Bell Island is a wonderful place to spend a day. On a sunny day in summer, the island billed as the Belle of the Bay is a wonderland of places to see and things to do.

Minutes away from St. John's, and three miles across The Tickle from Portugal Cove, Bell Island is reached via an approximately 20-minute ferry ride which, in itself, is a great way to begin your adventure.

The island is 10 kilometres long and two kms wide and is comprised of Lance Cove, Freshwater and Wabana, the incorporated, largest community.

When you arrive, the first place that's a must-see is the miners' museum and the first thing to do is have a tour of mine No. 2, which is under the museum.

To find the museum and the mine, just follow the signs when you get off the ferry.

At the museum, one of the things of particular interest is the collection of photographs of Bell Island miners that were taken by world-famous photographer Yousuf Karsh in 1954.

Karsh paid his first visit to Newfoundland in 1949, shortly after Confederation, apparently at the invitation of then-premier Joseph Smallwood. He came back in 1954 with his wife.

The Heritage Society of Bell Island recently purchased 50 of Karsh's photographs from the National Archives in Ottawa, and many are on display in the museum.

Karsh 's characteristic black-and-white photographs include shots of Bell Island miners Clarence Somerton, Ben Warford, Brendan Stone, Joe Kitchen, Danny Fowler, Gerald Tremblett and Lou Meadus.

One of the pictures Karsh took in 1954 is of miner Billy Parsons, who worked in the iron ore mines on Bell Island for more than 50 years.

The photograph of Parsons in his bard hat inspired one of the six giant murals - another must-see - which adorn various buildings on Bell Island.

The mural of Parsons is painted on the brick wall of the Wabana Complex.
In the museum, the Karsh photographs are displayed alongside black-and-white photographs, which may have been taken by a professional photographer hired by the mining company.

There are shots of the old court house, of groups of miners standing outside a mine shaft, and another picture of two men and two women in a snow-covered field in the middle of June.

These photographs, dating from the early 1900s, are remarkable for their clarity, and were discovered in a photo album found at a flea market in Nova Scotia and purchased for 50 cents.

The woman who came into possession of the album, Elaine (Peyton) Sterling, recognized the pictures as being of Bell Island and presented the album to the heritage society a couple of years ago.

All of the photographs are fascinating, and so are the numerous artifices scattered throughout the museum -everything from miners' log books to a carbide lamp.

But now it's time to go underground and tour mine No.2. We've been a little apprehensive, wondering just -what's in store. But after donning hard hats and going down a flight of stairs and then out into the actual mine shaft, we find it's not scary and doesn't trigger claustrophobia. The passage is wide and well lit and the ceiling is roughly five metres high. Walking through the mine is like walking through a mysterious castle with walls that appear chiselled out of stone.

Our guide is Brian Kent, a member of the heritage society He tells us mine No. 2 was one of six underground mines that operated over the 71-year lifespan of the Bell Island mines, from 1896 to 1966, the year the mines closed.

Mine No. 2 extended four kilometres under the ocean floor.

In 1578, Anthony Parkhurst wrote of retrieving ore samples from an island of iron near St. John's. In 1895, the Butler family of Topsail gained the rights to the iron ore deposit on Bell Island, which was subsequently developed by the New Glasgow Coal, Iron and Railway Co.

The secretary of the company, Thomas Cantley, named the area around the mine Wabana.

The name, derived from Algonquin Indian words meaning eastland dawn, was apparently chosen because the mine was the most easterly in North America.

In 1920, mining operations on Bell Island were taken over by the British Empire Steel Co. (BESCO) and later by the Dominion Steel Co. (DOSCO) and its subsidiary, Dominion Wabana Ore Ltd.

In her book, The Miners of Wabana, Gail Weir says the initial mining of iron ore was a surface operation, but it was soon discovered the main ore deposit lay under the floor of Conception Bay in a series of beds, which dip at approximately eight degrees toward the northwest.

Mining went underground in 1902.

Ore cars carried men down to the mine face where they worked as shovellers, drillers, blasters or face cleaners.

