Check It Out: History is a vast early warning system

By Joan Janzen

A young man relayed the following story. “My grandpa warned people the Titanic would sink, and no one listened. He kept warning them until they got sick of it and kicked him out of the theatre.”

At the beginning of the 19th century, a warning was spoken regarding 

Turtle Mountain situated in the Crowsnest Pass in southwest Alberta. The First Nations people called it the Mountain that Moves or Upside Down Mountain. They stayed away from the mountain that had a massive limestone overhang.

However, a man named Frank discovered a rich coal seam running through the mountain, so he and a partner developed a coal company. Newcomers also ignored the warnings of the First Nations people and built their properties in the new village of Frank, located next door to the mountain.

Historian Kevin Hicks shared the Frank Slide story online. A comment made by someone who resides in the area was, “There were actually multiple landslides and mine collapses at Frank. Just before the main landslide, the mine collapsed, and they had to dig the survivors out. Then the mine re-opened a week later.”

But on April 9, 1903, a loud crack was heard over 120 miles in the distance. The top of the mountain broke loose, and rocks travelled at 70 miles per hour, leaping across a river and flying in all directions. Millions of tonnes of rock crashed onto the edge of the village, killing 90 to 100 people.

Some rocks were the size of a house, and in places the rock was 45 metres deep and covered three square kilometres. But the landslide itself lasted only 100 seconds.

Meanwhile a group of men were trapped in an underground mine. After thirteen hours they managed to dig their way through a coal seam, through six metres of coal and emerged from the top of the mountain.

One of the men ran to warn the train that was headed towards Frank and was unaware that the track was covered with rock. He was later awarded a citation and $20, equal to $715 in today’s currency.

The mining didn’t cause the slide; it was just an unstable mountain. A local resident noted the mountain is still on the move, with the top of it moving five to ten mm a year. And another person said he had climbed the mountain and could see giant cracks that go straight down to where the initial break happened.

Those cracks allow water to enter through the rocks and eat away at the limestone. Freezing and thawing of ice and water causes the cracks to widen, creating even more instability.

Locals say it is well known that the mountain will probably have another slide, but hopefully they will have some warning this time so there will be no loss of life.

There’s numerous examples of warnings being given throughout history. It’s been said the captain of the Titanic was warned several times that ice was ahead, but the ship plowed into it anyway and more than 1,500 souls were lost as a consequence.

Today we have professionals in areas of finance, health, science and education speaking out warnings. Instead of listening or even having a discussion, those voices are usually censored.

Steven LeDrew gave a warning about censorship on his podcast. He said once the online harms act gets into law there will be hundreds of bureaucrats censoring the news in Canada. It will harm independent media, where Canadians hear information that would otherwise remain private.

Award-winning journalist Sharyl Attkisson from the show Full Measure said one of the hardest things to do is to admit that something you thought to be true turned out to be wrong, especially when the truth means swimming upstream against the most powerful forces.

During the past five years, we’ve witnessed an alarming increase in censorship, career loss, ridicule, court cases and more when anyone attempts to issue a warning. Those warnings aren’t the ones you hear repeatedly on television; they’re usually warnings that powerful forces want to silence.

History has proven that people are motivated by money, like the people who built their businesses beside a moving mountain because they were promised prosperity. Today, if you “follow the money,” you will often find that decisions made by powerful forces are motivated by financial gain rather than the well-being of the nation’s citizens.

History has taught us lessons that should not be ignored. After listening to the Frank Slide story, someone commented, “If only they had listened to the Natives; the Mountain that Moves tells a lot.”

Today, there are many voices warning people about different types of landslides. A quote by Norman Cousins, a political journalist, states, “History is a vast early warning system.”

Years from now, we don’t want future generations to look back and say, “If only they had listened.”