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Elliot Lake

Judge hearing case on whether federal agency should order removal of mining waste from Elliott Lake properties – by Kate Rutherford (CBC News Sudbury – July 03, 2024)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says remediation of properties outside its jurisdiction

Three Elliott Lake homeowners are being represented in federal court today and tomorrow by the Canadian Environmental Law Association. They’re asking a judge to order the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to compel the clean-up of mining waste from their properties.

The three all own properties where waste rock from Rio Algom uranium mines was used as fill under and around their homes when they were built in the 1970s. The homes all have higher than acceptable levels of radon gas and require special mitigation to keep them safe.

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‘Enough hot air, we want fresh air’: How a wildcat miners’ strike helped change Ontario labour law – by Jamie Bradburn (TVO Today – April 18, 2024)

https://www.tvo.org/

Fifty years ago, uranium miners in Elliot Lake hit the picket line, triggering a series of events that led to protections for all workers in the province

“Silicosis is an incurable lung disease that can lead to disability and death. Silicosis is the result of the body’s response to the presence of silica particles in the lung. Silica particles are very small in size and can reach deep into the lungs (into the alveoli), where they are removed by white blood cells.

Free crystalline silica causes the white blood cells to break open, which forms scar-like patches on the surface of the alveolus. When a large number of these “scars” form, the alveolar surfaces become less elastic. Over time, this damage reduces the transfer of gases, which can lead to shortness of breath.” — Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety website

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A champion for Elliot Lake, George Farkouh dies – by Staff (Sudbury.com – September 4, 2023)

https://www.sudbury.com/

Former mayor and businessman led an internationally lauded revival from down-and-out mining town to successful retirement community

George Farkouh, the former mayor of the City of Elliot Lake who helped shepherd the northeastern Ontario community from mining town to a wildly successful retirement community, died at his home on Aug. 29. He was 76. Farkouh was mayor from 1989 to 2006.

Born in Acre, Palestine in 1947, he moved with his family to Beirut, Lebanon and from there to Canada in the 1950s, reuniting with a sibling and eventually settling in the newly created uranium mining town of Elliot Lake. His wife of 50 years, Louise, was a neighbour.

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They thought they’d found an affordable place to live. They were never told about the radioactive mining waste – by Marco Chowan Oved and Declan Keogh (Toronto Star – June 15, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

Recent testing at four houses in Elliot Lake reveal elevated levels of gamma radiation and concentrations of radon gas far exceeding safety guidelines. There could be up to 60 homes in the community currently on top of mine waste, documents allege.

A cluster of homes in Elliot Lake sits atop a deadly secret. Radioactive tailings from long-closed mines in northern Ontario –– which produced uranium for atomic bombs –– were allegedly used as infill when the subdivision was established decades ago, emitting gamma rays and poisonous gasses into and around people’s homes.

The dangers have long since been forgotten and the mine has been shut down. Recent testing at four houses in the area, however, reveals that there are still elevated levels of gamma radiation and concentrations of radon gas far exceeding safety guidelines, according to thousands of documents shared exclusively with the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) and the Toronto Star.

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[Elliot Lake] Local historian recalls city since his family’s arrival in 1957 – by Kris Svela (Elliot Lake Today – April 14, 2023)

https://www.elliotlaketoday.com/

According to him there were at least two major shopping spots, Kressge and Hudson Bay, where he would eventually have one of his first jobs

Elliot Lake’s Historical Society hosted its monthly meeting Wednesday with special guest speaker and local historian Bill Gareau talking about his memories of the community since his family moved here in 1957.

Gareau is well known on Facebook as he regularly posts historical pictures of mining works in Elliot Lake from 1955 to the mid- 1990s when uranium mining operations closed here. His parents settled during in Elliot Lake with the mining rush is 1957 and Gareau and his own family have lived her ever since.

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Northern Ontario’s mining memorials tell a tale of hard-fought labour protections – by Bill Steer (Bay Today – January 19, 2022)

 

https://www.baytoday.ca/

Back Roads Bill Steer is the founder and remains the GM of the Canadian Ecology Centre. He teaches part-time at Nipissing University (Schulich School of Education) and Canadore College. His features can be found across Village Media’s Northern Ontario sites.

With the help of the region’s scholars, Back Roads Bill recounts the struggles and horrific working conditions endured by early miners and the reason we should all remember them

It is part of a history lesson we know little about, so perhaps we need a little schooling. Envision hard rock miners, once toiling far underground in dark, cramped and dangerous conditions; it was arduous and risky work.

