Porcupine Gold Rush
Encyclopedia
The Porcupine Gold Rush was a gold rush
that took place in Northern Ontario
starting in 1909 and developing fully by 1911. A combination of the hard rock of the Canadian Shield
and the rapid capitalization of mining meant that smaller companies and single-man operations could not effectively mine the area, as opposed to earlier rushes where the gold could be extracted through placer mining
techniques. Although a number of prospectors made their fortune, operations in the area are marked largely by the development of larger mining companies, and most people involved in the mining operations were their employees. The mines peaked between the 1940s and 50s, but continue to produce gold to this day, although the many smaller mines have been consolidated into a small number of larger holdings. By 2001, 67 million troy ounce
s of gold have been mined from the Porcupine area, making it by far the largest gold rush in terms of actual gold produced. For comparison, the well-known Klondike Gold Rush
produced about 12 million troy ounces.
) to capitalize on the fur trade. The Hudson's Bay Company
and the North West Company
later developed several trading posts along major routes in Northern Ontario. The rivalry between these two trading companies resulted in the need to get their furs to market as soon as possible and this led to the development of the Porcupine Trail, a trading route that connected the Abitibi River
to the Mattagami River
and passed directly through present day Timmins.
There were hints of gold in the Porcupine Lake area on a number of occasions before the actual rush started. The earliest recorded mention is by a Department of Mines surveyor, E.M. Burwash, who reported seeing gold-bearing quartz
as he travelled through Shaw Township, just southwest of the future goldfields. This was of little interest at the time, as the area was almost inaccessible. A University of Toronto
geologist, W. Parks, followed up with three surveying runs in 1898, 1899, and 1903. These crossed through the main gold-bearing area along what was known as 'the Back Road' which has since been renamed "Goldmine Road". On his return to Toronto, he made a now-famous comment that "I regard the region south of the Porcupine trail as giving promise of reward to the prospector."
A major event that led to the eventual rush was the start of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO) running from North Bay
through to Cochrane
. As it expanded northward it allowed prospectors to support longer surveys deeper into the bush, looking for the minerals that were expected to stretch across all of Northern Ontario. Almost immediately the massive silver
deposits in Cobalt
were discovered, leading to a "silver rush" in 1903. This, in turn, filled Northern Ontario with miners, assayers, prospectors and all the requirements for rapid development of new mining sites.
was the first to explicitly set out for the Porcupine Lake area in hopes of finding gold. D'Aigle had earlier been a latecomer to the Klondike
, arriving after the initial rush but nevertheless sticking it out and eventually striking it rich. After returning south he enrolled in a geology course at Queen's University
, and used the library to pore over mining reports for new gold deposits. Discovering Parks' earlier report, he finished his course at the University and immediately set out for Porcupine.
Ignoring the new railway, he hooked up with a Métis
guide, Billy Moore, and used the Canadian Pacific Railway
's mainline running along the northeastern edge of Lake Huron
to the Mattagami River
. They started off by canoe
and eventually reached Porcupine Lake, exploring around the area for some time. Although he found gold in numerous quartz outcroppings, the tiny flakes he saw were in stark contrast to the nuggets that could be panned in the Klondike, and he remained unimpressed.
Nevertheless he returned the next summer in 1907 with a larger party including several experienced prospectors and tools needed to break down the rock. Several test pits were dug, but none of them seemed terribly promising. Bob Mustard, one of the prospectors in the D'Aigle party, stated "Quartz veins in Ontario never pay to work." D'Aigle apparently agreed, and they simply abandoned their tools in their latest pit and headed south. Seven claims were staked by the team during their prospecting, but all of these eventually lapsed.
Although D'Aigle's parties were the largest, several other prospectors also made attempts to find gold in the area, potentially after hearing of his efforts. In 1905 Edward Orr Taylor claimed a plot on the south side of Night Hawk Lake, but the low grade of gold in the ore dissuaded Taylor from setting up a mine. Following his lead, two Finnish prospectors, Victor Mansen (or Mattson) and Harry Benella (or Penella) set up a mine on the lake in 1907, along with a crude mill. They had managed to produce a single bar of gold by the next year, when a fire burned the mine down. They decided not to bother setting it back up again, and abandoned the site.
