The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame (CMHF) celebrated its 20th anniversary with a star-studded line-up of industry movers and shakers on January 17th 2008, at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto. The annual dinner and induction ceremony is one of the social highlights of the mining industry which has a lot to be celebrating about this year in addition to the five new members that were inducted that evening – Carroll O. Brawner, Johannes J. Brummer, Ernest Craig, Chester F. Millar and David A. Thompson.
In total, including this year’s inductees, 135 individuals have been honored for their outstanding lifetime achievements to the benefit of the country’s minerals industry.
Many people and politicians still think the mining sector is a boring, polluting, low-tech industry that should be delegated to the dustbins of history. A quick review of the many prospectors, metallurgists, geo-scientists, and corporate financiers in the hall of fame, whose discoveries and technological advances have made Canada a global mining powerhouse, would quickly change those negative perceptions of the industry.
Stories of intense courage, guts, greed and glory. Stories of passionate believers with quiet and tenacious determination. Stubborn characters who would not give up. These are the people who helped populate our isolated north, created enormous amounts of shareholder and corporate wealth and jobs for hundreds of thousands if not millions of Canadians.
That is why the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame is so important. It is the keeper of the flame ensuring that the next generation understands and is justifiably proud of the enormous contributions and debt we owe to those that preceded us.
The four main sponsors of the Hall of Fame are the Northern Miner, the Mining Association of Canada (MAC), the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) which also publishes an industry magazine.
In January 2007, Teck Cominco Limited President and CEO Donald R. Lindsay announced a $10 million donation to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto to create three galleries highlighting minerals and the fascinating history of Canadian mining.
The following speech was given by William Thorsell, Director and CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum updating the audience at the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame induction ceremony and dinner about the organization’s new home.
Among the many attendees to the 20th Hall of Fame dinner, one table had much to be proud of. The Women in Mining team who participated in last fall’s Weekend to End Breast Cancer in Toronto were also celebrating their status as the top fundraising team achieving a record total of $200, 707 for this worthy cause.
I am an Inco brat. I was born and raised in the shadows of those tall industrial smokestacks that tower over the city of Sudbury, Canada. In the days when I turned 18 in the late 1970s, if you didn’t go to university, then it was almost a rite of passage to work for “Mother Inco,” as it was affectionately (or derisively) known.