Qualla: Morden Colliery: The Last Headframe Standing

Morden Colliery: The Last Headframe Standing: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit popejon2 from Paddington, Australia, CC BY 2.0. Seven storeys of weathered timber and steel rise above the forest south of Nanaimo, the last visible skeleton of an industry that once defined Vancouver Island. The Morden Colliery headframe and tipple is one of only two such structures surviving in North America - the other stands in Muddy, Illinois. That this one survives at all is a story of community stubbornness: a volunteer group called the Friends of Morden Mine spent over a decade fighting to save a structure that was rotting behind a chain-link fence, nearly gave up in 2015, and then secured a $1.4-million provincial grant that made restoration possible.

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Image: popejon2 from Paddington, Australia | CC BY 2.0

Morden Colliery: The Last Headframe Standing: Coal and Catastrophe

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shannon LaBelle - User: (WT-shared) Minnow at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Pacific Coast Coal Mining Company opened a standard-gauge railway from Fiddick's Junction on the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway to Boat Harbour in 1909, extending it the next year to the Fiddick Colliery. The coal moved by rail to the coast and into the holds of waiting ships....

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Image: Shannon LaBelle - User: (WT-shared) Minnow at wts wikivoyage | CC BY-SA 4.0

Morden Colliery: The Last Headframe Standing: After the Coal Ran Out

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0. When the mine closed, the settlement around it did not disappear. Logging sustained the community through the 1940s and 1950s, and gradually the area transformed into a bedroom community for Nanaimo, located just 10 kilometers to the north. The mine infrastructure decayed. The ra...

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Image: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Morden Colliery: The Last Headframe Standing: Shipping Containers and Second Chances

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 2003, the Friends of Morden Mine organized to save the structure. For twelve years they advocated, fundraised, and watched the headframe continue to rot. By 2015, the society was on the verge of giving up. Then in 2019, a $1.4-million grant from the British Columbia government...

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Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

Morden Colliery: The Last Headframe Standing: Walking the Old Railway

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit KenWalker kgw@lunar.ca, CC BY-SA 3.0. Since 1995, the Regional District of Nanaimo has been developing a trail eastward through the park along the former Pacific Coast Coal Mining Company railway right-of-way to the Nanaimo River. Interpretive plaques along the route tell the story of the mines, the railway, and the ...

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Image: KenWalker kgw@lunar.ca | CC BY-SA 3.0