New book to highlight the number of multi-racial couples in Cobalt in the 1910s
According to the census, there were 75 Black people living in northern Ontario in 1911. Connie Visser’s grandfather was one of them.
Those roots are still here. The 76-year-old still lives where she grew up in Kerns Township outside of New Liskeard and is one of the 5,000 Black people who live in the north today.
Her grandfather moved from southern Ontario to the Temiskaming district in 1902, but she isn’t sure why.
In spite of the warnings that Northern Ontario would die “as soon as the ore runs out,” in my heart I always rejected that feeling of impermanence. The Pollyanna in me thinks there is still a bright future on the horizon.
In 1903, silver deposits were discovered in Cobalt. It was likely the most significant event in the history of Northern Ontario. At that time, the area was uninhabited wilderness.
By 1910, more than 3,000 men were employed in underground mining; the population of the town was 6,000 and nearby Haileybury had a population of 5,000. Depending on various sources, there were between 38 mines and/or 100 mines or mining companies in the Cobalt area.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/
Elizabeth Quinlan wants to hear from people who lived through the 3-month strike
A professor of social studies in Saskatchewan is putting a call-out for stories from people who remember the Inco strike of 1958.
The strike involved 17,000 workers who were part of Mine Mill — then, one of the largest unions in Canada — who were pitted against Inco, a powerful company supplying 90 per cent of the world’s nickel.
Elizabeth Quinlan from the University of Saskatchewan is writing a book about the historic event and is looking for anyone who has memories of being affected by the strike.
https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/
TIMMINS — He’s a member of parliament, a musician and an author. Timmins-James Bay MP (NDP) Charlie Angus has written a new book–his eighth–and this time, it’s focussed on the town of Cobalt which he calls ‘the cradle of Canada’s mining industry.’
It’s not out yet, but he said he’s already signed a deal with a national publisher.
“We’re going to see this town play I think and an important role. (Cobalt) is a mineral that should not be the blood mineral and a mineral of such toxic environmental damage but a mineral that could actually lead us to a better and cleaner digital future,” said Angus.
An intimate sketch of the man [ Elihu James Davis] whose courage and faith created the T. and N. O., “the discovery railroad which opened Northern Ontario’s treasure chest”
THIS is the story of a man who proved by his foresight and his deeds that politicians do get things done, their traducers to the contrary. What is more, it proves that the smiling goddess, sometimes called Lady Luck, is cast in important roles in the fashioning of any young country, bestowing her favors on those who have the courage to set up new milestones of empire, no matter how the scoffers oppose.
As is the case with all pioneering achievement, it is a story of the faith that moves mountains, of dreams and vision and belief. It is the story of Elihu James Davis, the tanner of Newmarket, whose determination and courage brought into being the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway, hoping thereby to create a new agricultural empire, only to find that Dame Fortune had flung wide the portals to a Canadian Eldorado.
Not even Davis, in the days when the T. and N. O’s. right-of-way was still a figment of fancy, could dream of the riches that were to come. Here was to be a prosperous new farming region, with New Liskeard its market town. Colonists, hearing of the wealth of the soil, would come to join those who were opening up the country.
Notwithstanding the historical hype of the Klondike Gold Rush in Canadian society, the two most important mining events in our history are the discoveries of the Sudbury nickel mines in 1883 and the Cobalt silver boom of 1903.
Both were the result of railroads – the construction of the Canadian Pacific to British Columbia in Sudbury’s case and the building of the provincial Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway, going through Cobalt, which was for the colonization of northern Ontario.
But the similarities end there. Sudbury was built with U.S. capital and strategic technology. Cobalt was largely built and significantly financed by Canadian business and was the start of Canada’s global reputation as mine finders and builders. The two camps had much overlap but were also very distinct in their own rights.
