Page 80 hey called them The Wild Boars a group of 12 boys from Thailand who were trapped underground over several days in June and July of 2018 T welve members of the team aged eleven to sixteen and their Lamps Forever Lit Book Review By Kevin V incent T 25yearold assistant coach entered a cave after football practice Shortly afterwards heavy rains hit the area partially fooding the cave trapping the group inside They were eventually rescued and now several movies are being made about the ordeal Mine rescue operations get a lot of attention these days in the 24hour news cycle Multiple documentaries have been made about the W estray Mine disaster of 1992 in Nova Scotia No movies have ever been made about the Hollinger Fire in T immins that killed 39 men Nor has there been a flm or movie made about the 16 men who plunged to their death at the Paymaster Mine in the 1940 s In 2001 Kirkland Lake historian Bernie Jaworsky published an incredible research project Lamps Forever Lit a 250page journal of the lives lost in Kirkland Lake gold mines from 1914 to 1996 The book has references to more than 300 men who over time met their end while working underground in those seven mines one of the western hemisphere s most prolifc mining regions The Lakeshore and W rightHargreaves gold mines dominated the string of seven mines that gave rise to what is commonly known as the Mile of Gold Lamps Forever Lit unlike bronze statues or monuments is a tribute to the forgotten generations of miners who came from around the world and paid the ultimate price to be part of the extraction of gold from the Canadian Shield If you can get your hands on the book many of the men you will read about died in their early 20 s They were sons they were fathers and many were grandfathers The book doesnt assign blame nor wag its fnger at the shareholder or investor class Instead it simply honours the sacrifce that hundreds of men made to support their families There are obituaries newspaper articles and myriad footnotes There are gutwrenching letters from wid ows threatening correspondence to area mines from lawyers and plenty of solemn moments throughout its pages Lamps Forever Lit is a unique Canadian publication Jaworsky wrote An accident in a mine is usually sudden Hard rock steel and blasting powder are not considerate of soft fesh and brittle bone Death in most cases is gruesome lonely painful bloody or suf focating Death in a mine is not gentle As one book reviewer Bill McIntyre wrote Bernie Jaworsky has taken a very painful subject for any mining community and has presented it in such a way as to neither idealize the events or to sensationalize them If a member of my family had died under such circumstances it is the way I would want their memory treated factually and with dignity Copies of the book can be found on Amazon for around 20 Page 78