They emerged tired and dirty at the end of their shifts, walking back to small wood-sided homes and their immigrant families. Mining, along with forestry, created what was then called ‘New Ontario,’ — what we know as Northern Ontario.

Indigenous mining in the north began after the last period of glaciations, people of the Plano culture moved into the area and began quarrying quartzite at Sheguiandah on Manitoulin Island. Mining is an important economic activity in Northern Ontario. It has been since the first copper mines at Bruce Mines in 1846 and Silver Islet in 1868.

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Serpent River First Nation (SRFN) acid plant still an environmental issue after 64 years – by Leslie Knibbs (Sudbury Star – October 28, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

In 1957, the Cutler acid plant opened in Serpent River First Nation (SRFN) after the Canadian government negotiated a 99-year lease with mining company Noranda Mines, which was at the time involved in the uranium mining industry in Elliot Lake. The plant was established to process uranium from Elliot Lake’s mines.

SRFN member, Lianne Leddy documented the story of the effects of the acid plant in her book, ‘Serpent River Resurgence.’

Lianne Leddy, a member of SRFN and professor from Wilfred Laurier University said in a recent interview, “When the plant was in operation, the fumes caused deforestation in the area, damage to roofs, community gardens, cars and even holes in the laundry drying out on the line.

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Funding approved to install final statue in Elliot Lake’s Miner’s Memorial Park – by Colleen Romaniuk (Sudbury Star – June 19, 2020)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Almost 20 years after Laura Brown Breetvelt was commissioned by Elliot Lake to design and produce the Miner’s Monument, the city is gearing up to install the final statue in the installation.

In a special session held on June 15, City Council approved a payment of $27,000 to Beamish Construction to install the statue at the site located on Highway 108 beside Horne Lake.

The final piece in what the Merrickville, Ont.-based sculptor calls “a trilogy” is a full-sized metal statue of a uranium prospector that pays homage to Elliot Lake’s former role as Canada’s uranium mining capital.

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From mining town to retirement destination—the transformation of Elliot Lake – by Erik White (CBC News Sudbury – July 8, 2018)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Elliot Lake was on the brink of becoming of ghost town when the mines closed in the early 1990s.

Four seniors from southern Ontario are quietly sitting in the back of a mini-van as it whizzes up and down the hilly, curvy streets of Elliot Lake. In the driver’s seat, Retirement Living tour guide Linda McKay is far from quiet.

“You’re going to feel like you’re going in circles all the time, and you’re going to get dizzy, but you’ll never get lost,” McKay tells them. She tells the visitors, who were put up in a hotel in the town last night, about everything from the transit service to where they might spot some wild foxes.

McKay drives past the vacant lot where the mall that “collapsed on us” used to stand, referring to the Algo Centre Mall disaster that killed two women in 2012. “Tired yet?” she asks.

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Ontario Mine Rescue gathers some history in Elliot Lake – by Kevin McSheffrey (Elliot Lake Standard – January 17, 2018)

http://www.elliotlakestandard.ca/

With 2019 being the 90th anniversary of Ontario Mine Rescue, two members of the organization were in Elliot Lake recently to gather some of its history in preparation for next year’s event.

Ted Hanley, Ontario Mine Rescue general manager at its head office in Sudbury, and a student researcher Justin Konrad, were scanning and photographing many of the exhibits in Elliot Lake’s Mine Rescue Collection at the Elliot Lake and Nuclear Mining Museum on Jan. 10.

Ken Pierce, Elliot Lake’s local historian and the former regional mine rescue instructor based in the community when the mines were operating, was assisting them. Hanley says he first came to the Elliot Lake and Nuclear Mining Museum two years ago and viewed the Mine Rescue Collection, on Pierce’s invitation.

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No One Wants To Talk About Ontario’s Disappearing Blue-Collar Communities – by Robert Waite (Huffington Post – October 16, 2017)

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

A lot can happen to a city or town in 35 years. Take Toronto — in 1982 the city still sported nicknames like “Toronto the Good” and “Hog Town.”  Visitors from New York and Montreal had another word for it: “Boring.”

Several decades (and several million more people) later, Toronto has transformed into one of the world’s most vibrant and diverse cities.

But this story isn’t about Toronto. It is about a town in Northern Ontario, Kapuskasing, located a good 10-hour drive (about 800 kilometres) away. It is about the fact that even in an age of global warming, life in Canada north of 45 degrees latitude (49.4, to be exact) can be precarious.

