Key Discoveries in the Last Half Century

Throughout the 19th century one of Ontario’s most urgent needs was to find a major source within the province of iron ore for the manufacture of steel. The need was abundantly satisfied during the last half century. Earlier, however, from the 1850s to the 1890s, many unsuccessful attempts were made to develop iron ore properties in Lanark, Leeds, Hastings and Renfrew counties. The failure of these initiatives led the Government of Ontario to offer generous bounties for the discovery of new sources of iron.

In the 1880s an immense iron deposit was discovered near Atikokan, 150 miles west of the present city of Thunder Bay, Ontario. It was brought into production in 1905. At the end of the 19th century the Helen Iron Mine near Wawa, north of Sault Ste. Marie, was put into production by the Algoma Steel Company. Earlier, Professor A.P. Coleman of the University of Toronto, working on an assignment for the Ontario Bureau of Mines north of Atikokan, had discovered a boulder of hematite iron ore on the shore of Steep Rock Lake. Following this discovery sporadic efforts were made to develop the Steep Rock iron ore potential.

Steep Rock Iron Mines

In 1902 Willett Miller, Ontario’s chief geologist, recommended that the bottom of Steep Rock Lake be examined, but a subsequent search was not successful. Through the persistence, however, of Julian Cross, a mining engineer and prospector who was convinced that an iron ore body was present, and in association with Joseph Errington and Thayer Lindsley, renowned for his development of Falconbridge Nickel Mines, a major ore body was identified, developed and placed in production by Steep Rock Mines Limited after an ore sales agreement was concluded with Cyrus Eaton, a Nova Scotia-born American industrialist and financier.

To gain access to the estimated 200 million tons of high quality ore for open-pit extracting, 90 feet of water — 70 billion gallons — and 300 feet of glacial silt and sand and 100 feet of boulder clay forming the lake bottom had to be removed and a river had to be diverted. Finally the amazing engineering feat was completed; by 1944 an open pit operation was under way and ore production commenced. Although operations came to an end in 1979, this was one of the most remarkable Canadian mining developments of the 20th century in Ontario. The exercise of skills of a different order resulted in the development of major mineral deposits near Manitouwadge, to the north and east of Marathon, on the northeast shore of Lake Superior.

Manitouwadge

The possible presence of copper deposits in the Manitouwadge area was first indicated in a report by James Thomson, a field geologist of the Ontario Department of Mines. In late June 1953, Roy Baker and William Davidowich, two part-time prospectors, staked claims that sparked a frenzied staking bee. Eventually more than 10,000 claims were staked in the area and four base metal deposits were defined. Two major mining companies, General Engineering Company Ltd. (GECO) and Willroy Mines Ltd., went into production in 1954. A variety of minerals— copper, gold, lead, silver and zinc—were mined.

The development of the Manitouwadge community was one of the first model projects planned jointly by the government of Ontario and the mining corporations involved. Experience gained in Manitouwadge proved to be of great value when the much larger Elliot Lake community was organized and brought into being shortly thereafter.

Elliot Lake Uranium Mines

In 1949 a prospector, Karl Gunterman, located and staked a radioactive oxidized conglomerate at the eastern end of Lauzon Lake, about 75 miles east of Sault Ste. Marie and a quarter mile north of the CPR line. Franc Joubin, trained in both chemistry and geology at the University of British Columbia, examined Gunterman’s find. While he encountered high radioactivity, he could not confirm the presence of uranium analytically. Subsequently Gunterman let his claims lapse, but Joubin continued to be intrigued by the paradox of high radioactivity and low assay results. Three years later, on the basis of new technical information gleaned in England, he concluded that perhaps the Lauzon Lake conglomerate could have been surface-leached of its uranium content.

Financed by Joe Hirshhorn, a mining promoter, Joubin staked a few claims. Drilling results proved that substantial uranium was present in unoxidized rock at depth. A search was launched for geological details of the extent and distribution of the unique conglomerate bed. Fortunately for Joubin and his colleagues, they found two copies of a map prepared by W.H. Collins and P. Eskola of the Geological Survey of Canada some 30 years earlier. From this now rare map, the radioactive conglomerate was traced out on the ground in the pattern of a huge “Z” measuring 90 miles in aggregate length. The “Backdoor Staking Bee” followed quickly. Details of this significant event and other features of Joubin’s fascinating career as a prospector and geologist are set out in his memoirs, Not For Gold Alone.

Two major mining companies, Rio Tinto Zinc of Great Britain — Rio Algom in Canada — and Denison Mines, a Canadian company, were the primary developers and eventual operators of the several mines on the “Big Z” whose potential value was estimated at $30 billion in 1980 dollars and which had produced $8 billion by 1990. This major development had resulted from the individual use of a primitive Geiger-Mueller counter and the intuitive application of geochemical knowledge. Different geophysical technology was utilized by Norman Keevil when he discovered high-grade copper in Temagami.

