Katherine Bickford

The Bowen Road Cemetery

The Bowen Road Cemetery is the resting place of many coal miners who died in accidents and explosions, including the Esplanade No. 1 mine explosion on 3 May 1887, and the Wellington No. 5 explosion on 24 January 1888.

It wasn’t just coal mining that took lives.

On the morning of January 14, 1903 two massive explosions rocked the Hamilton Powder Company’s Departure Bay works. The ignition took place in the drying and weighing room where the gun cotton was stored. That concussion then set off the gelignite building 400 feet away, where a large quantity of high explosives was stored. Both buildings were wrecked and twelve men were killed. Their bodies were unidentifiable. … [This] explosion at the Departure Bay powder works launched a piece of railway track 80 metres through the air with such force that it wrapped itself around a tree … like a corkscrew.

Davidson, Carole. Historic Departure Bay… Looking Back. 2006. Victoria, BC: Rendezvous Historical Press.