Britannia Mines - The Honeywagon...

 Sooo... you may be wondering where the miners went to the bathroom when they went down into the mine tunnels... Well, they had this little contraption that came down on the little railway.

It's a little cart that has a toilet at each end!

I don't know about this... seriously... I guess if you were desperate, in a pinch.

Although the name for this thing is completely disgusting...

It was called the "honeywagon"!!! Honestly... humans have no respect for honey!

Alright... we are getting closer to the big concentrator building... it's known as Mill 3... there was a Mill 1 and a Mill 2!

Ooooh.... looks like some rain is coming down the Sound... that's OK... we are going underground soon.

Oooh!!! You see that big ship!!! That's that ship that was converted into living quarters for the crews working on the Woodfibre LNG plant... The SS Isabel or something? It was docked in our harbour for months while they tried to get a permit to park it over here...

Cool!!

We are on the west side of Mill 3 and these are the foundations of Mill 1. It got too small real fast so they built Mill 2 which burnt down... and then Mill 3 was born!

Alright... are you ready... claustrophobic? Don't worry... I got you!

We all got on a little tiny train...

The humans got to wear hardhats...

We were told to keep all arms, legs, heads and bears (!) inside the edges of the train...

And we're off!!!!

Oooohhh... we are a good way inside!

We learned about mining drills and stuff (with a demonstration - being told to cover our years)... and then a demo of how they shoveled the ore (by hand and then a machine - also noisy)... it was pretty cool!

And then we got pooped out this end... You see that tall pole to the left of the guide (guy dressed in black)... it is a steam whistle that signaled end of shift (one blast) or an emergency (3 blasts). Believe it or not... it was LOUDER than the rock drills!!! Super loud!!

Beary neat!!!

Sandy highly recommends this adventure!

Then we trundled down the hill and came by the core shed where all the exploratory rock cores are stored... well some of them. They used to have 16 rock core sheds... now they only have one.

But you can see the chalcopyrite in the granite... that's what they were mining. Chalcopyrite is CuFeS₂ while regular pyrite is just FeS₂.

After that... we went into the bottom level of Mill 3... and it was... impressive!

It's huge!!! And eerie... and... they've filmed lots of TV shows ("The X-Files", "MacGyver", "21 Jump Street", "Smallville", "Altered Carbon", "The Man in the High Castle", "The Last of Us") and movies here ("G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes", "Okja", "The Descendants 2", "Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed", "The Fantastic Four", and "The Age of Adaline". 

You can even see some oxidized copper staining (blue) along the rock walls.

Crazy... and this is just the lower level.

Next up is the Boom! show!

Those are some of the windows that look out onto Howe Sound.

This is a pretty famous shot from inside Mill 3... this steep staircase and then a little track with an ore cart on it... The Boom! show gave us an overview of how the ore cars dumped their contents way at the top of the building and how there was a process through which the rocks get crushed smaller and smaller and then the copper was separated out by frothing. Fascinating!

This was a GREAT adventure!!!! Sandy approves!