Dutch and German Immigrants The Prins Family - Pier 21

The plant started up in 1954 with two pot lines; number 1 and number2. In that year the first shutdown occurred due to a snow slide whichdamaged the power line. The same thing happened again in 1957.A pot line consists of three buildings with two rows of pots each. Thereare two sections in a building with approximately 27 pots per section,each section operated by three people: a crust-breaker operator, atrimmer and a section chief. Each crew worked an eight-hour shift.A pot consisted of a carbon anode and a carbon cathode (the inside wallof the pot) and contained a molten bath of Na3A1F6 (cryolite or“Greenland spar”) serving as the electrolyte and A1203 (aluminium ore).In the process, the molten aluminium ends up in the bottom of the potand this liquid metal will be tapped once a day. A 100 000 amp DCcurrent flows through the pots with a voltage difference of five volts ineach pot. The bath reaches a temperature of about 900 degrees Celsius.Extreme care had to be taken not to short-circuit a pot across the line ora part of the enclosing building, and to use only warm and dryequipment when checking a pot. A power failure lasting longer thaneight hour would cause the pots to “freeze” and the contects would haveto be broken up with a jackhammer and dug out.In the summer time it was extremely hot in the line, especially theafternoon shift from four o’clock till midnight. Tools were too hot tohandle without gloves, simples upon your bum from the crust breakerseat and I was guaranteed to lose twenty pounds every summer! The salttablet container was a well-used dispenser.The wintertime, temperature wise, was a lot easier to handle and theweight came back on. If I was on shift during the Christmas days, the 25men who worked in the line on our shift chipped in for a few turkeys plustrimmings. Among the Italians we had on shift, there usually was a cookand he prepared the turkey, wrapped in foil, up on one of the pots. Weate in two groups as the sections couldn’t be left unattended. The fruitbasket (about one apple a person), our Christmas bonus from Alcan, wasdonated to the local hospital.Cooling air was provided by big fans, blowing air directly through gratesin the floor between the rows of pots. When I arrived in Kitimat lines 3, 4and 5 were under construction, differently designed then the originallines one and two. When they were ready I worked there for a while butwas glad to go back to line 2. In the new lines the cooling air was blownin to cool the pots first!In any case, the working conditions were not exactly for the faint ofheart, the smell, the dust, the smoke and the heat you had to endure