Introduction

Railways Criss-cross the Kootenays

The New Players

Busy Beehive Ovens

Busy Beehive Ovens

The Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Company controlled most of the mines in the Elk Valley and produced 265,125 tonnes of coke in 1905.²¹ By that year the Company had constructed 1128 coke ovens in Morrissey, Fernie and Michel.²² These beehive ovens, so named for their shape, heated fine pieces of coal in order to evaporate and burn off any volatile hydrocarbons from the black fuel.²³ The resulting coke could burn at temperatures hot enough to melt ores.

Most of the coke produced in Elk Valley was destined for smelters in Trail and other Kootenay sites, either through CPR or GNR rail connections.²⁴

Both railways also shipped coke to on-site smelters at Riondel and Pilot Bay on the Kootenay Lake. The railways built competing lines to the Granby Smelter at Grand Forks and surrounding gold, silver and copper mines.²⁵ The CPR however, had the only rail connections to the lead and silver mines and smelters at Moyie and Kimberley, while the GNR distributed coke to smelters in Northport and Butte.²⁶

"Phoenix. Granby Consolidated Mining and Smelting Operation, 1900's"
BCARS A-06636

By the 1920’s, the price of coke had dropped significantly. Smelters no longer demanded such high quantities of coke because metals prices had also dropped.²⁷ One by one, fires in the Crowsnest Pass coke ovens were extinguished. By September 1932, the only operating coke ovens in the Elk Valley were at Michel.²⁸

"Michel. Old and new coke ovens, 1940's" BCARS D-07043

The CPR’s Trail smelter²⁹ and Sullivan mine and smelter at Kimberley and Marysville continued to operate. As other smelters and mines closed, the CPR had fewer competitors for its processed ore. The Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Company continued to sell over 130 000 tons of coke per year during the early 1960’s.³⁰

"Trail Smelter and Columbia River, 1938" BCARS, B-05050

With the rise of the Japanese steel industry in 1960’s, the Company and its successors found even greater markets for coking coal. The Elk Valley mines now produce about twenty million tonnes of metallurgical coal per year.