Born in 1908, Bill Johnstone was a professional mining engineer whose models of coal mining are displayed at the Cumberland Museum. He married his wife Dorothy in Edmonton on June 8, 1936 and they moved to Vancouver Island in 1937. They lived in Cumberland until 1974, then retired to Victoria where he wrote for Successful Senior magazine. Originally co-published with Oolichan Books in 1993, his autobiography of a coal miner, Coal Dust in My Blood (Oolichan, 1993), was republished by the Royal British Columbia Museum in 2002.

[BCBW 2004] "Mining"