FAMOUS DEEP MINE NOW WABAMUN STRIP
In the early days of strip-mining there arose a prejudice in some circles over the use of strip-produced coal. It was felt that strip-mined coal was not as good as underground coal. It is therefore significant to know that all coal produced by Alberta Coal Ltd. comes from coal deposits formerly mined by underground methods. The only difference is the method of getting at the coal; and stripping techniques have made available a lower cost fuel to thousands of Canadian homes and industries.
Typical of sub-bituminous coal mines once worked underground is the famous mine at Wabamun, Alberta. When the railway was pushed forward from Edmonton toward Jasper and the Yellowhead Pass, the right-of-way passed along the northern shore of Lake Wabamun, a fairly large body of fresh water 45 miles west of Edmonton. An early pioneer named Alf Smith had prospected for coal in the Wabamun area, and had found substantial deposits that the coming of the railway made economically attractive.
In 1912, The Lakeside Coal Company was formed, principally by Edmonton's H. Armitage, with backing from Tudhope and Anderson, wagon manufacturers in Eastern Canada. Lakeside Coal found a ready market for its product, named "Victory" Coal, especially to the City of Edmonton power plant - one of the first thermal power producing units in Western Canada. At the mine's peak of operation (the highest production day came on the 28th of February, 1927), 435 tons of Victory Coal were produced by the efforts of some 75 miners.
Lakeside Coal survived the depression and continued to operate as an underground mine until May 1st, 1948. Increasing labour cost and shrinking markets finally forced the mine to close. In 1948, the Mannix interests acquired the entire Lakeside Coal Co. property and began strip-mine operations.
John Vivyurka had joined the Lakeside Coal Co. in March of 1939 as Underground Manager. (He had had previous experience in the mines of Estevan, Saskatchewan, his boyhood home). John stayed on when Mannix took over and is the Wabamun Mine Manager today. He can point to many spots where evidence of the original underground entrances are still seen: he knows the area literally from the bottom to the top.
Victory Coal and Blueflame Coal with 9,000 B.T.U's of heat value per pound continue to be very popular domestic coals. Last year, nearly a quarter of a million yards of overburden were stripped to produce 78,000 tons of coal. The product is sold throughout the Edmonton area and much of it is sent to Vancouver.
The Wabamun coal field is one of the cheapest sources of thermal energy in Canada. This is because the Wabamun thermal plant is immediately adjacent to the deposit and to an adequate supply of cooling water, besides being within 50 miles of the large demand for power from the industries in the Edmonton area. Today two 88,000 horsepower units are in operation at the plant burning natural gas but designed and constructed to accommodate coal burning equipment. The first unit was commissioned in the autumn of 1956 and the second unit late in 1958. Approximately 44,000 gallons of Wabamun Lake water every minute pass through each unit's condensers, do their cooling job and pass through the discharge canal back into the lake.
One single 200,000 horsepower unit, larger than the two present units combined, is now on order for installation by 1962 and this new unit is designed to produce power from coal. When it is in operation, coal consumption from the Wabamun mine will jump to 800,000 tons a year.
To prepare for the great expansion in the Wabamun area, Alberta Coal Ltd. in association with Calgary Power Ltd. and its consultant is investigating the largest earth-moving machine yet considered for Alberta. Preparations are even now underway as the crew at Wabamun are building a haul road underpass to avoid intersection traffic with the Edmonton-Jasper highway. The Wabamun coal property, now owned by Calgary Power and operated by Alberta Coal Ltd. under lease, is another striking example of using modern, large earth-moving equipment to uncover, by open pit methods, a low cost fuel - coal.