The Frank Slide is a natural landslide

Landslide

A landslide or landslip is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rockfalls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments...

 feature in the southern Rocky Mountains

Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

 of Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, and a significant historical event in western Canada.

Frank, Alberta

Frank, Alberta

Frank is an urban community in the Rocky Mountains within the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass in southwest Alberta, Canada. It was formerly incorporated as a village prior to 1979 when it amalgamated with four other municipalities to form Crowsnest Pass....

 is a coal mining town in the Crowsnest Pass

Crowsnest Pass

Crowsnest Pass is a high mountain pass across the Continental Divide of the Canadian Rockies on the Alberta/British Columbia border.-Geography:...

, Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

. On April 29, 1903, at 4:10 a.m., 90 million tonnes (30 million cubic metres) of limestone crashed from the east face of Turtle Mountain

Turtle Mountain (Alberta)

Turtle Mountain is a mountain in Alberta, Canada.It is located in the Crowsnest River Valley and is part of the Blairmore Range of the Canadian Rockies...

 and covered approximately three square kilometres of the valley floor. The slab of rock that broke free was approximately 650 m high, 900 m wide and 150 m thick. The slide dammed the Crowsnest River

Crowsnest River

The Crowsnest River is a tributary to the Oldman River in southern Alberta, Canada. It meanders through the Crowsnest Pass and Frank Slide. The Crowsnest River is a highly productive river with a substantial insect population that fuels a world-class sport fishery for rainbow trout, cutthroat...

 and formed a small lake, covered 2 km of the Canadian Pacific Railway

Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

, destroyed most of the coal mine's surface infrastructure, and buried seven houses on the outskirts of the sleeping town of Frank, as well as several rural buildings. Frank was home to approximately 600 people in 1903; it is estimated that 90 of the roughly 100 individuals in the path of the slide were killed.

The town was evacuated, but people were soon allowed to return and both the mine and the railway were back in operation within a month. The town of Frank continued to grow, until a report on the mountain’s stability resulted in the provincial government ordering the closure of the south part of the town in 1911. Studies and monitoring continue today.

Geology

There is an anticline

Anticline

In structural geology, an anticline is a fold that is convex up and has its oldest beds at its core. The term is not to be confused with antiform, which is a purely descriptive term for any fold that is convex up. Therefore if age relationships In structural geology, an anticline is a fold that is...

 of Paleozoic

Paleozoic

The Paleozoic era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon, spanning from roughly...

 Rundle Group carbonate

Carbonate

In chemistry, a carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid, characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, . The name may also mean an ester of carbonic acid, an organic compound containing the carbonate group C2....

s thrust over weaker Mesozoic

Mesozoic

The Mesozoic era is an interval of geological time from about 250 million years ago to about 65 million years ago. It is often referred to as the age of reptiles because reptiles, namely dinosaurs, were the dominant terrestrial and marine vertebrates of the time...

 clastics and coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

s. Summit fissures at the apex of the anticline likely allowed water to infiltrate and weaken the slightly-soluble carbonates within the mountain face, while the supporting underlying clastics were undermined by valley glaciation followed by erosion from the Crowsnest River.

The slide removed the top of Turtle Mountain, leaving a present elevation of 2109 metres (6,919 ft) for the north peak and 2200 m (7,218 ft) for the south peak.

The primary cause of the slide was the mountain's unstable geological structure, although it was thought at the time that an earthquake on the Aleutian Islands in 1901 may have contributed; the theory was later dismissed. The mining at the base of the mountain may have been a small factor in the event's generation, but is not considered to be the primary cause. It is believed that the weather was the final trigger of the slide.
The South peak of Turtle Mountain continues to exhibit the same signs of instability that caused the 1903 slide (peak to the left in the photo above). This has led geologists to speculate that it is only a matter of time before another slide occurs. The Alberta government launched the Turtle Mountain Monitoring Project in response to the uncertainty of when a slide would occur and because of houses and recreation areas in slide path. The Turtle Mountain Monitoring Project has put sophisticated monitoring equipment on the face of Turtle Mountain which provides hourly updates on the size of rock cracks and the tilt and location of the Turtle Mountain. It has been estimated that the next slide could be 1/6 to 1/8 the size of the 1903 slide.

