The first of three plays in this saga of one of Canada’s wealthiest and most ruthless families, The Dunsmuirs: Alone at the Edge chronicles the disgrace and exile of Robbie Dunsmuir from Scotland, the settlement of his family as indentured labourers to the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Nanaimo coalfields and his application of “scab” labour tactics which win him an independent prospector’s licence from the company. His discovery of a vast coal deposit on Vancouver Island, and his scramble to first finance and then gain control over the Wellington Mine on this site, over the literally dead bodies of his friends and supporters, brings this play to a stunning climax. A version of Parts One and Two of this series has been performed annually at the Nanaimo Festival for several years

Rod Langley
Rod Langley was born in Australia in 1942, and moved to Canada in his teens. He now lives in Nanaimo, B.C., where he works on film and theatre projects. His plays published by Talonbooks are Bethune (1975), The Dunsmuirs: Alone at the Edge (1991), and The Dunsmuirs: A Promise Kept (1992).

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“The story of the Dunsmuirs is a hell of a tale that's got everything.”
— Victoria Times-Colonist