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Vancouver Coal Company

As part of the Chinese Historical Wrongs Legacy Initiative, we’ve digitized a small selection of inquests and inquiries from 1872 to 1934, found in series GR-0431. These were chosen to reflect the experiences of early Chinese immigrants to B.C. – their living and working conditions, and their unfortunate accidental or unusual deaths.   They range from a woman working in a brothel in Barkerville who died of natural causes to three sawmill workers who died from malnutrition. Learn more.

*All transcriptions are provided by volunteers, and the accuracy of the transcriptions is not guaranteed. Please be sure to verify the information by viewing the image record, or visiting the BC Archives in person. 

BC Archives GR-0431

*Please note that archival source materials are original historical documents that have not been censored, reviewed or otherwise altered by the Royal BC Museum. Some materials may contain content that is racist, sexist or otherwise offensive. The Royal BC Museum is only the custodian of archival materials; the content does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Royal BC Museum.

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45 back on us. In some places we cribbed it solid. There were vacancies between the cribbing and the gas might accumulate but not very much. It would not [?take] very much gas to make it dangerous at any time. To Another Juryman The pot hole is in the roof over the timbers. It would be almost forty yards to the next site of timbers the length of two cross cuts I think. There is a larger space in which there is no timber. I did not help to timber near number three To the Foreman The face of the cross cut was five yards in from the diagonal slope. Hagma was working with me that morning. Mr. Hagme fired the shot which lit the gas I spoke of that morning. I was up the slope a little [?] when the shot was fired. I went up to stop the Chinaman bringing down the boxes while we were firing. I was about thirty yards up the diagonal and through the first sheet. Hagme was in the first cross cut above the lowest cross cut about twenty yards up the slope. I know the shot fired the gas for I saw it. The gas was fired immediately the shot went off I was working down the side of the brattice. One side is clear. The flame extended into the slope. Could not tell how far the gas flame came up the slope. It did not reach us far as where Mr Hagme was. It is fifteen feet from the face of the crosscut to the slope and the flame might have extended ten or twelve feet up the slope perhaps more The shot must have sent the flame not fifteen feet from the face of the cross cut. It is that shot which lit the gas above the timbers. There was no gas in the cross cut I think. I cannot say how far the flame might extend from a shot.

To a Juryman The shot that was fired was a side or rib shot. It wasn’t a very strong one. I never put in more than three castors It was a two or three feet and a half shot. The cross cut is nine feet wide. I’ve mined it in the middle

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