The continued discussion of the word "tenter" reminds me of an event in
the history of the Sullivan Mine in the East Kooteney district of
British Columbia, Canada. During the 1920s when the Consolidated Mining
and Smelting Company (later Cominco) was building a fairly large dam to
provide water for the town of Kimberley and for the mine, a miner,
Albin Johnston, fabricated a very large tent to cover the entire
construction site. This enabled the site to be heated so that concrete
could be poured and construction could continue during the winter months
when temperatures during January were generally -40 º (either Fahrenheit
or Celsius). Albin's title was, in fact, "shift boss", and the story is
told in Cominco's official history. What the history doesn't report is
that this valuable employee was later fired and blacklisted by the
company. I learned the later story after being told by the miner who
trained me that "we always took our boots to Albin to be repaired".
Since Albin was a family friend, I asked him for the story. It turned
out that Albin had volunteered to organize a Christmas party for the
children; before the miners went out on strike. During the strike,
Albin continued to organize the party despite being told not to by his
superiors. Although some mining historians insist that black lists
didn't exist, in at least this case one did.
The company hurt itself more than it did Albin. Albin ran a
very successful shoe repair business. Two of his daughters became
teachers, one son became the superintendent of a saw mill, and another,
an engineer, rose to a prominent position in British Columbia Hydro.
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