Quebec Copper, Eastman, Quebec

1952-The Quebec Copper mine site was 3 miles from the town of Eastman in the Eastern Townships. Company houses were built in 1954 and we moved there along with 6 or 7 other families. In 1952/1953, while we waited for a house to be built, we lived in Magog, 10 miles away and went to school there. It seemed to me that Magog was bi-lingual. I couldn’t speak one word of French. Dad found a suitable 2nd floor apartment on St. Luc street, above a candy store and just down the street from the textile mill. As luck would have it, that neighbourhood was 100% French speaking. I was 10 years old and before long had met our 3rd floor neighbours, twin girls, Marie Anne & Marie Marthe who insisted that I join in games with other kids, so they drew pictogram’s in the sandy yard and we communicated just fine. I went to La Colonie (the beach/park) on Saturdays with them and to movies at the church. We marched in a parade in dresses made of crepe paper, watched a “snowy” TV in a store window for the first time, and sometimes I joined their family in the evenings listening to the rosary recited at 7pm on the radio. I was feeling at ease with the French culture and realized that my own family name was French. I attended Grade five at a brand new school-The Princess Elizabeth school and Her Majesty became Queen Elizabeth in 1953, a very exciting event. In 1954 we moved to a new duplex at the mine site and I was distressed to learn that I would be going to yet another school, Waterloo High School. I was accustomed to moving and leaving friends behind and adjusted quickly and loved the following three years as a preteen and finally a teenager. Like most teens, I was in a world of my own along with my friends, and family life and “mine life” was often, the very last thing on my mind.

However, the mine site, a hundred yards from our front door, was interesting and accessible. Aside from the office, there was the head-frame, a hoist room, pump house, crusher and conveyor belt to the mill. We had an old fashioned wooden phone hooked up and Dad could talk to the miners underground at any time of the day or night.

Since there wasn’t much for kids to do there, the mine built us a tennis court. There were only three kids old enough to use it at the time, but they spared no expense and bought us Slazenger rackets. There wasn’t a soul nearby who knew how to play or to teach.

We were driven to Eastman to catch a school bus but the company car went on to Waterloo every day to drive kids to another school, so we had a choice. Of course we chose the bus. Kids that age don’t want to be unique in any way, except when it suited us!

Times were good. We had a new family car and went away for holidays to Old Orchard Beach, and weekends to Newport and Burlington to shop. Mom bought Ever-Ware and an Osterizer. We had a TV and watched Triple Western Theater, Gillette Cavalcade of Sports and saw Elvis Presley on The Dorsey show the first time he performed.

By 1957 we were on the move again, back to Ontario. Quebec Copper was closing. If I remember, there was still copper to be mined but it was no longer economically feasible.

I went back to that deserted mine site a few times in the 60’s and 70’s. I could see the foundations of the various buildings but any signs of where houses had stood were obliterated by forest. I was able to locate the tennis court, the reservoir and a metal pylon that would have been a corner of our house.

It made me realize how easily history can be erased.

http:// www.muneastman.ca

http://www.jcamyot.com/eastman mine map.jpg