A Bell Island Mine Tour and Museum guide since 1998, the year the #2 Mine opened for tours, Bernadette comes from a family of seven, all born and raised in the Bell Island lighthouse. Her father was the island’s first lighthouse keeper, the service having been started just prior to the start of WWII to handle ships waiting to load up with ore. She recalls as a child watching her father “tie himself off” with rope when he’d set off to start the foghorn, so thick was the fog at times.
Bernadette also remembers growing up without electricity, and the excitement she and her sisters felt when the family got their first refrigerator. (A luxury that meant the family could have jelly during the summer months!) She loves her team at the #2 Mine Tour and Museum and dedicates all her tours to the hard work and sacrifice of the miners who went before them.
Bernadette Hammond
