Harvey Miedreich | Fashion and Advertising Photographer

Welcome to the new blog. I’ve had a couple weeks now to play with Fotojournal.com, and while it’s totally in it’s infancy, it has some features that are worth signing up for already. I can’t WAIT to see what’s coming next. I’ll keep you informed of all these cool new features as I use them on this blog. For now I would suggest following them on twitter, http://twitter.com/fotojournal

Onto the post. This blog starts off with a hole, a hole that is 250’ deep! It has been dug by HAND and once they reached the elevation they wanted to be at they poured a concrete floor and built a wooden platform on top and then they began to tunnel in whatever direction was needed (also by hand). These workers have no trade, they work for the City of Edmonton and they are basically miners. Unfortunately, the city will not give them apprenticeships in mining, for fear of having to pay them a higher wage (or so I was told). The wage they are paid now, is very low for the work they do as the job is very dangerous. To put it in perspective, 20 years ago in this same location, there was another hole right beside this one and a pipe burst, killing all 3 men in the hole at the time. In the current hole there are two ways in and out, by ladder and by man basket lifted by a crane. The ladder is reserved for emergencies and the crane is used every day.  This crew consists of six men and one crane operator.  Currently they have reached their elevation and built a platform a little bit higher than the elevation. Apparently, they can build a platform anywhere in the tunnel. Again this is all done by hand! I keep saying by hand, because well, I was shocked to find that out and see it in action.

 Bellow is the view from the top,  As you can see the hole does get smaller at the bottom. There are 3 shafts on the way down each smaller than the one before. There is also a lot of water running through the wall which adds to the danger for these guys. They have had walls like these collapse because the running water shifts the ground which puts pressure on the metal braces and quite quickly the braces are snapping like toothpicks and the walls are crashing down. Scary.

 Here’s a better view of the bottom of the hole. The men get the dirt out by shoveling it into buckets which are then pulled out by the crane. The Yellow tube you see going all the way down is ventilation bringing down fresh air from above.

The ladder entrance.

 The Ladder. Taking this photo was enough to make me never want to go down there! It’s so creepy, and after the square hole, it becomes very dark

To keep a close eye on who is in the hole they use the check-in board pictured below. The washers have workers names printed on them and they constantly change it when guys come up or go down. The red box to the left is a buzzer they press in certain sequences to let the guys below know if the crane is about to bring a load down or take one up so they can hide behind the safety wall in case something were to go wrong.

The phone, I did not see them use this but apparently there is one below as well and they can talk on it, I believe it’s a safety precaution. It is hardwired because the batteries in the wireless radios don’t always last.

Here is an aeriel view of the site. I’m sure you could guess how I took this photo. (Photogs, please know I had no control over the composition.)

 And here is Tony, he works for the crane company and drives the fuel and grease truck. He’s a very interesting man and everyone absolutely loves him and the stories he tells. He is sticking his head out of his truck, looking up, at the camera, again, another arial shot.

 The safety wall. This is the wall that protects the men from any load being lifted up or down by the crane as they climb the ladder. All the markings on it are created when the man basket goes up and down as the basket rubs against this wall so it doesn’t swing around or get caught on any of the bracing breams.

This cage they ride in is old, and rickety, I’ve seen a lot of man baskets and this is probably the ugliest one I’ve seen. It is tested every day with a test weight  and it is inspected by engineers yearly and is certified. This particular basket can hold three men. Although, 2 actually seems to be the limit. Like a 5 man tent that holds 2 people.