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Northern Ontario History

Spirit of Schumacher still lingers – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press March 2, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – The landscape of Schumacher may have changed over the years, but the community’s vibrant spirit and heritage is being kept alive and well.

Like those of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Dr. TJ Eckleburg in The Great Gatsby, legendary philanthropist Frederick Schumacher’s eyes still watch over the town that bears his name.

A party honouring 101 years of the community’s existence and heritage was held at the McIntyre Arena, the building where Schumacher’s portrait is mounted on the exterior. Friday, Mar. 1 was Mr. Schumacher Day, and the Schumacher Arts, Culture and Heritage Association (SACHA) celebrated in style.

“It’s a committee that’s been together for a year now,” said Rob Knox, a member of the SACHA committee. “Our focus has been the preservation of Schumacher arts, culture and architecture, and celebrating the citizenry of Schumacher and the diverse and wonderful history of this small mining community.

“We’ve undertaken a few various community events in an efforts to elevate the notion of Schumacher as a community and its history and its overall contribution to the city of Timmins and the Porcupine Mining Camp.”

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Excerpt from “Haywire My Life in the Mines” – by Doug Hall

This autobiographical book describes the Doug Hall’s family through war and depression, and goes on to relate his experiences underground in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s. It is written from the point of view of the average Joe who went underground when he was eighteen and didn’t know what he was getting into. The author considers himself lucky to have survived those years.

Click here to order an e-book of “Haywire My Life in the Mines”: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/269905

Working on the Grizzly

So anyway there I was one day working in a gang of guys with Old Abel when the Shift Boss or Captain or some such dignitary came up to us and said, “I need a man with a safety belt to work on the grizzly”. Now probably at that point I should have been a bit brighter and taken note of how all the other men in the crew were suddenly looking at the ground or the side of the drift or just about anyplace else except at this chap who needed a man for the grizzly. And to compound things I looked directly at this chap and said, “I’ve got a safety belt”. I noticed then how some of the other men in the crew seemed to relax and some of them even looked the visiting dignitary right in the face as if to say, “Gee I was going to volunteer but that other guy beat me to it”. And so that was how I became a grizzly man.

For the uninitiated perhaps I should explain what a grizzly is. It’s basically a steel grating with various sized holes placed over the top of an ore-pass. Usually a scooptram driver but sometimes trammers on the railroad tracks would put rocks of varying sizes (i.e. muck) on top of the grizzly and then the grizzly men would have to put the rocks through the grizzly so that the rocks would be small enough to go through the chutes in the loading pocket down below. The grizzly men would do this using a scaling bar, a sledge hammer or by drilling and blasting the rocks, sometimes after dragging them to the back of the grizzly using a tugger hoist.

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History of Ring of Fire and Rail or Road for Transportation? [Parts 1 and 2] – by Stan Sudol (February 2 and 4, 2013)

KWG Resources CEO Frank Smeenk holds a core sample from the Big Daddy chromite discovery. KWG with joint venture partner Spider Resources made history by drilling the first chromite discovery hole on March 6,2006, the first showings of this strategic mineral in the Ring of Fire. (Photo by Stan Sudol)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

This column was published in the February 2 and 4 editions of the Sudbury Star:

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2013/02/02/ring-of-fire-rail-or-road

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2013/02/04/cos-spar-over-ore-transport

stan.sudol@republicofmining.com

Without a doubt, the number one technical issue that will make or break the Ring of Fire’s enormous economic potential – currently estimated at $60 billion (MNDM) for world-class chromite deposits along side nickel, copper and PGMs – is transportation infrastructure.

Located in the isolated James Bay swampy lowlands of northern Ontario, the closest infrastructure to the Ring of Fire is 330 kms south in the tiny community of Nakina where the Canadian National railroad and the end of Highway 584 intersect.

Since Cliffs announced their decision to move their $3.2 billion chromite project into the feasibility phase, last May, and the Ontario Government’s decision to “support in principle” the North-South infrastructure corridor, junior explorer KWG Resources has been largely ignored. This might be a mistake as KWG CEO Frank Smeenk, through the company’s Canada Chrome subsidiary, controls the key strategic transportation route into the region as well as 30% of the Big Daddy chromite deposit.

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TIMMINS HISTORY: Mine mishap caused a stir – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – January 27, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Every community, from Paris to Timbuktu, from Toronto to Earlton, has its fair share of, for lack of a better word, “colourful characters” and eccentrics.

Kirkland Lake had Roza Brown (a woman way before her time who sure knew how to live). Elk Lake claims John Munroe (war hero, mining man, mayor and surely someone who could have been the first candidate for his own reality programme).

