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Northern Ontario History

[Cobalt Silver Boom] The hammer and the fox – by Charlie Angus and Brit Griffin (Northern Miner – January 27, 2003)

http://www.northernminer.com/

There’s a story about the discovery of silver in northern Ontario, and this is how it goes: When the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO) line from North Bay to Haileybury and New Liskeard was being completed, it had to pass through a rugged section of the Canadian Shield around the area known as Long Lake. Fred LaRose was a blacksmith hired to work this section. One day in late August 1903, he was working at his forge and a fox suddenly appeared.

Startled, LaRose threw a hammer at the creature. The hammer missed and bounced off an outcropping rock. When LaRose went to retrieve the hammer, he realized that the rock was a vein of metal that turned out to be pure silver.

In all probability, LaRose didn’t throw a hammer and there wasn’t a fox, and although he did discover a massive vein of silver, at the time, he thought it was copper. Nor was LaRose the first to make this discovery. Two other railway workers, James McKinley and Ernest Darragh, had discovered silver just south of the same spot a month before.

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HISTORY: Timmins mines, industries supplied war effort – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – November 12, 2016)

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – When the Americans officially joined the war effort after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Canadians had already been at war for a little almost three years.

Both the troops and the people they left behind at home were battle hardened and used to the drill, so to speak. Every corner of the then British Empire was affected by the conflict – and that means we here in Timmins were not any different.

The early days of 1942 saw some tragic news for the community. Sgt. Pilot B. O’Neill, the first airman from Timmins to receive his “wings” in the Royal Canadian Air Force (from this area, that is), was reported missing in action after being on a bombing flight “somewhere in Europe”.

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HISTORY: Letters offer colourful insights into Timmins history – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – October 22, 2016)

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – A few years back, the museum was given selected files and what-not from the Hollinger archives. The seven banker boxes contained the minutes from the meetings of the Board of Directors of the Hollinger Mine dating back to 1916 – a real find for those interested in the history of what once was North America’s biggest gold mine.

The files also included a number of old maps and town layouts going back to 1912, the very beginnings of the future City of Timmins. While all of that stuff makes for great reading (and invaluable research opportunities), I hit upon a small file of correspondence that humanizes that big corporation and demonstrates the mine’s impact on the new community.

The first letter in the file (on “Hotel Goldfields” stationary, no less) was from the hotel manager, Mr. McLean, and dated May 20, 1912. What we learn from the handwritten (one good reason to keep teaching cursive in schools) letter is just how big a role Noah Timmins and the Hollinger Mine played in the new town.

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Prospecting for … cobalt – by Staff (Mining Journal – October 2, 2016)

http://www.mining-journal.com/

Believers in an impending cobalt shortage, higher prices, and the need for supply sources that are disengaged from primary copper or nickel production – and “unethical supply chains” – don’t see many new cobalt mines on the horizon. Prospecting is certainly on the rise, but when place-names such as Cobalt (Ontario) and Mt Cobalt (Queensland) don’t help, you know the job ain’t easy!

Cobalt has been called Canada’s forgotten mining town, but the records show the focus of an unprecedented silver prospecting and mining boom in the early 1900s delivered a fortune that “far surpassed the Klondike in terms of profits, production, and long-term impact”, wrote one historian.

“The early history of hard rock mining in Ontario is essentially the story of the discovery of silver in Cobalt in 1903. It wasn’t long before the Cobalt mines became the third-largest producer of silver in the world and by the time the boom petered out in the 1920s, the camp had become the fourth-largest silver producer ever discovered,” he continued.

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BNN’s Andrew Bell interviews Scott Hand on Inco, 10 years later (Business Network News – September 29, 2016)

http://www.bnn.ca/commodities

Scott Hand, chairman of RNC Minerals, was CEO of nickel giant Inco when the Canadian miner was taken over by Vale in 2006. Inco’s failure to merge with rival Falconbridge had already shattered dreams of creating a Canadian mining colossus. The former Inco chief recalls the lack of government support for that made-in-Canada solution, and contrasts the case to the blocking of a PotashCorp takeover in 2010.

We were joined on our Commodities show today by former Inco CEO Scott Hand, who looked back 10 years to 2006 when the nickel miner agreed to a takeover by Brazil’s Vale. That came just weeks after Falconbridge, Inco’s fellow Canadian nickel giant, was taken over by Xstrata.

Yes, Hand told us, many Canadians were worried to see control of the lavishly endowed Sudbury, Ontario mineral basin go into foreign hands.

