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Cariboo
Gold Quartz, Armed Guard During Wartime. WP566
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War
broke out in Europe in September 1939, with the German attack
on Poland which led
Britain
and France to declare war on Germany. Canada joined in the fight
and the First Canadian Army was formed in England in April 1942.
Economic recovery arrived and was welcomed by all Canadians. Because of war supplies needed (guns, small arms, and food)
industrial and agricultural activity increased. New factories
and ships were built, in addition to aircraft and 815,729 military
vehicles. By late 1942, there were 5 Canadian army divisions
overseas. Employment became overemployment, with women entering
the labour force in droves to replace the men overseas. During
the war, 1,086,343 Canadian men and women served full-time duty.
Sadly,
when the Second World War broke out, gold mining was classified
as a non-war industry; hence, making
it difficult for the mining companies to obtain supplies and
skilled labourers. The lack of skills was also responsible for
insufficient new development to maintain ore
reserves on Cow Mountain. Thus, began the long downturn
of the thriving town of Wells, British Columbia. The fortunes
of the mines began to quickly decline from mid-1942 onwards,
thereby affecting the entire community. Government regulations,
due to the war, froze wages and because wood cutting for the
central heating plant of the mine was classified as non-essential,
it was changed over to coal brought up from Vancouver Island.
Without wood to supply the heating plant, the mill could not
continue. Wells almost became a ghost town during this period.
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Wells
Resident in uniform, LH37
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The
end of the war arrived, and by 1946 optimism had returned to
the Wells residents that the gold boom would continue. However,
the fixed price of gold remained at $35.00 per troy
ounce (U.S.) for the next twenty-two years until 1968. Combined
with skyrocketing inflation, companies could no longer profit
from the business of hard rock gold mining. The Cariboo Gold
Quartz Mining Company bought Island Mountain Mining Company
in 1954, and renamed it Aurum Mine with little success, closing
for good in 1967. Although the Depression had little effect
upon the town of Wells compared with the rest of the world,
World War Two and rising inflation devastated the business of
mining for gold and eventually forced people to look elsewhere
for work.