Historical notes

• Only fourteen bodies were recovered from the debris at the time of the slide. In 1922, a road construction crew uncovered the remains of seven more people.
• Several people in the direct path of the slide survived, including three young girls. Fernie Watkins was found amongst the debris. Marion Leitch, 15 months old, was thrown from her house to safety on a pile of hay. Gladys Ennis, 27 months old, was found choking in a pile of mud by her mother, Lucy Ennis (Gladys died in 1995 at age 94, the last survivor of the slide).
• Warnings were telegraphed westward to Cranbrook
  Cranbrook, British Columbia
  Cranbrook, British Columbia is a city in southeast British Columbia, located on the west side of the Kootenay River at its confluence with the St. Mary's River, It is the largest urban centre in the region known as the East Kootenay. As of 2006, Cranbrook's population is 18,267, and the...
  
  , but the eastern lines were severed. Two railway brakemen set out across the rockslide to flag down the Spokane Flyer, but only Sid Choquette made it across in time to flag down the train.
• Seventeen men trapped in the Frank mine escaped by tunneling through virgin coal to the surface, which was easier than trying to clear the debris at the entrance. They dug through 6 metres (20 ft) of coal and 2.7 metres (9 ft) of limestone boulders. The effort took them 14 hours., a virtual museum exhibition at Library and Archives Canada
• A mine horse named Charlie survived alone in the mine for a month, but succumbed to its rescuers' kindness from overeating, without ever seeing daylight.

Popular culture

The Frank Slide became an immediate sensation in 1903, capturing media attention and becoming a regional tourist attraction for several years. Many myths circulated (and persist to the present day) concerning the ‘destruction’ of the town of Frank, a 'sole survivor' of the slide, and even buried treasure. Highway improvements in the 1930s and 1970s, designation as a Provincial Historical Site in 1977, the completion of the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre in 1985 and a general increase in regional tourism have helped restore some of that interest. Numerous books on the Crowsnest Pass region feature the Frank Slide prominently, and several books have been written specifically on the Slide, notably those by Frank Anderson and James Kerr. The Frank Slide has also formed the backdrop for fictitious novels, from Megan (Messner, 1965) by Iris Noble, The Outlander by Gil Adamson (2007), Shadows of Disaster (Ronsdale Press, 2003) by Cathy Beveridge and the award-winning Beneath the Faceless Mountain (Red Deer College, 1994) by Roberta Rees, and Terror At Turtle Mountain by Penny Draper.

The Frank Slide was the subject of a made-for-television documentary On the Edge of Destruction in 2003. Canadian band Tanglefoot

Tanglefoot (band)

Tanglefoot was a folk band from Ontario, Canada. Formed in the early 1980s by schoolteachers Joe Grant, Bob Wagar, and Tim Rowat to play traditional music, they became a five-piece band playing largely original music...

's 2001 song "Crashin' Down" is a fictional tale set around the Frank Slide. Album "On Tragedy Trail" (1969), released by Stompin' Tom Connors

Stompin' Tom Connors

Charles Thomas "Stompin' Tom" Connors, OC is one of Canada's most prolific and well-known country and folk singers.He lives in Wellington County, Ontario.- Early life :...

, features a song about the Turtle Mountain disaster called "How The Mountain Came Down". The song was also included in 2001 compilation Sings Canadian History. The Canadian indie rock Band The Rural Alberta Advantage

The Rural Alberta Advantage

The Rural Alberta Advantage is a Canadian indie rock band that formed in 2005. Based in Toronto, Ontario, the band consists of Nils Edenloff on lead vocals and guitar, Amy Cole on backing vocals and keyboard, and Paul Banwatt on drums....

 released a song about the disaster on their 2008 album Hometowns, entitled "Frank, AB". The Vancouver band, Portico, also recorded a song entitled "Frank Slide", on their 2009 album "First Neighbours".

External links

• Frank Slide Interpretive Centre
• Neil Simpson's Frank Slide website
• Turtle Mountain Monitoring Project
• Geotechnical Hazard Assessment, 2000
• Death in Crowsnest Pass, 2010
• SOS! Canadian Disasters, a virtual museum exhibition at Library and Archives Canada