Kirkland Lake

In 1906, just prior to the spectacular Porcupine-Timmins discoveries, claims had been staked by two brothers, named Burrows, at the site that subsequently became known as Kirkland Lake. Here in Teck Township, just east of Swastika and roughly half way between Cobalt and the Porcupine-Timmins camp, the Burrows brothers had discovered evidence of gold in that area but not gold of obvious importance. Nonetheless, they staked claims that attracted others to the area. One of these men, William H. Wright, a native of England who had worked as a butcher before serving in the British army, staked claims near those of the Burrows brothers. Later the claims Wright had staked with his brother-in-law, Ed Hargreaves, were found to be on the main ore-bearing fault structure, the “spinal column” of Kirkland Lake ore bodies and mining camp.

Another individual of prospecting temperament and energy, Harry Oakes staked lands on the southern shore of the lake immediately west of Wright’s claims. Although half of his property was under the lake, Oakes resolutely determined, against the advice of purported mining experts, to develop his prospect, which became the Lake Shore Mine. After the First World War Oakes was finally able to bring the Lake Shore Mine into production. It produced $100 million in dividends, much of it to Oakes himself. He had demonstrated an ability that became increasingly rare among prospectors as time went on. Oakes had identified the site, staked the claims, secured the necessary financing and brought the mine into exceedingly profitable production — while retaining in his own hands a substantial equity in the venture.

Sandy McIntyre, the “tie-on” staker to the Hollinger and Dome discoveries, whose claims subsequently became part of the mine bearing his name, also played a useful role at Kirkland Lake. He was employed by Jim Hughes to prospect claims that he and Hughes had purchased in Kirkland Lake next to Harry Oakes’ Lake Shore property. The exploration program proved successful and led to the incorporation in 1913 of the Teck-Hughes Gold Mine Limited, which up to 1968 had produced gold valued at more than $100 million.

In 1912, when its boundaries were finally established, the area of Ontario had increased from nearly 261,000 square miles to an estimated 407,262 square miles. Included in the enlarged Ontario was the entire area north of the Albany River to the south of Hudson Bay, known as the district of Patricia. Little was known of its mineral potential. This changed when major gold discoveries were made at Red Lake and Pickle Lake in the 1920s and mines were developed in that region in the 1930s.

Red Lake and Pickle Lake

In 1912 Willett Miller, Ontario’s chief geologist, released a report noting the gold potential of the Red Lake area. Two years later a further report was published on the geology of Red Lake prepared by Dr. E.L. Bruce, Professor of Geology at Queen’s University for the Ontario Department of Mines. Following up on these reports, two skilled prospectors, Lorne and Ray Howey of Kirkland Lake, went to Red Lake to prospect for gold. In late July 1925 they identified gold-bearing outcrops and the rush to Red Lake was “on”.

The Howey mine began production in 1930 with the financial support of Jack Hammell, a veteran promoter of Cobalt, the Porcupine and Kirkland Lake. Seven other mines were developed in the district. By 1988 the original eight mines and those developed later in the Red Lake camp had produced an estimated $1.8 billion in gold bullion.

The rush to Red Lake in 1926, involving more than 1,000 prospectors, was the last old-style rush in which dog teams and prospectors jostled for space along the narrow trail leading to the site of the discovery. In 1928 “Doc” Oakes, a flyer in the First World War; James A. Richardson, a Winnipeg businessman and Jack Hammell established Northern Aerial Minerals Exploration Limited (N.A.M.E.), the world’s first aerial prospecting company. These men had concluded that in the winter an aeroplane could fly, in an hour and a half, the same distance a dog team could travel in ten days. Since “getting there first” is essential in any rush to stake claims, the advantages to prospectors of travelling by air soon became obvious.

Two of Hammell’s prospectors served by N.A.M.E., — Jock MacFarlane and H.H. Howell — discovered gold in 1928 at Pickle Lake, about 200 miles almost due north of the present city of Thunder Bay. Despite its remoteness, Hammell’s courage and persistence were richly rewarded after Pickle Crowe came into production in 1935. A second mine, the Central Patricia, was developed beside Hammell’s Pickle Crowe; it operated profitably from 1934 until 1951.

The development of these and other gold-mining and prospecting ventures benefited substantially from action taken by President Franklin Roosevelt which, by early 1934, raised the price of gold from $20.67 to $35.00 per ounce. As a result, many individuals involved in such ventures did not experience the adverse effects of the Great Depression. Soon, however, all were caught up in the Second World War and the profound changes it set in motion.

New Technologies Take Command

The pattern of mining activities that had developed in Ontario by the late 1920s continued in much the same manner until the outbreak of the Second World War. The demands of war, however, required that more effective ways of doing things, new technologies, be employed. Comprehensive plans were put in place to ensure that the wartime search for strategic minerals was carried out efficiently. Teams of prospectors were sent into the field. The old-time prospector who worked alone, or the syndicate-financed prospector practically disappeared. Many of that type became “bush operators” for “junior” publicly financed corporations. New field instrumentation, such as Geiger counters, ground and, later, airborne magnetometers and other types of equipment, made possible the detection of mineral deposits beneath the top soil cover, in some instances for appreciable depths in the “basement rocks.”

These new devices, which reduced but did not eliminate the need for visual on-the-ground prospecting, facilitated the making of new discoveries. Use, however, was costly and aggressive junior, unlisted companies were forced to become senior listed, highly capitalized, corporations. Or the small company could convey its partially developed prospect to a larger, more adequately financed corporation.

As the search for minerals became increasingly sophisticated, the work of the Prospectors and Developers Association, which had been brought into being to protect the interests of Ontario prospectors in the early 1930s, took on new significance. Gradually it was transformed from a small, regional group into a highly respected, educational association of professionals engaged in mining exploration. Viola MacMillan, an experienced prospector who, with her husband George had developed a number of significant mining properties in several sections of Canada, was the person primarily responsible for this transformation with Federal Government endorsement. She rallied prospectors during the Second World War to learn of the Allies’ strategic mineral needs and to work in the field to find such minerals. She became the only woman appointed to Canada’s Wartime Metals Control Board.

Prospectors who worked with Viola MacMillan began to call her “The Queen Bee.” During her 20-year presidency of the Prospectors and Developers Association, until the early 1960s, she demonstrated in many ways how fully she merited the high regard and affection her fellow prospectors had for her. When the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame was founded, she was chosen as one of its early members.

A highly significant development early in the half century from 1941 to 1991 was the acceptance of collective bargaining in the mining industry. Prior to the Second World War, mine owners and managers were opposed, for the most part, to unionization by miners. A strike which began in Kirkland Lake in November 1941 proved to be a turning point in the gradual acceptance of collective bargaining not only in Ontario mines but in Canadian industry generally.

In March 1944, INCO, Ontario’s largest mining company, signed its first collective bargaining contract. From that time onwards a basic principle has been accepted. Since miners, individually and collectively, provide the labour that transforms potential mineral wealth into actual wealth, and since normally they have no legal status as individual employees within the mining companies, they merit the right, as a group, to organize and to bargain collectively, through their own freely chosen representatives, concerning wages, working conditions including occupational health and safety, and related matters. That principle was incorporated in the Ontario Collective Bargaining Act, passed in April 1943.