We here in the Porcupine seem to have an unending supply: Tommy Jack, Maggie Leclair, Sandy McIntyre, and, although not purely from the Porcupine, a celebrated priest known as Father Charles Paradis.

Notorious, revolutionary and with a blazing zeal to see the Northland colonized, Paradis has left his mark from Temiskaming up to the Porcupine. Recognized or not, we still live with his influence and his controversial views on land and river management.

Charles Paradis was born in Kamouraska, Que., in 1848. He completed his studies at the seminary in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière and headed to Ottawa where he taught art.

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Excerpt from “The History of Mining: The events, technology and people involved in the industry that forged the modern world” – by Michael Coulson

To order a copy of The History of Mining please click here: http://www.harriman-house.com/products/books/23161/business/Michael-Coulson/The-History-of-Mining/

CANADIAN GOLD RUSHES/ NOAH TIMMINS (1867-1936)

The 19th century ended with Canada firmly in the world’s consciousness thanks to the fabulous Klondike gold rush. By the middle of the 20th century Canada would be established as one of the most powerful economies in the world and an important diplomatic player following its key roll on the Allied side in both world wars. The economic underpinning, which enabled Canada to advance to the edge of major power status, was mining. In 1900 the country produced minerals to the value of US$64 million – by the beginning of the Second World War that figure had risen to $567 million and today it is nearer to $45 billion.

Today Canada’s population is only around 35 million, making it very much a mid-range country in those terms, but it is a long-standing member of the Group of 7 (or G7), the meeting of the largest economies in the world. Its standard of living is amongst the highest in the world and its proximity to the world’s largest economy, the USA, is of major benefit as Canada is an exporter of high quality, high value, advanced products to its rich neighbour.

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[Timmins] Hollinger house to be saved – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – January 17, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – Those worried about one of the finest and most accurate links to the city’s past needn’t worry. The last remaining original Hollinger house will survive the sale of the property it sits on.

More than 300 of the historic homes were built after 1913, when Noah Timmins founded the mythical Hollinger Mine. Most of the homes were located between Algonquin Boulevard and Vimy Avenue and were instantly memorable because of their bright alternating green and red tar-paper patterns.

The house overlooking downtown Timmins at the top of Shania Twain Drive is of the green variety. Mayor Tom Laughren said that while he doesn’t know where yet, the old Hollinger house behind the Shania Twain Centre and the Underground Gold Mine Tour will be moved to a new location.

Earlier this month, Timmins council declared its intention to sell the property, on which the attractions currently sit, to the Goldcorp mining company. Plans are in the works to demolish the Shania Twain Centre and absorb the mine tour site into a proposed open pit. But the mayor said that the Hollinger house means too much to the city to let go.

“I think when we were talking land and buildings, it’s more related to the Shania Twain Centre, as well as the buildings that are kind of attached to the Gold Mine Tour,” said Laughren about the property sale.

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Excerpt from “The History of Mining: The events, technology and people involved in the industry that forged the modern world” – by Michael Coulson

To order a copy of The History of Mining please click here:http://www.harriman-house.com/products/books/23161/business/Michael-Coulson/The-History-of-Mining/

THOMAS FROOD (1837-1916)

Thomas Frood was one of a large number of amateur mineral prospectors who opened up the great Canadian north for mining development. Frood, however, was one of an exclusive group who could claim a major discovery, which in his case was the Sudbury copper and nickel district of central Ontario, the home of Inco and Falconbridge, Canada’s two largest nickel miners.

Frood was born in McNab in Renfrew County, eastern Ontario, in 1837. His parents Thomas and Barbara Frood were immigrants from Scotland and his father farmed in McNab. He was educated, as was the practice then, at home and as a youth also worked on the family farm. He took up teaching himself and for many years taught in a variety of Ontario townships as Canada developed its public school system. He also worked in the army medical corps between 1866 and 1871 during the Fenian raids over the border made by dissident Irishmen resident in the US. Following this, Frood became a chemist and opened his own chemist’s shop in Southampton, a seaside town on Lake Huron. He also married his first wife, Mary, in 1865 and they had two daughters.

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To understand how we got to Attawapiskat, go back to the 1905 James Bay Treaty – by Jonathan Kay (National Post – January 4, 2013)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Attawapiskat First Nation chief Teresa Spence is not engaged in “terrorism,” as one Postmedia writer notoriously suggested last week. Terrorists blow themselves up. Ms. Spence, by contrast, is sitting in a snow-covered teepee on Victoria Island in the Ottawa River. Let’s not play the game of using the T-word to describe everyone we simply don’t like.