George Bannerman from Haileybury overheard two fur trappers talking about finding gold in the Porcupine area. He set out with a partner, Tom Geddes, and started prospecting in the area north of Porcupine Lake. They found an excellent surface sample, staked several claims, and started their return trip to Haileybury to register them. When they arrived they were mobbed by a crowd who formed to see the samples. They received backing from a group in Scotland to develop the plots, forming the Scottish-Ontario Mine. The name later changed to Canusa (Canada-USA) and finally to Banner Porcupine over the years. The mine proved to have excellent surface gold veins, but stopped shortly underground and was never very productive.
In early June, Jack Wilson, backed by two Chicago businessmen, led a party of four prospectors and three native guides into Tisdale Township. On June 9 then came across a dome of quartz sticking out of the ground and decided to trench around it. As Wilson later noted;
Following the vein they found it to be several hundred feet long and about 150 wide, running down the side of the hill. The vein later became known as the "Golden Stairway", and the dome of rock gave its name to the Dome Mine, which would become one of the "Big Three" mines in the area.
Following right behind them was the smaller team of Benny Hollinger, a young barber from Haileybury, and his partner, Alex Gillies. Arriving in October they met Wilson's Dome group, who told them that most of the good sites were already staked as far as six miles (10 km) to the west. They decided to skip those six miles, and moved westward where they came across one of D'Aigle's test pits, the one with the abandoned tools. Gillies' report of the find shows just how unlucky D'Aigle had been:
The team later found the bootprint of one of the D'Aigle team-members pressed directly into a vein of gold.
They staked twelve claims near their discovery and then, because different sponsors had staked them food money, they flipped a coin to determine how to divide the claims. Hollinger won the toss and chose the six claims on the west. Noah A. Timmins, a former storekeeper in Mattawa and the owner of the LaRose silver mine in Cobalt, purchased Benny Hollinger's claims and opened the Hollinger Mine, one of the greatest gold-producers in the western hemisphere. Noah's nephew, Alphonse Paré, described it: “It was as if a giant cauldron had splattered the gold nuggets over a bed of pure white quartz crystals as a setting for some magnificent crown jewels of inestimable value.” On the strength of his nephew’s information, Noah paid $330,000 for the mine. Alphonse Paré, a Royal Military College of Canada
trained mining engineer, continued working for the family company exploring stakes and mining operations all over the world.
The third great discovery was made by Sandy McIntyre (née Oliphant) an adventurous Scotsman who, years before, gave up his factory job as to become a prospector. He teamed up with Hans Buttner, a young Dutchman who worked as a waiter, and together they staked four claims north of Hollinger's. Continuing to prospect on his own, McIntyre uncovered a quartz "stringer" showing visible gold. His findings formed the basis of what eventually became McIntyre Mines. Although his name made millions, Sandy McIntyre himself had serious drinking problems
, and sold his claims to various buyers for a pittance.
The Hollinger was the first of the three mines to go into production. In 1935 Timmins wrote that he set out with a mining party in December 1909, following an old logging road that had fallen into disuse, cutting a new trail where needed. They arrived at the mine site on New Year's Day, and within weeks began mining gold. In 1910, Dome Mines began operations by sinking four shafts, the deepest being seventy-five feet. McIntyre was the last of the three to go into operation; McIntyre's partners were constantly quitting due to his behaviour, and it was not until 1915 that any real production started.
, sending blankets of ash hundreds of miles downwind. Tom Geddes, co-claimer of the sites that started the gold rush, died attempting to save his dog.
The T&NO spur line, unharmed north of the lake, sped relief supplies to the area. Eaton's
funded an entire train of supplies, including blankets, tents and supplies, while churches across Ontario responded with clothing and other supplies. As crews returned to South Porcupine they found and collected the dead, including people who had died of smoke inhalation or asphyxiation and were seemingly uninjured. The dead, officially numbered at 73 but thought to be as high as 200, were buried in a new cemetery across the point of the lake from the town, known to this day as Dead Man's Point.