Ohio-born businessman Samual J. Ritchie was the driving force who really started mining production in the Sudbury Basin with the founding of the Canadian Copper Company in 1886. A subsequent merger in 1902 with the New Jersey-based Orford Copper Company, which had the vital technology to separate the nickel from the copper in Sudbury’s complex ore, lead to the creation of the legendary International Nickel Company. (INCO)
From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:
Sault Ste. Marie’s Chromium Mining and Smelting Corporation plant was located on Queen Street West between Huron and Hudson, in the area of what is now the city’s transit facility.
The plant first began smelting chromium in in the 1930s, when it was the first instance of chromium smelting in the British Empire. From there, the plant quickly expanded to meet demand.
And then, in 1947, a fire roared through part of Sault Ste. Marie, originating from the plant.
For over a hundred years, the children of Timmins’ Schumacher neighbourhood have received a little something under their Christmas trees from a special benefactor, a mining entrepreneur named Frederick W. Schumacher.
Schumacher, a Danish immigrant, was working as a pharmacist and patent medicine wholesaler in Waco, Texas, in the late 19th century when he ordered a full train-car of Peruna medicine, meant to cure excessive congestion known as catarrh.
When Dr. Samuel Hartman, the high-society doctor of Columbus, Ohio, who invented Peruna, heard the size of the order, Hartman decided to personally deliver the shipment to Texas. Upon meeting Schumacher, Hartman asked Schumacher to come to Ohio and work for him.
THE CARIBOO, the Yukon, the Porcupine—these fields have been the scenes of epic Canadian gold rushes. In each case the stage setting was colorful, the action dynamic. Each field had its peak year of raw drama. They were spectacular rushes, with an element of madness and frenzy. They belong to history.
And yet in sheer enormity, in point of men involved, money expended, wealth produced and in sight, not one of them could hold a candle to the great gold rush of ’34.
Men still speak of the Cariboo Trail and the Klondyke Trail. There can be no such convenient designation for the scene of this year’s great gold trek unless one refers in a general way to the ‘Trails of ’34. Because the scene is all Canada, and the trails lead to new fields and old. The effort is not concentrated upon a single area. The stage is so wide, so crowded with effects that the term “rush” may seem at first glance a misnomer. And yet from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, across the whole breadth of the Dominion, one of the greatest gold treks of all time is in full swing.
The high-grading racket has its roots deep in the rich mines of northern Canada. The payoff is sometimes in New York, or even Morocco, at the end of a trail of graft, hijacking and murder
ON JUNE 2 thieves blew the vault at the Delnite mine in Ontario’s famous Porcupine camp and carted off three newly poured gold bars worth $74,000. It was the biggest single robbery in Canadian mining history. And it was pulled off in spite of rumors of the coup which had been rampant for six weeks.
No single incident could more strikingly underline the great high-grading racket. The theft and smuggling of high-grade ore and gold cost Canadian mines more than $2 millions each year. It is bizarre, spectacular, cunning thievery marked by graft, hijacking and calculated murder. Its practitioners are masters of the double-cross; news of newly planned thefts often leaks out beforehand.
Its ramifications are international. Stolen Canadian gold usually winds up in the free world market in Paris or is sold privately in Central Europe or the Middle East at $40 an ounce. Three years ago (before Russia flooded the market) the price hit $100.
https://www.orilliamatters.com/
Exploring the fascinating landscape and history of Cobalt, Ontario; It’s a fun read, perfect for a summer night
Ontario is filled with ‘ghost towns’ – towns that experienced an economic boom, grew swiftly to encompass the lives and dreams of their residents, and then experienced a decline.
Many were mining towns, abandoned when mines closed or deposits ran out. Some, like Dalton Mills and Creighton, were abandoned. Only ruins stand where there was once a thriving community.
Others still exist but as a mere shadow of their former glory, like the town of Cobalt. Located about halfway between North Bay and Timmins near Lake Temiskaming, once the “silver capital” of Canada, the town had a population of over 12,000 during the boom years.
