The Lights on the Tipple Are Going Out: Fighting Economic Ruin in a Canadian Coalfield Community

The compelling history of a struggling Canadian mining region.

The Canadian postwar economic boom did not include one western coal-mining region. When the Canadian Pacific Railway switched to diesel power, over 2,000 coal production jobs were lost in the Crowsnest Pass and Elk Valley. The Lights on the Tipple Are Going Out tells the story of its fight for survival.

Underground mine closures began in 1950, prompting attempts by unions, leftist parties, municipal governments, and business groups to save the local economy. Efforts to reindustrialize in the mid-1960s brought unregulated growth, unsafe working conditions, and pollution. Starting in 1968, new strip mines were built to produce metallurgical coal for Asia-Pacific steelmakers.

Not only is this an interesting regional history, but the consideration of the role of labor unions, local communists, and grassroots environmentalists makes it especially compelling. Today, with technological change in steel manufacturing on the horizon and propelled by the climate crisis, Langford argues that the Crowsnest Pass and Elk Valley must look toward ecosystem restoration, sustainable economic activities, and the inclusion of First Nations in decision making to embrace a future beyond coal.

Tom Langford is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Calgary. He is the author of Alberta’s Day Care Controversy: From 1908 to 2009 and Beyond and co-editor, with Wayne Norton, of A World Apart: The Crowsnest Communities of Alberta and British Columbia. He has contributed various articles to Prairie Forum, BC Studies, Alberta History, and Labour/Le Travail.