On the other hand, Ms. Spence isn’t a true “hunger striker” either, since she reportedly is drinking fish broth and various herbal potions. We don’t know how many calories she’s taking in on a daily basis, so we can’t discount the possibility that she really will starve herself to death. But she is not a true Bobby Sands-style hunger striker. Terminology is important, whether you’re talking about death by Semtex, or starvation.

Finally, Ms. Spence is not an icon of “grass roots” native rage — as some suggest. She is a band chief, with an office and salary paid for by regular Canadian taxpayers. Attawapiskat may be tiny and poor, but it has its own development corporation, airport, local services and homegrown management scandals. The band takes in millions from a local diamond mine. True “grass roots” organizations can only dream of such resources.

But even if Ms. Spence is not a terrorist, nor a true hunger striker, nor a genuine grass roots activist, I would argue that we still need to pay attention: The very real plight of Attawapiskat First Nation encapsulates everything that has gone wrong with aboriginal policy for generations.

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Scenes from a Carriage Dream (Ontario Northland Railroad] – by Dan Hokstad (North Bay Nugget – November 17, 2012)

http://www.nugget.ca/

Dan Hokstad is a teacher and author of The Sacred Ash. On the web: www.danhokstad.com

Railroads run through our city like arteries, and they have always been the lifelines of North Bay: the heart of a community built “north of the bay.” Knowing that people traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific or from the Great Lakes to James Bay, and that they passed through our neck of the woods, was like being joyously coupled with the rest of the world. As a child in bed, drifting off to sleep, the resonating train whistles that reached your window would stir enough images of adventures to fill a thousand dreams.

The sheer excitement and anticipation of standing at the C.P.R. Station downtown, waiting to welcome family home or board a train yourself, was blissful happiness. On more than one occasion, I journeyed east; truth be told, I often rode (somewhat surreptitiously) with the conductor in the baggage car. The exhilaration and danger of standing in a freight car, with the door wide open as the Ottawa valley rumbled by, was thrilling and unforgettable.

And, as I helped sort the luggage and packages, he told me tales. One was about the legendary strength of Bonfield native Ernie Foisy. Ernie could single-handedly lift a rail line; he would often tuck a ten-spot under it, and then advise the latest brakeman that it was his to keep – if he could get it. None ever could.

Boarding the train at the C.N. Station on Fraser Street was just as enthralling. For many, it was the anticipation of the Northlander and a spiritual trip north through the Canadian Shield. For me, it meant a direct link to Toronto.

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B.C.’s low-wage migrant coal mining jobs send us back to the future – by Thomas Walkom (Toronto Star – October 13, 2012)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Early on in the 20th century, the silver and gold mines of Northern Ontario imported thousands of foreign workers. The mine owners said they were filling a labour shortage. But their real reason was to keep wages down.

So when native-born, anglophone miners went on strike in Cobalt or the Porcupine region, the owners shipped in French-Canadians. And when they went on strike, Finns were brought in and, after them, Ukrainians and Poles and Italians and Englishmen from Cornwall.

In every case, the point of the exercise was to bring in workers who were less likely to make common cause with those already there and who, therefore, would be willing to work for less.

It was an ugly time in our history and it gave rise to very ugly labour disputes. So it is depressing in the extreme to see employers, aided and abetted by the federal government, engage in the same discredited tactics.

The latest and most bizarre example comes from British Columbia where, as the Vancouver Sun has reported, four brand new coal mines in the province’s northeast are bringing in just under 2,000 temporary Chinese migrants to do most of the work.

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Fond farewell to an icon, friend [Hemlo co-founder John Larche] – by Benjamin Aubé (Timmins Daily Press – October 12, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – In the days after his death, he is being described by many as a hero and a legend, as a man of generosity and humility. But up until his final days, John Larche only ever saw himself as a simple prospector.

On Friday, Larche was laid to rest at the Timmins Memorial cemetery after a funeral mass at Église Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix. “My father’s biggest dream in life was not mining related,” said Larche’s son Paul. “His biggest dream was to raise his family with values that would carry them well through life so that they could realize happiness and the full potential of their aspirations, whatever they may be.

“Values you know my father for; honesty, integrity, humility, and a moral compass that pointed as true North as his prospectors compass.” Larche died peacefully on Thanksgiving Monday, Oct. 8 at the age of 84. Pre-deceased by his first wife, Violet, Larche is survived by his wife Dolores, his five children, Paul, David, Nicole, John and Lise, as well as his 16 grandchildren.

