In 1897, the silver-rich Slocan district in British Columbia's West Kootenay—with the thriving boomtowns of Sandon, New Denver, and Slocan City—was touted as the most important and productive mining district in all the province.1 By 1900, diminished by falling silver prices, demoralized by the Klondike gold rush, and devastated by crippling labour strife, the Slocan had lost its gleam.
In the 1898 provincial election, the conservative-leaning administration of John Turner was replaced by Charles Semlin and a ragtag assortment of “oppositionists”—some with close ties to labour activists. One of the less publicized campaign commitments of at least some of the oppositionists was the introduction of an eight-hour law for the benefit of underground workers in hardrock mines, who typically worked ten-hour shifts. The responsibility for this in Semlin's cabinet fell to the Slocan's former legislative representative and Minister of Mines, J. Fred Hume. As far as we know, Hume did not
