Victory Mine - 1958
We had other ways to while away the summer as well, not parentally approved of course.
We would carry old tires up the big hill overlooking the main road (Black Hill) and roll
them down as traffic passed. We never hit anybody though, luckily in retrospect. The
hill was also a great place to launch balsa wood airplanes, play soldiers or cowboys or
just roll down to get good and dirty. We also used to "wall crawl" along the sandstone
shelf on the cliffs above the #1 pit, go up to the old fan house and drop things down the
shaft, and dig dugouts and caves anyplace we felt the urge to. Coal mining in the blood I
guess. We would sometimes walk up to the store through the pits and pause, sometimes for several hours, to throw rocks into the ponds in the low spots. On our return home after our adventures we were met at the door with a change of
clothes and ordered to the mine washouse down the hill for a shower.
On other summer days we would take a pup tent and blankets and go camping on the
pipeline right of way north of Dobraskis, or ride bikes up to Langfords Store on Highway
16, or go to the movies they showed in the old Wabamun Hall.
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