Frank and the Mountain That Slid

Frank and the Mountain That Slid
The world has seen its fair share of disasters, from hurricane Katrina, to the collapse of the World Trade Center, and even the earthquakes that have happened more recently. Many people have had their life turned upside down and inside out within minutes but have been able to recover somehow. One disaster that hit the Crowsnest Pass in Alberta, Canada, was the tragedy called Frank Slide. Within two minutes, in the middle of one of the coldest nights that year, the small towns that surround Turtle Mountain had their world come crashing down on them. This paper will explore, in depth, how the region, rightly named the Crowsnest Pass, operated before, during, and after the slide that took the town of Frank.
At first, the region of the Crowsnest Pass was a well thriving and quickly expanding mining community.   Many different mines were operating in and around the Pass. Bellevue, Frank, and the Leitch Collieries were the main mines located in the Crowsnest Pass back in the 1900s. With the direct connections to the Canadian Pacific Railway, transporting the coke and coal from the Pass to other parts of Canada, and even all over the world, was made easy. As the mining industry was booming, many towns and collieries started showing up all over the Pass. Hillcrest, Blairmore, Coleman, and Lille, were all different collieries and towns that were found operating at and around the base of Turtle Mountain. The town of Frank, which was founded by Henry Frank, was soon to become a place that Canada would gravely remember forever.
Frank was one of the major mining towns in the Crowsnest Pass. Over six hundred residents called Frank home in the year 1903. A majority of the town’s people worked at the Frank mine because it was one of the largest employers in the Pass. Located at the base of Turtle Mountain, travelling between the mine and town was quick and easy for a lot of the workers. As the mining industry boomed, so did the small town of...