The film follows two men, “Smith and Jones” who are working at a Toronto factory when it shuts down for the winter. They are soon hired at a mining camp, where working and living conditions appear to be easy and comfortable. The portrayal of the industry’s safe and easy conditions is comical to today’s viewer. The film suggests miners enjoyed high wages and wholesome living conditions, freed from hard labour through mechanization. It’s doubtful this film would have encouraged anyone to head up to the mines, we know reality was a little different.

“Life in A Mining Camp”, 1921, film, 3 minutes 35 seconds, Graphic Consultants Collection, accession number 1972-0105, item number ISN 185314, Library and Archives Canada.

Film editing by David Sobel. Music by Allen Booth

Further Discussion

“Liquor Made Towns Too Awful to Exist.” Toronto Star, 21 Feb. 1921, p. 8.

“Miners' wages cut 75c per day: reduction to go into effect.” The Globe, 11 Jan. 1921, p. 10.

Wilde, Terence P. "Masculinity, Medicine and Mechanization: The Construction of Occupational Health in Northern Ontario 1890-1925." PhD diss., York University, August 2014.