈥減owder monkey鈥�) would initiate detonation.
Most of the time, the exercise went off without a hitch, but no system is foolproof. Sometimes, the dynamite failed to ignite or blew up too early. Occasionally, the powder monkey made a mistake and sent everyone to kingdom come. Demolition was not an exact science back then.
In 1913, the dynamite in a coyote hole at the 鈥淏ig Cut鈥� failed to explode on schedule. Employees were unloading it when something ignited the contents. The resulting explosion killed at least three men and blasted their bodies two hundred feet in the air. Deadman鈥檚 Island in 亚洲天堂 Lake, which lies only a few hundred yards offshore, can likely trace its name to this incident or another like it.
Dynamite or one of its derivatives was also employed in road construction. Louis Grindlay 鈥淕in鈥� Saul, whose family homesteaded in Decker Lake, said that Nobel鈥檚 invention helped clear stumps from the Highway 16 road right-of-way.
鈥淎ll the standing timber on the right-of-way鈥攕pruce, pine, and poplar鈥攚as chopped down by axe,鈥� Saul said. 鈥淭hen came the powder monkey and his helper, and, with a crowbar, [they] punched holes under these stumps, put in numbers of sticks of dynamite, tamped it in firmly. In the last stick of dynamite [they] inserted the cap and a long fuse. After they had prepared from six to eight stumps in this manner, the powder monkey would yell, 鈥渇ire, fire,鈥� and, with a lighted length of use in his hand, run from stump to stump lighting each fuse. Then, as soon as he lighted the last fuse, he would run like the devil and hide behind a large tree until all the blasts went off, being sure to keep track that all the blasts had exploded. As soon as the debris and smoke had cleared away, he would shout 鈥渁ll clear鈥� and the men with grub hoes and picks would start loosening the roots that were still attached to the ground.鈥�
Crews cleared rocky sections of the Colleymount Road in a similar manner. Fred Rushton was one of the men hired for the job.
鈥淚n 1920, I believe it was, my father, or stepfather, rather, got a contract to do some rock blasting on Colleymount,鈥� Rushton recalled in the late 1980s. 鈥淎 big bluff there had to be blasted off. Well, I think there were only six of us in the gang. Sandy Jenkins was the powder monkey. He handled the powder, and we drilled up on the rocks, and used a hammer and drills [to] drill holes for the dynamite. When the blast went off, we counted them as they went. Of course, the rocks flew into the lake.
鈥淎bout that time, they had a real heavy storm come up, thunder and lightning, and it was raining torrents. We all dashed for the big tent 鈥� there was an army cot there. We were sitting on that and my stepfather happened to say to Sandy, this powder monkey, 鈥榃hat did you do with the dynamite and the caps?鈥� Sandy, he said, 鈥榯hey鈥檙e right here under that bed.鈥� Well, you never saw a bunch of men scramble out of there in such a hurry, because it was just a little while before that lightning had struck a big spruce back of the tent about thirty feet away.鈥�
Road gangs weren鈥檛 the only ones using dynamite. Farmers cleared some of this area鈥檚 most productive farmland with the aid of explosives. Arthur Ramsey, a bachelor who moved to the north shore of Francois Lake in 1913, was known for his boat-building skills and his ability to survive despite himself. He once set blasting powder under a stump to dynamite it, lit the fuse, and then absentmindedly sat atop his intended target. The charge went off on schedule, throwing him into the air. He survived.
Kaare Engstad cleared what is now the Blue Spruce Trailer Park in the same manner. The exercise fascinated his sons.
鈥淧ete and I were quite mesmerized by the use of dynamite,鈥� Phil recalled in 2018. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 how he [Kaare] cleared the property 鈥� There was always a big box of dynamite, you know, in with sawdust or however they were kept. We were told to stay away from the caps but he would go and drop them. We鈥檇 be pre-positioned a reasonably safe distance and [Dad] would yell 鈥榝ire in the hole,鈥� light the fuse, and鈥攂ang鈥攁nother stump would go, and there would be another notch in the gun barrel.鈥�
Finding a safe place to store dynamite was sometimes a challenge for this area鈥檚 settlers. Jacob Lund and his father, who lived at the north end of the lake that now bears their name, felt it was best to keep the 鈥渄evil powder鈥� close to home. They stored it in sheds attached to their residence. When the Lund cabin caught fire after Jacob鈥檚 death in the 1950s, the explosion that followed rocked the adjacent mountain to its basalt foundation.
The Cottam family was a little more cautious, and it served them in good stead until the spring of 1948.
