The Canadian postwar economic boom did not include one western coal-mining region. When the Canadian Pacific Railway switched to diesel-powered locomotives, over 2,000 coal-production jobs were lost in the Crowsnest Pass and Elk Valley. The Lights on the Tipple Are Going Out tells the story of its fight for survival. Underground mine closures began in 1950, prompting various attempts by coal companies, labour unions, leftist political parties, municipal governments, and business groups to save the local economy. The largest community in the region, Fernie, BC, even made a half-baked application to host the Winter Olympic Games. Efforts to reindustrialize in the mid-1960s brought unregulated, pell-mell growth, unsafe working conditions, and extreme pollution. Starting in 1968, however, the tide turned again as new mountaintop strip mines were built to produce metallurgical coal for Asia-Pacific steelmakers. Not only is this an interesting regional history, but the consideration of the role of labour unions, local communists, and grassroots environmentalists makes it especially compelling.

Today, in the face of the climate crisis, green steel manufacturing is being developed that eliminates the use of CO2-emitting coal. In the coming decades, as this book argues, the Crowsnest Pass and Elk Valley will need to stress ecosystem restoration, sustainable economic activities, and the inclusion of First Nations at the centre of economic decision making in order to embrace a future beyond coal.