Blood on the Coal

“This is a profoundly human story of resilience and survival, how nineteen miners endured the terror of entombment after a Canadian industrial disaster in 1958. It is also a critical and timeless account of the usually unintended consequences of corporate decision making, and how working people are obliged to bear the high and often tragic cost of livelihood.” – Linden MacIntyre, author of The Wake: The Deadly Legacy of a Newfoundland Tsunami

“Cuthbertson seamlessly weaves together the overlapping in-the-moment stories from above and below ground through the voices of those who lived them – the trapped miners, their helpless families, their determined rescuers, the mine managers, town doctors, and journalists who brought the story of the disaster to the world.” – Stephen Kimber, author of Alexa: The Changing Face of Canadian Politics

“In this gripping, searing and fresh telling of a terrible mining disaster and rescue operation that unfolded some four thousand metres underground, Ken Cuthbertson offers both an uplifting reminder of the resilience of the human spirit and a cautionary tale about an ancient fossil fuel. The history lesson here? For safety’s sake, and for the sake of the planet, leave old black coal where it lies.” – Lawrence Scanlan, author of A Year of Living Generously: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Philanthropy

“The timing of Blood on the Coal couldn’t be better: like the Covid pandemic, the Springhill Mine Disaster showed us that all too often it takes a tragedy to teach us a lesson about our safety protocols. And that all too often we don’t learn that lesson.” – Wayne Grady, author of Pandexicon

Ken Cuthbertson is a veteran journalist with forty years’ experience writing for publications in Canada, the US and the UK. A finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, he is the bestselling author of six books, including the critically acclaimed The Halifax Explosion: Canada’s Worst Disaster. Ken Cuthbertson lives in Kingston, Ontario, and has deep maternal roots in Nova Scotia.