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Ontario Mining History: The Elliot Lake story – by Dit Holt (Northern Miner – January 8, 2001)

http://www.northernminer.com/

The evolution of Elliot Lake, Ont. — from a logging and fur-trapping centre in the early 1900s to the uranium capital of the world in the 1950s and 1960s, and then to its present status as one of most successful retirement communities in Canada — is unique. And few people know that history better than M.E. (Dit) Holt, a mining engineer who began his career by taking part in the staking rush that transformed a remote wilderness north of Lake Huron into a mining boom town.

In the next few months, Holt will bring that history back to life through a series of columns featuring the men (in those days, mining was a man’s game) who found, financed and developed a total of 11 mines in the district.

To set the stage, we’ll go back to 1948, when Aim Breton and Karl Gunterman discovered radioactive rock in Long Twp., east of Blind River. However, significant deposits of the radioactive element were not found, and Breton and Gunterman let their claims lapse. In 1952, prospector Franc Joubin (1911-1997), backed by financier Joseph Hirshhorn (1900-1981), restaked the lapsed claims and set out to determine exactly what was exciting his geiger counter.

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Barrick’s Munk Heads Top Ten Most Important Mining Men in Canadian History – by Stan Sudol

Melanie and Peter Munk
Melanie and Peter Munk

An edited version of this list was published in the February/March issue of the Canadian Mining Journal.

Four Americans Made the List!

A few months ago, my dear colleague Joe Martin, who is the Director of the Canadian Business & Financial History Initiative at Rotman and President Emeritus of Canada’s History Society, asked me a very simple question: who would be considered the most important individual in Canadian mining?

Considering Canada’s lengthy and exceptional expertise in the mineral sector, it was not an easy answer and I decided to research and create a top ten list of the most important mining men in Canadian history.

The lack of women on this list simply reflects the fact that for much of our history most women were not given the educational or social opportunities to excel in business, especially in a rough and male-dominated sector like mining. Times have changed, women are playing key roles in mining today and will definitely be included on this list in the future.

However, a few qualifiers need to be established. This is basically a list of mine builders not mine finders.  Building a company through takeovers and discoveries is one way but I am also focusing on individuals who have built corporate empires and/or who have developed isolated regions of the country with the necessary infrastructure for mines to flourish and create multi-generational jobs, shareholder wealth and great economic impact.

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ELLIOT LAKE’S GLAMOROUS RISE AND BITTER FALL – by McKenzie Porter (MACLEAN’S Magazine – July 16, 1960)

http://www.macleans.ca/

This is a candid portrait of the hundred-million-dollar boom town that was built on uranium—the mineral with sex appeal— and of the mesmerized thousands who learned the hard way that it was just another mining camp after all

ELLIOT LAKE IS the most elaborate mining camp ever built, and until recently it was the luckiest. Although it is buried in the northern Ontario bush, half way between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, it looks like a metropolitan suburb.

Moose, bears and wolves peep nervously down from majestic heights of rock and pine upon a hundred million dollars’ worth of fluorescent lights, crescent streets, split-level homes, three – story apartment blocks, cantilevered shopping plazas, breeze-way schools, wide-screen movie theatres, picture-window hotels, functional churches, a lakeshore community centre and the finest hospital north of Lake Huron.

Ed Gibbons, a former editor of the Elliot Lake Standard, once described the town as “a frontier monument to the architectural theories of Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright,” and he spoke more in wonder than in jest.

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How Joe Hirshhorn Hit the Uranium Jackpot – by David MacDonald (MACLEAN’S Magazine – October 29, 1955)

http://www.macleans.ca/

Even when geologists said there couldn’t be uranium at Blind River this brash and bouncy little financial wizard tossed in $30,000 and struck a spectacular bonanza. He wasn’t surprised. “Making money comes easy to me,” he says, “ — like breathing”

ALONG Toronto’s Bay Street, the frenetic mining capital of North America, veteran prospector and minemaker Gilbert A. LaBine had long been acknowledged—until recently—as the uranium king of Canada. The reason was obvious. It was LaBine who had found the continent’s first pitchblende, at Great Bear Lake, in 1930; LaBine whose Eldorado mine helped usher in the atomic age over Hiroshima; and LaBine who, in the northern wilds of Saskatchewan, came up with Gunnar, Canada’s first truly big uranium strike.

Today—for reasons equally obvious—the top man in uranium is no longer LaBine, a conservative grey-haired elder of the industry, but Joseph H. Hirshhorn, a flashy fast-talking little mining promoter from the borough of Brooklyn, N.Y., whose exploits on Bay and Wall Streets have won him millions of dollars and a gambler’s reputation for playing long shots.

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