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Losing Inco and Falconbridge: Ontario could have acted – BNN Andrew Bell Interviews Mining Analyst Ray Goldie (BNN News – September 23, 2016)

http://www.bnn.ca/commodities/ Ten years ago, Canadian mining giants Inco and Falconbridge went into foreign hands. Independent mining analyst Ray Goldie, author of the book Inco Comes to Labrador, says Ontario could have done more to keep the head offices in this country.

Inco’s Sudbury Nickel Mines Were Critical During World War Two – by Stan Sudol

Inco World War Two Poster
Inco World War Two Poster

Nickel Was the Most Strategic Metal

By anyone’s estimation, the highlight of Sudbury’s social calendar in 1939 was the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on June 5th, accompanied by Prime Minister Mackenzie King and a host of local dignitaries. This was the first time a reigning British monarch had ever visited Canada, let alone Sudbury, a testimony to the growing importance of the region’s vital nickel mines. The nickel operations in the Sudbury Basin were booming due to growing global tensions and increased spending on military budgets. Sudbury and the northeastern Ontario gold mining centres of Timmins and Kirkland Lake were among the few economic bright spots in a country devastated by the Great Depression.

In an April 15, 1938 article, Maclean’s Magazine journalist Leslie McFarlane described the three mining communities as, “Northern Ontario’s glittering triangle….No communities in all of Canada are busier, none more prosperous. The same golden light shines on each.”

During the royal visit, precedence was broken by allowing Queen Elizabeth the first female ever to go underground at the Frood Mine. Traditionally miners thought women would bring bad luck if they were permitted underground. There were probably many who thought the beginning of the Second World War on September 1, 1939 was the result of her subterranean visit.

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Dipping into the silver stream: Thanks to high grades and loose enforcement ore theft a booming industry in Cobalt – by Douglas Baldwin (CIM Magazine – September/October 2016)

http://www.cim.org/en/

This is an excerpt from Douglas Baldwin’s new book, “Cobalt: Canada’s Forgotten Silver Boom Town”. Click here to order book: http://www.cobaltboomtown.com/#!shop/vu6uk

During the first few years of the silver mining rush in Cobalt, Ontario, mine owners had a laid-back approach to loss prevention. With claim to so much high-grade ore, they freely gave samples of silver to visitors. Mine workers were also not searched at the end of the day and it was easy for the men to slip pieces of silver into their pockets.

The local newspaper, the Nugget, estimated that $1 million worth of high-grade silver had been stolen in the first five years of the Cobalt mining camp. Although several arrests were made at the time, it was almost impossible to obtain a conviction. A mine manager had to swear the stolen ore came from his mine, but since high-grade silver was consistently pure at each project it was impossible to identify what ore came from which mine.

The thieves had to be caught red-handed to be successfully prosecuted. Most “high-graders,” as they were called, were either acquitted or given light sentences.

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Labour honours Sudbury heroes – by Carol Mulligan(Sudbury Star – September 3, 2016)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Two Sudbury labour heroes have been inducted into the 2016 Ontario Federation of Labour Honour Roll, just in time for Labour Day. Nickel Belt New Democrat MPP France Gelinas announced the names of the inductees this week, commending both men for their efforts to improve the lives of working people.

Homer Seguin, who died in April 2013 at 79, continues to be a legend in the labour movement, said Gelinas. “So many sick and injured workers, as well as their spouses and families, were able to get compensation because of his activism.

“Every workplace in Ontario is safer because of Mr. Seguin, I miss him very much,” said Gelinas. Seguin was a former president of United Steelworkers Local 6500 and long-time staff representative with United Steelworkers. He is well known for his work to better working conditions for people in Elliot Lake’s uranium mines.

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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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[Timmins Legendary Hollinger Mine] Burrowing for a Billion – by James A. Cowan (MACLEAN’S – June 15, 1927)

http://www.macleans.ca/

Hollinger is more than a billion’dollar gold mine: it is an astonishing augury of what our Canadian brains and courage can accomplish

HOLLINGER, in Northern Ontario, is North America’s greatest gold mine. No one can dispute this, even for the sake of argument, since there can be no argument about it.

In the contest for the title of ‘the greatest gold mine the world has ever seen’, the race has now narrowed down to an all-British affair between Canada and South Africa, and Hollinger, leading the Canadian entries, is the favorite. Working at top speed, it produced during 1926, gold worth $13,342,491—more than a million a month.

