Grinding the Nest Egg, Nordegg

The processing system at the abandoned coal mine at Nordegg, Alberta may seem low-tech in comparison to today’s highly automated, computer-controlled production lines. But for its time it was fairly sophisticated and provided a lot of control over the creation of the mine’s primary end product: coal briquettes. This is the top of one of 4 “vertical fluxers”, a mechanism near the end of the production line, where the combination of ground coal and asphalt “dough” was mixed to a consistent temperature and consistency before being fed downwards into the briquette presses two floors below. With the production line frozen in time for decades, and the large nest egg of remaining coal deposits no longer being produced, this machinery now collects cast-off sticks from a large crow’s nest high in the ceiling above.