Kent tells us shovellers worked in teams of two, loading a required minimum of 20 carloads of iron ore per shift, while drillers bored holes for dynamite.

When the drillers and shovellers left work in the evening, blasters showed up to place and ignite the dynamite that loosened the rock. Early the next morning, face cleaners or scalers cleared ceilings and walls of rock debris before the shovellers and drillers arrived.

In 1900, miners on Bell Island were working for 10 cents an hour.

Kent walks us through the underground mine. He says the wavy and rippled ceiling above us is actually the bottom of the sea floor 480 million years ago.

He tells us about the men who worked in the mines

The miners worked first by the light of candles, then with seal oil lamps, which were used up until 1912 when they were replaced by carbide lamps. In the 1940s, lights run on a battery pack, good for eight hours, were introduced.

Going though the main tunnel, Kent points out cross-cuts which go east and west of the main mine slopes for distances of two to three kilometres.

He says over the mine's 71-year lifespan, there were 101 fatalities, caused by blastings, runaway cars and cave-ins.

Kent brings us into the underground barn where horses were stabled.

One of the more unique aspects of the underground operation was its use of horses. The animals, used until 1949 when they were replaced by electric tram s, often spent up to 20 years underground, hauling empty ore carts into the working area.

In the 1950s, a conveyor belt extending four kilometres out under the ocean floor, as well as 2,800 metres feet across the island, brought iron ore to the shipping piers.

Our tour of the underground mine is impressive, and afterward we feel compelled to look through the museum once again. The miners' hats, belts, lights, log books and even their lunch books seem to have more meaning now. They belonged to the men Kent told us about, the men who went underground to mine iron ore for all of their work lives.

One of those men was Kent's grandfather, who began working in the mine at age nine and retired in 1957 with a pension of $35 a month.

Our next stop is lovely Lance Cove, which has a marina, a picnic site and a seamen's memorial facing out toward two small islands, Little Bell Island and Kelly's Island. The monument commemorates 69 seamen who lost their lives when four ships were sunk by Nazi U-boats in two separate incidents during the Second World War.

Bell Island has the distinction of being the only community in North America to take a direct hit from an enemy torpedo during the Second
World War. - -

Near Lance Cove, we stop to see Sacred Heart grotto.

There are many old cemeteries to explore on Bell Island, where family names include Nor more, Bennett Rees and Skanes. Gregory Normore (1717-1783), a native of Jersey in the Channel Islands, was the first recorded, permanent settler on Bell Island.

He married a Miss White from Carbonear and they built a home and settled in a spot on the beach, near where the ferry docks.

Other attractions on Bell Island indude freshwater ponds and sandy beaches along the shoreline for swimming.

There is also nightly entertainment at local pubs.

On Lighthouse Road, see a lighthouse which was built in 1939 and stands 50 metres above sea level. The view from around the lighthouse, which is located on the eastern part of the island, is spectacular.

If you're a walker or hiker, check out the natural walking trails which will take you around the island. Steps start by the ferry terminal. On this part of the trail you'll pass by two antiaircraft guns that were installed during the Second World War to protect the shipping of iron ore.

Before leaving Bell Island, stop to see the monument by the ferry terminal which marks a marine tragedy resulting in the loss of 22 lives.

On Nov. 10, 1940, no more than a quarter mile from the site of the monument, two small ferries - the Little Golden Dawn, skippered by Capt. Arch Mitchell, and the W Garland, under Capt. Norman Ash - which were carrying passengers and freight between Bell Island and Portugal Cove, collided during a snow squall. All the dead were aboard the Garland. (Read more about it here.)

In its heyday, Bell Island was a thriving, self-contained community of 14,000.

Today even with a diminished population of less than 4,000, Bell Island remains a great place to visit. You will be missing out on a lot if you don't get over there this summer.

Summer tours of mine No. 2 take place 11 a.m. to 7 pm. daily In the off season, call 488-2880 or 488-2938 to arrange a tour