Many associations help to ensure that mining history and memories endure, be they associations born of personal initiatives (Polish choirs, pigeon fancying clubs, municipal museums) or more institutionalised associations:

The Centre Historique Minier de Lewarde (Lewarde Historic Mining Centre) features a Mine museum, a documentary resource centre (archives, library) and a centre of scientific culture devoted to energy. The Centre is developing a research, publication and events programme (with exhibitions and symposia) in partnership with regional and foreign centres. The combination of the quality of the museums and the high level of the cultural activity, which gives particular priority to the intangible aspects of mining heritage, has meant that the CHML is now one of the premier national centres devoted to industrial memories in terms of the annual number of visitors (around 150,000).

Created in 1988, Chaîne des Terrils is an association which aims to implement a comprehensive protection, development and activities policy suitable for the slag heaps. It aims both to contribute to preserving, raising awareness of and encouraging people to reappropriate these sites and this collective memory. The slag heaps development and activities programme is manifested in a wide range of initiatives: discovery tours, promotion of the diversity of sites and landscapes, tourism and leisure activities development and participation in site redevelopment. In 2001, it was awarded national CPIE (Permanent Centre for Environmental Initiatives) status.

Culture Commune, Scène Nationale, Base 11-19, Loos-en-Gohelle

The Culture Commune association, created in 1990, leads a cultural development project across the Coalfield, which aims to reconstruct the image of the Basin, give an impetus to artistic and cultural development and work on the emergence of a new identity bolstered by all its past cultural legacies. A place of creation and distribution, the singularity of Culture Commune, which is based in the 11/19 pit top in Loos-en-Gohelle and was made a National Theatre in 1999, springs from a close collaboration and solidarity between the communes, the Pas-de-Calais Département, the Regional Authority and the State. The association focuses especially on preserving intangible mining heritage. By way of example, “Rendez-vous cavaliers”, spectacular walks around the old pit tops and coal transport networks, have been organised for a number of years. They work with professional theatre companies and inhabitants of the communes crossed by the cavaliers (mine railways) and produce work based on themes linked to memories and mining history.