Getting to the former townsite of Granby means you’ll turn right off the highway about 10 minutes south of Nanaimo at Spruston Road and then lay on the horn as you go around the corner, hoping that anyone coming the other direction is considerate enough to heed your right of way. You’ll find a few buildings from the former town still standing, but nothing there now would indicate the carefully planned 100-acre city that thrived for fewer than 20 years a century ago.
Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company planned and built the town in 1917, including a 76-room house for single (male) miners, bungalows with power, sewer and water, church, post office, school, department store, theatre and more. As T.W. Paterson describes it, “Lawn boulevards were neatly trimmed. Even the mine buildings were better than the usual unpainted frame construction; if not built to last of concrete, they were grey-stuccoed. Neatness counted at Granby.”
Although the homes and buildings in Granby were modern, workers in the mine still died from explosions and poor working conditions that plagued miners of the previous century. Granby was particularly susceptible to ‘blowouts’ from gas buildup underground. Gas was often so bad that miners would head to the surface to vomit before heading back into the mine. Those dangerous conditions, the Great Depression and an exhausted coal seam saw the once grand town of Granby abandoned just 15 years after it was finished. For more on the town and its history, check out this Nanaimo News Bulletin article Granby once a grand town if only for a brief time.
The most impressive part of Granby today is its former mine site, where we found concrete relics that supported the heavy machinery needed to dig millions of tons of ore out of the ground and transport it to market. The concrete carries a green tinge from the moist climate of the West Coast, while any remaining metal is red and rusted. Even if the machinery could turn, the timber pieces rotted away to dirt years ago, leaving just a shell. Layers upon layers of organic material – fir and pine needles, branches, leaves, mushrooms – have built up, slowly climbing the cement buttress to one day return the monolith to the soil.
Until then, you can run your fingers over the cool moss spreading over the concrete surface – if you can find it. IndestructiBill swore he drove those backroads dozens of times and had never come across the former mine. I’m glad we stumbled across it before the forest retakes the land for good.