Benny Hollinger, novice among prospectors, eighteen years ago, stumbled on the outcroppings of one of the greatest known reserves of gold ore, but for the first twelve years of its history, Fortune presided over the activities of Hollinger with a twisted smile.

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[Jules Timmins] The Shy Midas Behind Ungava – by McKenzie Porter (MACLEAN’S Magazine – February 1, 1952)

http://www.macleans.ca/

Jules Timmins was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he has since gold-plated it from the fabulous mining ventures he has led. Now he’s the dynamo that’s powering the vast Ungava iron development. Yet even in the town they named for his family, cops and bellboys don’t know his face

Jules Timmins was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and he has since gold-plated it from the fabulous mining ventures he has led. Now he’s the dynamo that’s powering the vast Ungava iron development. Yet even in the town they named for his family, cops and bellboys don’t know his face

TOWARD the end of November last a chunky jut-jawed cigar-toting millionaire called Jules Timmins talked about gold in Noranda, northwestern Quebec, on Sunday; about iron in Montreal on Monday; about steel in Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday; about copper in Toronto on Wednesday; about silver back in Montreal on Thursday; and about mining finance in New York on Friday.

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HISTORY: A look back at the Hollinger Mine – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – March 14, 2016)

http://www.timminspress.com/

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

TIMMINS – If you live in Timmins (or you’ve just driven through), you’ve passed by this complex, for lack of a better word, many, many times. It is a local landmark, a symbol of the Porcupine then and now. It is a monument to the thousands of miners and their families who have called this community home; indirectly, it has helped countless others set up businesses and make a home in this community.

Its contribution to the social fabric of Timmins cannot be diminished – the people involved saw fit to start a hospital, a school, a train station, hotels, homes, sports facilities and clubs. The history of Timmins, like it or not, is intimately attached to the Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mines – even today.

The Daily Press published a brilliant supplement to their paper in July 1960, that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Hollinger Gold Mine. As part of that celebration, Jules Timmins, president and chairman of the company (at 72 years young), was called upon to pour the 18,490th gold bullion bar, marking the Hollinger’s total production (to that date – July 22, to be exact) at a half-billion dollars, the largest output record of its kind in Canada.

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The Fairy Tale Romance of the Canadian Shield – by Blair Fraser (MACLEAN’S Magazine – December 24, 1955)

http://www.macleans.ca/

This Christmas thousands of children will read about the Ugly Duckling. But here’s a stranger tale — about an enormous rocky desert, scorned for centuries, and how its hidden treasures changed Canada.

THE HARDIEST of fairy tale themes have always had to do with the finding of treasure in the commonplace, the scorned and the rejected. In these classic stories ugly ducklings turn into swans, and battered tinderboxes or dirty old lamps are found to contain the key to wealth and power. Canada’s ugly duckling is the Canadian Shield, a great rugged horseshoe of muskeg and stunted forest, lake and bald grey rock that makes up more than half the whole dominion.

For more than three hundred years -eight hundred if you go back to Leif Ericsson’s time — the Shield was known only as a rocky waste, a barrier to progress and a blight to Canada’s future. Ericsson called it Helluland, “the land of flat stones”; Jacques Cartier reported to King Francis I of France that “there isn’t a cartload of dirt in the whole of it”; and it broke the heart of the gullible settlers who tried to clear and farm it, as earlier generations had done the St. Lawrence lowlands. Along its southern edge dense second-growth forest has already rubbed out all but a few pathetic traces of pioneer farms only eighty years old.

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Can Kathleen Wynne handle northern Ontario’s growing discontent? – by Steve Paikin (TVO.org – August 8, 2016)

 

http://tvo.org/

Kathleen Wynne arrives in Little Current, Manitoulin Island, in a big black SUV, surrounded by all the trappings of being premier of Ontario. There are the omnipresent staffers who do the advance work and try to keep her on schedule. And there is the Ontario Provincial Police security detail trying to look unobtrusive but not quite succeeding.

Wynne has decided to drop in on the Manitoulin Country Fest. It’s a blazingly hot day on the world’s largest freshwater island, and probably the last thing on anyone’s mind in this town of 2,700 people is politics. A smallish crowd has come to hear country music, and while Wynne doesn’t want to interrupt their enjoyment of the day, this is Day Two of her current northern swing.

And so, she will do the thing she is so good at ̶ shake some hands, make small talk with the locals, meet some island politicians, hear about their concerns, check out what’s on offer at the booths, and listen.

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