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Industrial Cape Breton severely changed in the last decade: municipal units were amalgamated into the new Cape Breton Regional Municipality, the steel plant closed in 1999 and the coal mines were shut down in 2000. Consequently, the social and cultural lives of Cape Bretoners forever changed.

Whitney Pier, once a bustling steel district with its own downtown core, is now one of many communities struggling to stay alive. Referred to as "the heart of the city's working class community", Whitney Pier has historically faced the challenges of domineering industrialists, unsympathetic governments and more recently, industrial pollution. Yet, its residents continue to persevere, even in the face of an aging population and staggering outmigration.

As a testament to their spirit and pride of place, the people of Whitney Pier founded a community museum. The museum is intended to forever memorialize the struggles, the pain and the many joys of living in a racially and ethnically diverse working class community. As the Whitney Pier Historical Museum has been, from the very start, the community's own representation of its collective memory, it is with this museum that our "Community Memories" begin.