Land and Sea

The Bump of '58.

It happened on a cold, damp October night in the mining town of Springhill Nova Scotia, fifty years ago. Far below the surface, in one of the deepest mines in North America, the earth suddenly shifted. Tunnels in and around the coal face suddenly buckled and collapsed, and the men working there were either killed instantly or seriously injured. For some, what has become known as "The Bump", began a terrifying ordeal that became a transfixing news story carried around the world: more than a dozen men, trapped in two air pockets, praying in the dark for rescue.

In this episode of Land and Sea, you will meet three people whose lives were changed by what happened 50 years ago: Harold Brine, one of the entombed "miracle miners" who survived the ordeal; Bev Thomas, whose husband Wes was killed in the bump, leaving her widowed with two children; and Bill Harper, a young television producer in 1958 whose job it was to figure out a way to get a live TV signal out of Springhill to report the events. By interweaving their accounts with exclusive CBC archival footage a story emerges that is full of courage, loss, and ingenuity.