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Salt Miners of Las Salinas
| Article
# : |
14690 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1988 |
1,126 Words |
| Author
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Gary Predmore
Gary Predmore is a freelance photojournalist who has worked
extensively in Central and South America since 1984. |
When Columbus' explorers first landed on the island of Hispaniola in 1492, salt making was an established and ancient practice in what is now the village of Las Salinas. The windswept salt flats and the blazing tropical sun provided a perfect combination through which the local Indian inhabitants could extract salt from seawater. The Indians dug small canals leading from the bay into the hard-baked ground. They then flooded small areas and let the wind and sun produce their natural result.
To the explorers, the methods and small pools that the local Indians were using must have seemed primitive at best. Salt making at Las Salinas appears no less primitive to us today, when compared to our modern ways of extracting salt from the sea and the earth. Located about eighty kilometers west of the capital city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, the small fishing village of Las Salinas now seems too quaint a place for the production of salt.
Approaching the salt flats, one first notices a huge mountain of salt--at least a hundred feet high--looming at the entrance t the mine. With its 1930s-style single-gauge railroad, along which locomotives pull miniature ore cars, the salt-production operation looks more like a ride at Disneyland than a significant industrial activity. One almost expects to see local tourist buses pulling in and disgorging camera-toting visitors on the hour, every hour.
But salt making at Las Salinas is very harsh and serious business. The salt from this complex supplies the daily requirements for the country as a whole and indeed for many neighboring countries. Today, the area consists of acres and acres of white, encrusted flats produced by thousands of salt operations over many centuries. Manuel Rodriguez, now the local foreman, remembers the continuous production of salt on the flats during his lifetime. "I was born in the local village and grew up and spent my whole life working in this mine," he said. "Never missed a day except Sundays and holidays--not even during revolutions!"
The elements of salt production persist today much as they have for centuries. Large canals transport water from the sea and deposit it throughout a maze of pools on the salt flats. Thruways and railway tracks thread their way across the flats, giving workers access to the pools. Constant and heavy sea breezes buffet the whole peninsula, and during the day the hot tropical sun causes a continuous evaporation process to take place. The evaporation leaves the pure salt crystals shining in the sun. Using a small raft, workers
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