This edition of Remember This also examines rumours of a radioactive deposit in downtown Sault Ste. Marie
From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:
When you consider the history of uranium mining in Northern Ontario, Elliot Lake likely comes to mind. However, there is a radioactive connection further north as well, dating back almost 175 years.
In 1847, a Mr. Stanard, likely an American schooner captain, reported that radioactive material could be found along the shores of Lake Superior, near the area now known as Alona Bay. This information, reported by geologist J.L. LeConte in the American Journal of Science, marked the first recorded instance of radioactive material being discovered in Canada.
LeConte described the radioactive material and identified it as being related to pitchblende, a radioactive ore from which uranium is extracted. He named it coracite, a reference to the raven-black colour of the mineral.
THE NEAR NORTH
IT GETS COLD at the Lakehead. But it’s an almost joyous kind of cold, for it brings the snow-mobiles whizzing out of people’s backyards and down the snow-clogged streets, as thick as bicycles in Amsterdam. Besides, four of the best ski slopes in Ontario are within 20 minutes of downtown, and every discount store stocks snowshoes. Winter is a matter of perception. You can either curse it, escape it or try to ignore it. At the Lakehead, people try to enjoy it.
This may be part of the reason why Port Arthur’s Mayor Saul Laskin is sold on the feasibility of the mid-Canada development corridor. The idea stands or falls, after all, on the proposition that people can live comfortably in mid-Canada. Laskin and 110,000 other Lakehead residents have been doing it for years.
This may come as news to southern Canada. The national media seem to have evolved a silent conspiracy to ensure that the fact of northwestern Ontario’s existence doesn’t leak to the outside world. There is probably no area of Canada more justifiably conscious of being ignored. During Centennial year, when the Canadian Government Travel Bureau distributed a “Come to Canada” brochure through the U.S., they included Kapuskasing and Moosonee on the map, but failed to mention Port Arthur. When MP Robert Andras last year suggested carving an 11th province out of northern Ontario and northern Quebec, no one in his riding saw fit to hoot him down; by now they’re used to Going It Alone in northwestern Ontario.
In 1970, two cities and two townships merged, creating Ontario’s sixth-largest city. But not everyone welcomed the arrival of the brand-new municipality
At midnight on January 1, 1970, a ceremony was held at the arch that had, until that moment, marked the boundary between the cities of Port Arthur and Fort William. Previously known as the Welcome Arch, it would henceforth be called the Unity Arch, marking a symbolic end to the long rivalry that had, as the Globe and Mail observed, seen the two communities “fighting over land, new businesses, railway lines, and sometimes just for the hell of it.”
As church bells rang and fireworks went off, a sign on the arch flashed “Happy Birthday Thunder Bay.” With that, Ontario’s newest city was born. But, amid the celebrations, there was a great deal of grumbling over how the amalgamation process in the Lakehead area had unfolded.
Beginning in the Victorian era, the twin cities on Lake Superior had developed a deep rivalry that frequently prevented any form of co-operation. Each had its own transit system: passengers had to get off at the boundary and pay another fare before crossing into the other city. Taxis from one city couldn’t seek fares in the other.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Livio Di Matteo is a professor of economics at Lakehead University.
There’s a good argument to be made that Canada would not exist as we understand it today without Thunder Bay. The 19th-century federal policies around building the Canadian Pacific Railway made it necessary to build cities on Northern Ontario’s lakehead.
Port Arthur and Fort William, the cities that would amalgamate into Thunder Bay in 1970, became grain shipment points for the prairie frontier, bringing the area prosperity. That was only amplified by provincial government policies supporting the myriad industries that followed suit: forestry, mining, shipbuilding, rail-car manufacturing, pulp and paper.
And the economic infrastructure that was laid in the first third of the 20th century provided opportunities for immigrants in the area’s sawmills, pulp mills, grain elevators and manufacturing plants.
