Death by dynamite at the canal
A single stick of dynamite is like a small, compact baton. It measures about eight inches in length and one inch in diameter (20 cm by 2.5 cm).
Its invention in 1866 by Alfred Nobel was heralded as a safer and more manageable explosive for commercial use, particularly in the construction and mining industries. The Swedish chemist and engineer discovered that by combining diatomaceous earth with nitroglycerin, the diatomaceous earth served to act as an absorbent that stabilized the highly explosive pure form of nitroglycerin.
The measured charges of dynamite were easily transported and with the proper detonator, exploded safely.
The dynamite blast that killed Donald MacDonald on June 8, 1925 was a tragic reminder of the inherent risk of construction projects that involved working with what was considered at the time the safest of explosives.
MacDonald was working along Section 8 at Humberstone in an area that had been blasted in December. His job that day was to drill into a rock ledge and set up deeper charges for a second round of blasting.
MacDonald and the other workers of the crew had no way of knowing that some unexploded dynamite remained from the first blast — for the past six or seven months, the dynamite had been lying hidden from view in a deep rock crevice.
The sparks from MacDonald’s drill were enough to detonate the unexploded dynamite, killing the 26-year-old Scotsman instantly from a fractured skull and two broken legs. His co-worker Roderick McLeod suffered serious injuries in the explosion.
MacDonald was a driller who was hired to work on the canal construction in November 1924, along with his cousin Murdo Murray. The two men had left Scotland together in April 1923 to come to Canada and first lived in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay), where MacDonald had a brother.
Sadly, the cousins both lost their lives during the Humberstone building phase. Less than five months before MacDonald’s death, Murray had been killed, on Jan. 23, 1925, when he fell 60 feet into the rock cut at Humberstone.
Far from his parents, Donald and Christina (Munro) MacDonald, and many other relatives living in Scotland, MacDonald was interred on June 9, 1925 at Overholt Cemetery, Port Colborne. He is buried in an unmarked grave.
At the inquest into his death, held June 12, 1925, the jury heard testimony from several co-workers, all considered experts in blasting. In their opinion, the nature and likely cause of the accident was the unfired dynamite left behind from the December blast.
They all agreed nothing could have been done to detect the danger and prevent the explosion.
Based on their testimony, the coroner’s jury took little time in arriving at the decision that MacDonald’s death was accidental.
This article is part of a series highlighting the men whose lives were lost in the construction of the Welland Ship Canal. The Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial Task Force is a volunteer group established to design, finance, and build a memorial to recognize workers who were killed while building the Welland Ship Canal. For more information about the Memorial or to contribute to the project visit: www.stcatharines.ca/CanalWorkersMemorial