Mar 21, 2020 — GREENWOOD, BC (BG)

The following editorial from 1897_[1] illustrates how much opinions change with the times. Today, in 2020, everyone is concerned with the food supply chain. Many worry about getting their garden seeds in, and anxiously look forward to the ground thawing. But in 1890s Greenwood, some believed that mining was the only occupation that deserved attention.

"Last week the pupils of the Greenwood public school were instructed in the art of ploughing (on the black-board). Of all the absurd things ever heard of, the teaching of agriculture in public schools — particularly so in the schools of a mining district — "takes the bun."

Even in a rural agricultural district it is strongly to be questioned whether the number of young children who are taught the chemical properties of 'manures' and other branches of learning appertaining to scientific farming in schools, and who clean stables, cut wood and milk cows at home, derive nearly as much practical benefit from the former as they do from the latter; but in the cities and rural mining district schools what on earth the object is in cramming the helpless children with a lot of stuff they in nine cases out of ten cannot swallow, must be left to the Hon. the Minister of Education to explain.

If it is necessary at all to enlarge the curriculum of the public schools, why not discriminate between localities? Teach agriculture in farming communities, and elementary geology or mineralogy (at all times interesting studies) to the sons and daughters of miners."

The Pickman
Steel cut engraving, 19th c.

In a 1901 issue of the Greenwood Weekly we find this clever tribute to the mining man_[2] (and a bit of wisdom for current times):

The Man Behind The Pick

There has been all kinds of gush about the man who is behind,
And the man behind the cannon has been toasted, wined, dined,
here's the man behind the musket, and the man behind the fence;
And the man behind his whiskers, and the man behind his rents;
And the man behind the plow beam, the man behind the hoe;
And the man behind the ballot, and the man behind the dough;
And the man behind the counter, and the man behind the hill;
And the man behind the pestle, and the man behind the pill;
And the man behind the jimmy, and the man behind the bars;
And the Johnny who goes swooping on the stage behind the stars;
And the man behind the kisser, and the man behind the fist;
And the girl behind the man behind the gun is on the list;
And the man behind the bottle, and when they were short of men,
There was some small rhymster warbled of the man behind the pen;
But they missed the honest fellow, and I'm raising of a kick;
They didn't make a mention of the man behind the pick.
Up the rugged mountain side a thousand feet he takes his way;
Or as far into the darkness from the cheering light of day;
He is shut out from the sunlight, in the glimmer of the lamps;
He is cut off from the sweet air in the sickly fumes and damps;
He must toil in cramped positions, he must take his life in hand,
For he works in deadly pearly that but few can understand,
But he does it all in silence, and he seldom makes a kick,
Which is why I sing the praises of the man behind the pick.
He unlocks the bolted portals of the mountain to the stores
Hid in Natures vast exchequer in her treasurer house of ores.
He applies the key dynamite and the gates are backward rolled,
And the ancient rocks are riven to their secret heart of gold.
Things of comfort and beauty and of usefulness are mined,
By this brave and quiet worker; he's a friend of humankind
Who, though trampled down and under paid, toils on without a kick,
So I lift my hat in honor to the man behind the pick.

~ Burt A. Judd

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Boundary Creek Times — Apr 17, 1897, p. 3
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0170215

[2] Greenwood Weekly Times — Jun 06, 1901, p. 3
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/bcnewspapers/xboundarycr/items/1.0172917