On Labour Day 1911 Noah Timmins held a public auction
for building sites on a relatively flat area of land just west of the McIntyre and Hollinger mines, creating the village that would soon develop into the town of Timmins. By the time it incorporated on January 1, 1912, it had already surpassed both Golden City (now known as Porcupine) and South Porcupine in size. Timmins has remained the real center of the mining area to this day.
The Dome founders held an emergency meeting within two days, and funds to rebuilt were immediately forwarded. By March 1912 the site had grown so large they were able to host a major party for the investors, shipping them in via a new spur line that ran to the site. In its first full year in operation the mine had already produced almost a million dollars of gold, with a profit of $500,000. Over the next five years the quarry mining gave way to shafts, producing $5 million in gold. The Dome started sinking new shafts around their properties over the next few years, leading to the Dome Expansion, Dome Lake Mine and several others.
The Hollinger site was also wiped out in the fire, but rains that followed washed off the now unprotected topsoil to reveal many more veins of gold-bearing rock. the mine was processing 800 tons of ore a day by 1914, and that year they were able to announce that they had proven reserves worth at least $13 million, and started paying dividends. In 1916 they were the first mine in the area to install underground electric railways, which paid for themselves in six months due to faster movement of man and ore. Hollinger then purchased the Acme and Millerton properties, creating a single 440 acres (178.1 ha) plot, and becoming the Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mines in the process.
McIntyre lacked the financial backing of the Hollinger or Dome, and took longer to get into full production. They had constant problems finding reasonable veins, and moved to the north side of Pearl Lake, eventually digging five shafts before finding a reasonable deposit. By this time the company was having trouble paying bills and was often being delivered goods "cash on delivery", but without a strong financial backer this was difficult to arrange. There is an oft-told story in Timmins that the first bar of gold produced by the mine was rushed to the bank so quickly that it was still warm. Things improved dramatically when Sir Henry Pellatt
, rich from the Cobalt silver mines, took interest in the McIntyre, and the mine paid its first dividend in 1917. In 1924 the company went on a buying spree, purchasing the Jupiter and Pearl Lake mines, creating a single 626 acres (253.3 ha) plot. In 1927 they built their Number 11 shaft, who's headframe can still be seen on the north side of Pearl Lake, a symbol for the entire rush.
The initial rush resulted in scores of small mines, but the hard rock mining demanded a high level of investment to be profitable, and many of the smaller sites with less valuable plots failed. There was a major first-mover advantage
and many of the surviving properties were consolidated by the larger holdings to produce a single mine that was much more profitable. Although the "big three" were the most successful at this, there were a number of other success stories as well. The Coniaurum Mine was founded in 1924; backed by Cobalt money, they amalgamated several older plots north of the McIntyre area. The mine proved highly profitable due to the nature of the veins, which tended to run vertically. This allowed shafts to be sunk directly over the veins, without requiring the massive amounts of lumber needed to shore up horizontal drifts. The Coniaurum was successful into the 1950s, when the gold ran out. Another success was the Vipond, which had veins similar to the Coniaurum, and used their profits to build up a larger set of holdings.
Starting in the late 1920s and early 1930s a second wave of new mines opened across the area. Low labour costs due to the great depression
changed the economics of running a mine, and an increased demand due to a lack of faith in paper money led to higher gold prices on the market. A number of sites formerly ignored due to low production were suddenly rendered profitable.
Gold prices started to rise, inflation adjusted, for the first time starting in the later 1960s, rising to $150 by the 1970s. By the late 1980s this had increased to an average around $400 a troy ounce. Improvements in mining techniques had by this time dramatically improved recovery rates and cost of operation, and a third wave of mines opened. These efforts included reprocessing of the massive tailing piles left by the previous mining efforts.
Most recently many of the remaining plots were acquired by Gold Corp Inc. (Porcupine Gold Mines).