Temagami Mining and Teck Corporation

Norman Keevil, a native of Saskatchewan and early professor of geophysics at the University of Toronto, along with other mineral explorationists, began to use airborne magnetometers in their geological mapping and mining exploration activities soon after the Second World War ended. Late in 1954, with the most advanced geophysical equipment, Keevil located a number of small but very rich copper ore bodies on Temagami Island near Cobalt, Ontario. These deposits had been indicated earlier in a regional survey performed by others who had viewed them as too small for their objectives. The ore Keevil produced from his Temagami Copper mine was possibly the highest crude ore grade ever mined in Canada.

The success Keevil achieved through his operation in Temagami enabled him to acquire the assets of the celebrated Teck-Hughes Corporation, which became the base for the mighty Teck Corporation whose later worldwide interests he and his colleagues developed.

Kidd Creek

In 1963 the Texas Gulf organization, a wholly owned Canadian subsidiary of a United States Company, began to diamond drill the Kidd Creek airborne survey anomaly in the Timmins area. The following April (1964), Texas Gulf issued a press release reporting, in a limited way, on what they had found. Later it was established that a rich base metal mine of gigantic size had been discovered at Kidd Creek.

The zinc-copper-lead-silver deposit was placed into production in 1966; two smaller satellite deposits of gold, also at Kidd Creek, were brought into production later. Their discovery marked a technical milestone in mineral exploration.

The discovery of this enormously large and profitable ore body, coupled with the Gunterman-Joubin Geiger counter discovery of the huge Elliot Lake uranium field, clearly marked “the coming of age” of ground and airborne geophysics as an effective technique for the discovery of outcropping and/or overburden covered metal ore bodies. Prior to that time such discoveries could only be made by the presence of outcrops visible to a prospector on the ground.

Hemlo

Historically, the discovery of a gold deposit was always foremost in the mind of the prospector. In 1869 an Indian prospector, Moses Pe-Kong-Gay, found evidence of gold near the present town of Heron Bay on Lake Superior in Ontario. While shafts were soon sunk and some ore shipped, little of significance occurred during the next 70 years. A geologist of the Bureau of Mines recommended in 1931 that the area be explored further.

In 1944 another Indian, Peter Moses of Heron Bay, also discovered gold in the same general area near Hemlo. Some minor staking followed. Among those who staked and subsequently leased claims was Dr. J.K. Williams of Maryland, U.S.A. On his death his claims, still of unproven value, were inherited by his widow. A number of companies explored the area and performed casual examinations over a three decade period.

In December 1979 two professional prospectors, John Larche and Don McKinnon, restaked much of the general area and optioned it to others who then tested it by a relatively new technique— soil geochemistry. This involved systematically collecting samples of soil below the overburden and as close to bedrock as possible. Such samples were submitted to ultrasensitive analysis for several elements including gold. The program was conducted by the Corona Company, a junior unlisted British Columbia company under the direction of geologist David Bell. A gold anomaly was revealed in the soil with subsequent core drilling of the bedrock financed by larger mining corporations, Teck-Corona, Noranda and Lac Minerals. The drill development revealed some of the largest and richest newly discovered gold ore bodies in Ontario. The prosperous mining area is known as the “Hemlo Camp” after the nearest established community situated beside the Trans Canada Highway.

Conclusion

During the past two centuries prospecting and mining in Ontario have developed in a colourful, often accelerating, and highly dramatic manner. The following figures provide a glimpse of economic realism into the dramatic changes that have occurred.

The emergence of prospecting and mining in Ontario as a multi-billion dollar enterprise, based on a widening complex of increasingly sophisticated activities, is one of the amazing developments during Ontario’s last century. Knowledgeable authorities now estimate that one-seventh of all individuals employed in Ontario hold positions in, or closely related to, the mining industry. This is clearly understandable given the extent to which the industrial civilization that has brought us so many conveniences and so much comfort is dependent on a vast array of minerals.

Advances in the mining industry also reflect ongoing progress in geophysics, geochemistry, geobiology, satellite mapping and many other fields. But will the progress continue? Are “the glory days” in Ontario mining nearing an end? Given increased recognition of the need to attend to environmental concerns, will the industry be able to compete? Is the day of the individual prospector done? A few knowledgeable advocates, one of whom is the co-author of this chapter who has had long experience in the Canadian mining industry, are convinced the day of the individual prospector is not done!

Clearly the financial role played earlier in the mining industry by individuals or small syndicates has been taken over by multi-million or billion dollar public share corporations. Large amounts of money are necessary to bring promising prospects into production — but not necessarily to find them.

This has been demonstrated repeatedly as noted in this article. The work of the dedicated prospector is never finished. Every time the top- soil is disturbed a new window of opportunity is opened for the informed and serious prospector. Such new windows are opened every hour of the day and night.