'We miss him': Monday marks anniversary of No. 26 Colliery explosion

Feb. 24is a difficult day for some Cape Bretonfamilies.

It's the anniversary of the explosion at the No. 26 Colliery in Glace Bay.

Twelve men lost their liveswhen an overnight explosion rocked a section of the mine in 1979, leaving just four survivors.

Rose Roberts lost her brother that night.

"Michael was outgoing, friendly, never stopped.He is missed by his family members, he was just a great person," she said.

Roberts said one of the hardest things was visiting his family and seeing his picture.

"You cry from the moment you walk in the door until the time you walk out, it was just a mess."

Joanne Shepard's father,Fabien Young, was also killed.

His portrait is one of the first things visitors see when they go to the Cape Breton Miners Museum.

Shepard is a member of a committee set up to create a park in their memory behind the Glace Bay museum. It will feature a statue containing pictures of the men and a tribute to coal miners and their families.

She said the anniversary is still a very difficult day.

"We miss him every bit as much as we did 41 years ago now, and you just kind of spend today reflecting on the loss that took place that day and the memories that you still hold dear," she said.

Mary Pat Mombourquette, the executive director of the museum, said they're currently fundraising for the $100,000cost of the park and statue.

While the park officially opened last year, the addition of the statue marks the second and final phase for it.

She said the money is mainly coming from people who were most affected by the tragedy.

'Every one of them had a story'

"People would come up, knock on the back door of the museum, and they would give me whatever they could," she said.

"Some of them gave me $20, some of them gave me $10, some of them gave me $1,000, but every one of them had a story about where they were when this mine exploded and what it meant to them and who they knew."

Mombourquette said the statue will be ready in time for Miners' Memorial Day on June 10.