Cumberland’s history doesn’t fit into one story, so A Place Called Cumberland doesn’t try to tell just one. The Cumberland Museum and Archives brought together twelve contributors to cover the town from a dozen angles: the coal-mining disasters that killed hundreds of workers, the historic Chinatown and Japanese-Canadian community that were among the largest of their kind in Canada, the shift from company town to mountain biking destination, even local mycology.
Edited by Rhonda Bailey and published alongside a museum exhibition of the same name, it’s less a single narrative than a set of doors into different rooms of the town’s past; useful for anyone who wants more depth than a single article or documentary can offer.
Pairs well with the CBC coverage of Miners Memorial Weekend for readers who want the fuller mining history behind that annual tradition.
