Remembering Big Jim MacLellan: The Six-Decade Voice of The Men of the Deeps
On his first day of working in a coal mine, 17-year-old James (Big Jim) MacLellan faced an obstacle. Given MacLellan’s six-foot-five-inch frame, his supervisor made an observation, telling him, “The first thing we have to figure out is how the hell we’re going to get you in there,” the supervisor said.
MacLellan, a coal-miner-turned-mine manager from Glace Bay, N.S., passed away at age 92 on Friday. He is remembered best for his six-decade involvement with The Men of the Deeps, the famed men’s chorus made up of miners. While his height made him a striking presence on stage, audiences most vividly recalled the monologues he delivered about the lives of coal miners and their communities.
Jenn Sheppard, who is writing a book about the group’s history, noted the emotional breadth of his performances. “Everybody in the audience was either crying from laughing so hard or crying from being emotional because he had an excellent way of crafting the whole thing,” she said.
A Founding Member’s Enduring Legacy
MacLellan was a founding member of the group. Though he joined in 1966 and took a decade-long hiatus from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s due to his work as a mine manager, he remained active with the chorus. He officially retired earlier this year, yet continued performing with them as late as September, marking his status as the last original member to perform with the group.
His son, Jim MacLellan—known affectionately as “Little Jim” due to standing only six-foot-two—reflected on his father’s dedication to the chorus. “He loved it. He loved the camaraderie, spending time with the guys and interacting with the audience … it meant a lot to him,” his son said. Beyond the travel across Canada and parts of the U.S., the younger MacLellan emphasized that his father valued sharing the realities of underground work, the necessity of teamwork, and the vital domestic partnerships where spouses managed households above ground.
The timing of MacLellan’s passing coincided with a performance by the choir. Choir director Stephen Muise said, “The fellas were all singing at that same time that Jim passed away and it just seems a bit surreal that it went down that way, but I guess it was meant to be.”
Honoring Sixty Years at the Savoy Theatre
The passing of MacLellan aligns with the 60th anniversary of the chorus’s first show, celebrated at the Savoy Theatre in Glace Bay. Sheppard reflected on the loss of MacLellan as a vital link to the group’s origins, describing him as a direct connection to “some ghosts from the past.”
Though MacLellan is gone, his distinctive voice and extensive repertoire of approximately one hundred coal mining stories remain preserved across the group’s recorded works. “Even though we don’t have Jim anymore, we’ve got those stories,” Muise said. “We got them recorded and people can listen to Jim’s stories forever.”
