Singing, and working and not working

Wednesday, the day before school starts here in Nova Scotia, which is also September 3rd, we were in Springhill which as ya'all know is the birthplace of Anne Murray.  Crossover country -pop star of the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties according to the "Ain't Anne Great Museum (not the real name) we went to. Don't get me wrong. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a country pop crossover female songstress with a soft mellow voice and I do like "Snowbird" and "Can I have this Dance" among many others (we did buy a CD).  Snowbird was number 1 on both country western and pop charts in 1970 for your information.  She had lots of number ones on both charts over several decades.  That was her first.

She had several windows full of gold and platinum records. Other windows were full of dresses,  magazine covers, photos, endless tape loops of testimonials of people saying how great Anne is.  It was overdone.

Then as a counterpoint we went to the next thing Springhill is known for, coal mines and disasters.  Being the observant reader you are you will note the green around the coal colliers and surmise that the mines are no longer in operation.  Nailed it. Since 1875 till 1970. The town is going out of business.  There were numerous explosions, caverns, unionization fights.  It apparently was not a pretty operation.

Tourism is about all that is left and mine "slope" number 4 is open for tours.  We went down under ground 300 feet, making several tuns into different tunnels.  The yellow rain jackets are because drips of water fall from the "roof" of the mine and the hard hat is because that same roof is low and you hit (or at least I did ) your head several times on the "ceiling". Can't remember mining term for roof.

The tourist mine slope route has flooring and a roof, electricity and additional shoring. Tracks for the colliers have been removed.
 

It looked more gloomy and dark than the photo portrays. The guide turned off the lights and it was dark. Total dark. Not see your hand before you face dark. I know, I tried. It was cool. Once again we had a suburb guide whose father worked in the mine and was seriously injured in a mining accident.

This is near Old Barns, a cross roads community - not much of one as it goes and there are lots of them.  There are actually barns in Old Barns, coincidentially for real. This is an agricultural area near Fundy.  In fact the little stream like features in the field in the foreground are tidal areas drained for agriculture.

One of hundreds of little churches we have seen in the Maritimes.  Hundreds, perhaps thousands, and they accompany little communities that have no people because the ball fields are grown up and abandoned, houses closed up and it is obvious that for most of the Maritimes that we have seen the economic good times are times of the past.

The good "Scottish lad" or "Irishman" Ian Harrison will preach on the First Sunday at the United Church.  The United Church of Canada is the combined Presbyterian and Methodist in Canada in 1922, I think.

Wooden sailing ships days are over, coal mines are mined out, big farms have taken over, timber has been cut and it is slow growing anyway, fishing is about over fished, and the young people have "gone west".  We heard that a lot - "my daughter is in Alberta, Yellow Knife, Vancover,  or in the US somewhere.  The Maritimes do have some vacation investment property for sale.

We continued on to Parrsboro where we are staying our last days in Canada.  Another little town.