This holiday season was the first I’ve spent in Mount Isa and although the heat was challenging it was an enjoyable experience.
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On Christmas morning I took a photo of Mount Isa Hospital with the Mount Isa Mines copper smelter in the background.
The photo wasn’t Christmassy but it showed people were still working 24 x 7 on Christmas morning in Mount Isa.
The hospital continued to look after its patients. The helipad next door was in use late on Christmas Eve with the Queensland government rescue chopper transporting patients to hospital around 11pm after a boat crash on Lake Julius.
Meanwhile catering staff at the hospital prepared to look after patients and fellow staff with Christmas dinner. The menu was healthy fruit, roast meats and vegetable options along with some treats.
Behind the hospital on the other side of the river is the familiar candy-cane Mount Isa Mines copper smelter which chugs away 7 x 24 hardly ever stopping since 1959.
It did close down earlier in 2018 for four weeks to allow $30m repairs to be made to the internal brick lining and concrete casing as well as painting. MIM laid 2500 tonnes of refractory bricks in the furnace as an eerie quiet descended on town.
But it was business as usual on Christmas Day with the familiar plume of white smoke wafting southward in the breeze.
It was a lot more than business as usual at Mount Isa’s Good Shepherd Catholic Church which was packed for Christmas midnight mass celebrating the birth of Jesus. “Almost 20 centuries later Jesus still sells and at Christmas everyone is interested in him,” Father Mick Lowcock said. “But it is more than just an interest for us, it speaks to our heart.”
Father Mick showed a powerful short film about how Palestinian people today in Bethlehem view Jesus.
"No way Mary and Joseph would get there from Nazareth today," says one taxi driver in the film, "they would not get past the Israeli wall." Father Mick said Jesus spoke to everyone regardless of religion and was the “prince of peace.”
“Peace will bring an end to disturbance,” he said. The North West Star agrees and wishes everyone a safe, peaceful and happy new year – Derek Barry
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
