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        • Submarine Miner, V. 3 # 1, January 1956
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HISTORY
MINING HISTORY


THE COMPANY WHISTLE, a.k.a. "THE BULL DOG"
by Gail Hussey-Weir
Created August 31, 2017; Updated May 19, 2022

Picture

The photo above is the former No. 3 Hoist House in 2012 showing the east and north sides of the building. The housing for the Company Whistle is the little green structure on the roof. Photo by Harvey Weir, 2013.

"The familiar siren, known locally as the 'bull dog,' was installed at No. 2 Sub Station on March 24, 1924. It was later moved to No. 3 Main Hoist and still continues to sound the time of day." Source: Submarine Miner,​ V. 1, No. 2, July 1954.

The Bull Dog was an automated whistle that blew to signal the changing of the shifts in the mines, and also the mid-day meal hour. When there was a house fire, the telephone operators at the Avalon Telephone Company activated a switch which caused the whistle to blow a certain number of times, depending on which section of the Island the fire was located. Today, the Bull Dog is located at the Fire Station on West Mines Road.

There was probably a Company whistle from the earliest days of Wabana mining. In 1906, I.C. Morris of St. John's, who was a contributor to The Daily News, spoke to a Mr. Normore on The Beach and was told that before mining started, The Beach was covered in fish flakes and was quite busy with residents engaged in the fishery. He lamented that a little over a decade later, the glory of The Beach was past and now "the sound of the steam whistle told of a new order of things."

There were whistles at each of the piers. On June 30, 1907, when two new churches, St. Boniface Anglican and St. Michael's Roman Catholic, were consecrated on the same day, "whistles were blown at the pier."

When the Prince of Wales visited on August 11, 1919 and his ship anchored between Topsail and Little Bell Island, "the Companies' pier whistles shrilled a welcome as the war ships steamed through the Tickle."

Michael J. Hawco was the local Health Officer in the summer of 1932 when he "initiated a curfew for children of 9:00 p.m., when the Company's whistle would sound."

Sources: Addison Bown, "Newspaper History of Bell Island," V. 1, p. 20, 22, 59; V. 2, p. 47; The Miners of Wabana, end note 69. ​

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