鈥淲hen Mrs. Cottam was in town to get a batch of baby chicks from the station on Thursday [March 25], Bud started the brooder and put it in the hen house. When he was eating breakfast, he heard a noise and went out to see the hen house in flames. In it were 28 hens, tools, two boxes of dynamite, and two boxes of caps, so he was afraid to go near and try to fight the flames. There was no explosion but the building burned to the ground. It was a new building Bud had built in the few hours he could spare from working in the woods.鈥�
Ironically, dynamite may have saved the life of an Ootsa Lake pioneer. George Seel, a well-known prospector, was working alone in the mountains around Whitesail Lake when he suffered misfortune.
Like many trappers and prospectors, George relied on gasoline lanterns for illumination. One evening around midnight, he lit one of the devices and tried to hang it on a hook from ceiling of his cabin. He missed the hook for some reason and dropped the lantern, which exploded on impact.
鈥淭he stem of the lamp broke off and the pressure caused the gas to spurt in a fountain over the room and the occupant,鈥� reported Sidney Godwin鈥檚 Observer newspaper on September 25, 1930. 鈥淚t instantly ignited, and Seel was a mass of flames. He seized some canvas and wrapped it around himself, making his way through the blazing room, without breathing, to the door. In order to unlatch the door he had to uncover one arm and as he did this, the gas in that portion of the covering exploded, by some peculiar circumstance stripping all the skin off the arm from the elbow to the wrist.鈥�
The cabin was more than just a 鈥渉ome away from home鈥� for George. It was also his dynamite cache, and the knowledge undoubtedly lent urgency to his efforts. He had barely escaped the building when 15,000 dynamite caps and a quantity of blasting powder exploded.
The blast tossed George 20 feet down the hill, but also put out the fire on his clothing. He then picked himself up and made his way by boat to Wistaria, where his wife Else administered first aid before calling Dr. Thomas Carlyle Holmes. George survived and later returned to work.
Not everyone was so lucky. Joseph B. Armishaw, described as one of the best-known pioneers of the Central Interior, died that same year in a dynamite accident. According to the Observer, 鈥淎rmishaw was using dynamite in connection with his work at Douglas Lodge, blowing holes in the ice on Stuart Lake. The first charge exploded, but the second hung fire. Mr. Armishaw was examining the second charge when it exploded, and he received frightful injuries which ended fatally within two hours.鈥�
Despite these and other mishaps, dynamite remained popular and manufacturers continued to market it to a wide audience. As recently as 1956, publicists for Canadian Industries Limited (known the world over as C-I-L) were providing newspapers with articles extolling the virtues of dynamite. Some of the stories would not have been out of place in a Do-It-Yourself manual.
鈥淗ow to dig a ditch in 1 second,鈥� read a headline in the Review newspaper鈥檚 July 2, 1956 edition. 鈥淒igging a ditch six to eight feet top width, three feet deep, and a quarter of a mile long in one second sounds impossible. But it can be easily done鈥攚ith dynamite. Of course, it might require half a day to load the holes along the course the ditch is to take, but the actual 鈥榙igging鈥� is done in the flash of time it requires for the dynamite to explode.鈥�
A cavalcade of injuries convinced government officials to tighten the regulations pertaining to dynamite and other explosives. Yet as two incidents in the late 鈥�60s and early 鈥�70s proved, you could still get your hands on it if you tried hard enough.
On June 11, 1969, three men used dynamite to blow up the drug store in Fraser Lake. The blast, which occurred about 2 a.m., was so loud that residents living on the far side of the lake heard it. The incident sparked calls for increased police presence in the village, which one person described as 鈥渁 pleasant little town rapidly turning into a vicious parody of Dodge City of the 1880s.鈥�
Three years later, a bomb blew a hole in the roof of the Houston Shopping Centre during a failed attempt to extort money from the Bank of Montreal. Police arrested two men, one of them from 亚洲天堂 Lake. In the trial that followed, residents learned the culprits had placed a second bomb made from eight sticks of dynamite in the Houston Community Centre, then changed their minds and removed it. Both men were convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Not many people have access to dynamite today, but that doesn鈥檛 mean we鈥檝e seen the last of it. A few sticks still turn up from time to time. In 1980, a man found a large quantity of forcite (a gelatin dynamite used in mining) on Gerow Island. The explosive鈥攚hich had been stored and forgotten鈥攚as well past its 鈥渂est before date鈥� and highly volatile. Police blew it up in a gravel pit along Highway 35.
Poking around old cabins, mines, and settlements is a popular pastime in the Lakes District. Next time you鈥檙e having a blast in the bush, take care. There鈥檚 no telling what you might uncover.
漏 2022 Michael Riis-Christianson and the Lakes District Museum Society
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