Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Friday's edition ( available using this link ) took readers back to the early days of Giant Mine when 100-or-so employees and their families lived on site. Both Ken Hall, who moved there as an eight-year-old with his family, and Cynthia Creed, who moved with her husband and two small children, recall living in an idyllic community. But all that was about to take a nosedive.

In May 1992, contract talks broke down at Giant Mine and the Canadian Association of Smelter and Allied Workers (which eventually joined the Canadian Auto Workers) went on strike. The strike lasted until December 1993. - NNSL file photo George Samardzijan, underground track man at the mine, stands on a table to rally strikers on May 27, 1992. "Fight to the end," he said. However, like many other union members, Samardzija eventually chose to cross the picket line and return to work. He was one of the first people on the scene following the Sept. 18 explosion. - NNSL file photo

Things began to change in 1986 when Falconbridge Ltd. sold Giant Mine to an Australian company, which tried - with minimal success - to recuperate gold from the mine's tailings ponds. After four years, the mine was purchased by Royal Oak Mines, a U.S.-company founded by Margaret "Peggy" Witte.

According to Harry Seeton, former mine employee and president of the union then representing Giant Mine workers, it was under Witte's ownership that conditions at the mine took a serious turn for the worse.

"I remember the first time we sat down with the new manager under her, he took the collective agreement sitting across the table from us and he chucked it on the table and said, 'Who in the hell negotiated something like this?'" said Seeton.

"We were always used to, you know, getting our rights as workers and when they came in it just turned upside down."

Seeton said he remembers Royal Oak constantly cutting corners to save money, even reducing the monthly aboveground and underground safety inspections from three days to one.

On May 23, 1992, after a series of unsuccessful contract negotiations, workers at Giant Mine went on strike. It was not Giant's first strike; in 1980, collective agreement negotiations between the union and Falconbridge broke down. The difference was, unlike Falconbridge, Royal Oak chose to keep the mine running and hired replacement workers, many of whom came from union ranks.

The once familial relationship between workers changed dramatically.

"I would say it turned into hatred, even of people you used to work with, because they were crossing these lines and getting full pay, and the other guys (were) sitting freezing their asses off," said Seeton. "They'd see this and, as you can imagine, it turned pretty nasty."

The 18-month strike was rife with vandalism, deliberately loud music at late hours, fighting and petty name-calling. Cynthia Creed, whose husband held a middle-management position and therefore was not part of the striking union, said their home at Giant Mine felt almost like a prison.

"The picket line was set up right at the entrance to the camp site. So every time you went in (to town) and every time you came home, you had to cross it. And it was quite awkward because you quite often knew the people on the picket line," she said.

"I learned how to change a tire very quickly because they had put nails and stuff across the road. I'm sure I had a flat every week."

Tensions at the mine peaked on Sept. 18 when striking miner Roger Warren planted a bomb at the mine site, killing nine replacement workers. Seeton, who was in the union office at the time, said he initially thought it had been an accident.

"I remember we were thinking something happened because they (Royal Oak) weren't following the safety regulations," he said.

"We were just as shocked as anybody."

It was not until the following year - after 16 interviews and two lie detector tests - that Warren confessed to planting dynamite on an underground rail track. In 1995 he was convicted of nine counts of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

He later claimed he had been coerced into making a confession, however this was never proven to be true.

In 2014, Warren was granted day parole for six months, on the condition he have no contact with the families of his victims, he abstain from consuming alcohol and he undergo counselling as directed by parole staff. Earlier this year, his day parole was extended for another six months.

The strike ended in 1993 but things never went back to the way they were. Seeton continued to work at Giant Mine, leaving his role as union leader when the strike ended.

"There wasn't the same friendship and social contacts as there were before," he said.

Today, the mine's C-shaft headframe is nearly completely deconstructed and despite the strife, he says he's sad to see it go.

"It's a sentimental thing for me," said Seeton, who moved to Edmonton after Giant Mine closed.

He was recently in Yellowknife visiting his son and couldn't believe how much the city has changed. "It didn't look the same."

For the elders of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, the visual reminders encapsulated in the C-shaft headframe are haunting and they're 'all for it' coming down. To members of the First Nation, it represents degradation to fishing, moose-hunting and berry-picking areas and, worse, the mining byproduct that killed at least one child. See Friday's Yellowknifer for part three of this

three-part series.

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