We Lived a Life and Then Some: The Life, Death, and Life of a Mining Town

Randall White is the author of Voice of Region: On the Long Journey to
Senate Reform in Canada and Global Spin: Probing the Globalization
Debate, and the co-author of Toronto Women.

Although some parts of the story of the old silver-mining boom-and-bust
town of Cobalt have been told before in other places, We Lived a Life
and Then Some is a uniquely crafted and well produced book. Sixteen
pieces of black-and-white artwork supplement a solid and readable text
that draws extensively on oral-history sources. The book is focused as
much on trying to explain the mystery of the intriguing small place that
Cobalt is today as it is on recounting tall tales from the heyday of the
northern miner in Canada’s most populous province.

In the end, the authors seem to be arguing that pieces of living
history such as Cobalt—which once viewed Toronto as “the place where
you get on the train to Cobalt”—may serve in the future as miniature
centres of refuge and enlightenment in our increasingly turbulent and
confusing global village.