the sir $10.00 party?, page-22

How valuable was Nickel in the days of the Vietnam War and the long miners strike in Canada. It made WMC into the biggest and at that time the best mining company in OZ. During that time i was working at Silver Lake Shaft on the 5 level in whats known as a cut & fill stope. A section of ore ( 4m massive sulphides )was mined out along the length of the stope, the stope was then filled with wet sand and when dry the next lift could be mined. Because of the angle of the orebody (70 degrees) ore was left behind under the hanging wall. Then you had to go back to the dark ages. A wheel barrow & shovel were issued, you dug the dirt into the barrow, wheeled it along the stope to a chute, tipped it down the chute and went back for another load. Massive sulphides are very heavy and pushing a wheelbarrow through loose sand was no fun, Normal amount of dirt removed in an 8 hour shift was between 7&8 tons. I am so glad those days are long gone. ( ave grade 5% ). The standing joke at the time was if the nickel price dropped then we could go back & mine wheelbarrows, because a lot of them got buried in the sand.