Three golden strands compose the fabric of Placer Dome’s historical perspective. They are the three major Canadian mining companies that combined in 1987 to form Canada’s premier gold producer mining over one million ounces a year from sites operating in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec (Canada) and in such distant countries as Mexico, Chile, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Australia. The three companies that became “more than the sum of their parts” were Dome Mines Limited; Campbell Red Lake Mines Limited, operating in Ontario and Quebec; and Placer Development Limited of Vancouver, British Columbia. Each of these companies played a significant role in the development of modern Canadian mining this century. The merger in 1987 brought together Canada’s most seasoned hard rock underground miners and British Columbia’s pioneering company in foreign project development and high-tonnage open pit mining.

Dome was first discovered in 1909 when a team of prospectors, financed by Chicago businessman W.S. “Pop” Edwards, came across an area containing large dome-like masses of quartz southwest of Porcupine Lake in northern Ontario. When one of the prospectors set off a blast of dynamite in a dome of quartz, they saw, according to one report, gold...“in blobs, like candle drippings, and in sponge-like masses, some of them as large as a cup.”

Within months Edwards had recruited American backers who had earlier financed International Nickel at Sudbury, Ontario. Before the end of the year a small plant was in operation. By early 1911 work had begun on the townsite of South Porcupine, but disaster struck in July when a forest fire swept across the property destroying the newly built mill, surface buildings and equipment, as well as claiming at least 73 lives. The fire, however, uncovered another rich surface vein of gold; so the facilities were quickly rebuilt and, by 1915, Dome, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, paid its first quarterly dividend.

In December 1917 Dome closed because of the Great War and did not resume production until June 1919 with Jules Bache, a New York investment banker, guiding the company as president until 1942 and as chairman for three more years. In 1920 a neighbouring ore zone “promising as to size and values” was added and became known as the Dome extension. Highlights of the depression years were the discovery of a new mine on that property as well as the optioning of Sigma Mines Limited in Val D’Or, Quebec, with production starting there in 1936.

The search for war materials such as tungsten and molybdenum, during World War II, created the establishment of Dome Exploration (Canada) Limited, which later became involved in oil and gas exploration. This led to the formation of another subsidiary, Dome Exploration (Western) Limited, which eventually grew into Dome Petroleum Limited of Calgary. In 1946 Dome took part in the development of another major northern Ontario gold site by acquiring a 57% stake in Campbell Red Lake Mines discovered in 1944. This mine went into production in Dome’s 40th year, and its exceptionally high-grade ore quickly established it as the number one producer of gold in Canada.

In the late 1950s Dome participated in a consortium that discovered important base metal ore bodies in the Mattagami Lake area along the Ontario/Quebec border and, during the same period, also took part in a joint venture in northwestern Canada that led to the formation of Canada Tungsten Mining Corporation Limited.
Since the amalgamation in 1987, Placer Dome’s acquisitions have included the Kiena Mine in Val D’Or and the development of the Detour Lake and Dona Lake sites in northern Ontario.

The history of Placer Development began in 1926 when Charles Banks, a British-educated mining engineer and native of New Zealand living in Vancouver at the time, met Addison Freeman, an Australian-born entrepreneur with American business connections. Because Canadian tax laws were favourable, it was decided to incorporate the com-pany in Vancouver and then carry out a daring offshore plan to dredge alluvial gold from the Bulolo River in New Guinea in the South Pacific. Placer’s first earnings from this venture were realized in 1933. A massive airlift of dissembled dredges over the mountains to the site was a feat that was to win Banks, as managing director of the company, a gold medal from the American Mining and Metallurgical Society in 1938.
 

1. The Granny Smith Mine in Western Australia was discovered by Ray Smith, a prospector from Ontario. This is a view of the coarse ore stockpile showing the dome for dust suppression. 2. At the Kidston Mine in Queensland Australia, an electric shovel loads ore onto a giant haul truck in the open pit mine.

Another significant area of operations for Placer Development in the 1930s and early ’40s was gold dredging in the rivers of Colombia, South America. Banks was succeeded in 1948 by John Simpson, a veteran of the New Guinea and Colombia ventures. By then Placer Development had also developed tungsten and lead-zinc operations at Salmo, British Columbia; Simpson wisely established lucrative tungsten sales contracts with the United States government before and during the Korean war. The financial strength resulting from these sales enabled Placer to expand into other large projects such as Craigmont, one of British Columbia’s first large open pit copper mines where today’s president, Tony Petrina, started his career as an engineer.

A key to Placer Development’s success both in British Columbia and abroad was the ability to manage the in-house design and construction of mine-building projects. Much of this was developed under Tom McLelland, another veteran of the Colombia project, who became president in the 1960s. Besides Craigmont, Placer constructed the Endako molybdenum mine in British Columbia and the Marcopper open pit copper mine on an island in the Philippines. Placer went on to construct Gibraltar and Equity in British Columbia as well as the Cortez, McDermitt and Bald Mountain sites in Nevada; a silver mine at Real de Angeles, Mexico; and the Kidston mine in Australia. Since the amalgamation with Dome and Campbell in 1987, properties brought into production include Big Bell and Granny Smith in western Australia and Misima and Porgera in Papua New Guinea.

This year the second stage of the La Coipa gold and silver mine in Chile is scheduled to be completed. Plans for the future include seeking out other pros-pects through the parent Canadian company or its subsidiaries, Placer Pacific Limited (75.8% owned) of Sydney, Australia; and Placer Dome U.S. Inc., (100% owned) of San Francisco.