A refreshed Friends of Morden Mine Society has picked up the gauntlet to save a towering remnant of coal mining history.
“It’s kind of a last-ditch effort for the mine,” said co-president Sandra Larocque, of preserving the head frame and tipple at the B.C.’s Morden Colliery Historic Park. “It’s either now or never.”
It is a turnaround from last year, when the former board was prepared to fold the society.
The dream had been to restore the deteriorating head frame and tipple, once used to lift and lower machinery and elevators into a mineshaft more than a century ago, but the group faced challenges, including financing, to get the work done. Restoration was estimated at $2.8 million.
The society was in the midst of a wind-down procedure when Nanaimo-North Cowichan MLA Doug Routley and Larocque expressed a desire to keep it going, and new members were elected to the board.
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See website for friends of Morden Mine & photo credit.