He was known largely for founding the famous Hemlo Gold Mine in the early 1980s near Marathon, Ont. with fellow prospector and business-partner Don McKinnon, who died just two months ago.

In 1983, Larche was named co-recipient of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s Prospector of the Year Award. From 1984-1988, he presided over the Prospectors Association of Canada and became the country’s top spokesperson in exploration.

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Mining legend built legacy by giving back [John Larche dies] – by Kyle Gennings (Timmins Daily Press – October 8, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Timmins lost one of the golden pillars of its community this Thanksgiving Day. John Larche died of natural causes, surrounded by his family at Timmins and District Hospital on Monday morning. He was 84.

It was the final page in a life highlighted by a long list of accomplishments which changed the face of the prospecting and mining industry the world round; it was the final page in a life that saw both hardship and success, one that was built on giving back, a life that cemented him in the memory of the City with the Heart of Gold

Larche was one of the true legends of the Porcupine Camp, as one of Canada’s most successful prospectors and in term of generosity in the community. He became involved in exploration in 1955, as an independent prospector and contractor.

He remained active in the industry until shortly before his death. Beginning in the late 1960s, he was elected president of the Porcupine branch of the Prospectors and Developers Association for 17 consecutive terms.

“He was a long-time friend,” said Dean Rogers, the association’s current president. “John was one of the stalwarts of the Porcupine Camp’s second generation, a true legend”

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[Ontario] Northlander makes its final run – by Liz Cowan (Northern Ontario Business – October 2012)

Established in 1980, Northern Ontario Business provides Canadians and international investors with relevant, current and insightful editorial content and business news information about Ontario’s vibrant and resource-rich North.

Sad farewell

“When we laid our rail in 1902

In a land so bright and new

It brought prosperity to people near and far . . .

Something to sing about

This line of ours.”

— Something to Sing About, a song about the ONR written by R. Gervais, circa 1965.

The rail tracks screech and groan as the Northlander leaves the Cochrane train station Sept. 28, shortly after 8 a.m., as it has done many times before. But this day is different. It’s the last time the engine will pull out. There’s a group of photographers set up beyond the train to capture the departure for posterity and people remaining on the platform wave to the passengers.

Despite a previous rally inside the station and on the platform, led by impassioned Cochrane Mayor Peter Politis, there’s an underlying air of melancholy and loss.

The Ontario government announced the divestment of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC) in March. Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci said while the business is good, the business model is not.

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Boozy temperance tales [Timmins history] – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – September 28, 2012)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Karen Bachmann is the director/curator of the Timmins Museum and a local author.

TIMMINS – Hope you enjoy the quick snapshot of life in Timmins in 1917. To begin with, change seems to have been the order of the day as the Tisdale Council was swept out of office and replaced with an entirely new slate.

Sylvester Kennedy won what was described as a “landslide” – a 37 vote majority, over the incumbent E. Dickson. The campaign was described as “vigourous.” Cards, flyers and “counter-irritants” were freely used by all those running. The public benefited from hearing the politicians’ views at no less than three public debates held in Moneta, Schumacher and South Porcupine.

To everyone’s relief however, after the ballots had been counted and the results were known, both the new mayor and the retiring one celebrated together and pledged to continue to work for the betterment of the community.

That’s what I call a breath of fresh air! As for local politics in Timmins, no election was held as three men running for council positions and one running for mayor pulled out before election day. Apparently, it had been discussed amongst all the candidates that this was the best course of action for the community.

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Ontario’s Northlander train makes its final run – by Jennifer Wells (Toronto Star – September 29, 2012)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

The Ontario Northland is going mighty fast for a funeral barge, 65 mph past ribbons of sumacs that are coming on vermillion, that eye-blasting, keening, it’s-almost-Thanksgiving Ontario scenery.

Conductor Brian Irwin isn’t studying the sumacs. No.

The railroad lifer is in thought, formulating a message that will sum up his views of the decision by the McGuinty government to divest itself of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, including the shutting down of the Northlander, erasing, oh, 110 years of history as of Friday. Poof. So there’s Irwin, swaying to the thrumble of the train, and here’s his thought: “We’re kinda partial to a fence at the French River there.”

You see where he’s going. Us versus them. When you’re taking one of your last runs, might as well unload on the sorry South-North relationship in this province. The betrayal. Words do not suffice.

“It is personal — this whole thing is personal,” he says. “We’ve never had a friend at the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. Why there is such a hate on for the ONR is beyond me. Why the hell are we under Northern Development and Mines anyway? We’re a transportation company!”

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