Gold rush
A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...
that took place in Northern Ontario
Northern Ontario
Northern Ontario is a region of the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north of Lake Huron , the French River and Lake Nipissing. The region has a land area of 802,000 km2 and constitutes 87% of the land area of Ontario, although it contains only about 6% of the population...
starting in 1909 and developing fully by 1911. A combination of the hard rock of the Canadian Shield
Canadian Shield
The Canadian Shield, also called the Laurentian Plateau, or Bouclier Canadien , is a vast geological shield covered by a thin layer of soil that forms the nucleus of the North American or Laurentia craton. It is an area mostly composed of igneous rock which relates to its long volcanic history...
and the rapid capitalization of mining meant that smaller companies and single-man operations could not effectively mine the area, as opposed to earlier rushes where the gold could be extracted through placer mining
Placer mining
Placer mining is the mining of alluvial deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment....
techniques. Although a number of prospectors made their fortune, operations in the area are marked largely by the development of larger mining companies, and most people involved in the mining operations were their employees. The mines peaked between the 1940s and 50s, but continue to produce gold to this day, although the many smaller mines have been consolidated into a small number of larger holdings. By 2001, 67 million troy ounce
Troy ounce
The troy ounce is a unit of imperial measure. In the present day it is most commonly used to gauge the weight of precious metals. One troy ounce is nowadays defined as exactly 0.0311034768 kg = 31.1034768 g. There are approximately 32.1507466 troy oz in 1 kg...
s of gold have been mined from the Porcupine area, making it by far the largest gold rush in terms of actual gold produced. For comparison, the well-known Klondike Gold Rush
Klondike Gold Rush
The Klondike Gold Rush, also called the Yukon Gold Rush, the Alaska Gold Rush and the Last Great Gold Rush, was an attempt by an estimated 100,000 people to travel to the Klondike region the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1897 and 1899 in the hope of successfully prospecting for gold...
produced about 12 million troy ounces.
Prior to the Rush
During the late 17th century, explorers and fur traders established outposts in Northern Ontario (then part of Rupert's LandRupert's Land
Rupert's Land, or Prince Rupert's Land, was a territory in British North America, consisting of the Hudson Bay drainage basin that was nominally owned by the Hudson's Bay Company for 200 years from 1670 to 1870, although numerous aboriginal groups lived in the same territory and disputed the...
) to capitalize on the fur trade. The Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
and the North West Company
North West Company
The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what was to become Western Canada...
later developed several trading posts along major routes in Northern Ontario. The rivalry between these two trading companies resulted in the need to get their furs to market as soon as possible and this led to the development of the Porcupine Trail, a trading route that connected the Abitibi River
Abitibi River
The Abitibi River is a river in northeastern Ontario, Canada, which flows northwest from Lake Abitibi to join the Moose River which empties into James Bay. This river is long.The river was an important fur trading route for the Hudson's Bay Company...
to the Mattagami River
Mattagami River
The Mattagami River is a river in the James Bay drainage basin in Cochrane District, Timiskaming District and Sudbury District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada....
and passed directly through present day Timmins.
There were hints of gold in the Porcupine Lake area on a number of occasions before the actual rush started. The earliest recorded mention is by a Department of Mines surveyor, E.M. Burwash, who reported seeing gold-bearing quartz
Quartz
Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...
as he travelled through Shaw Township, just southwest of the future goldfields. This was of little interest at the time, as the area was almost inaccessible. A University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
geologist, W. Parks, followed up with three surveying runs in 1898, 1899, and 1903. These crossed through the main gold-bearing area along what was known as 'the Back Road' which has since been renamed "Goldmine Road". On his return to Toronto, he made a now-famous comment that "I regard the region south of the Porcupine trail as giving promise of reward to the prospector."
A major event that led to the eventual rush was the start of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO) running from North Bay
North Bay, Ontario
North Bay is a city in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is the seat of Nipissing District, and takes its name from its position on the shore of Lake Nipissing.-History:...
through to Cochrane
Cochrane, Ontario
Cochrane is a town in northern Ontario, Canada. It is located east of Kapuskasing, northeast of Timmins, south of Moosonee, and north of Iroquois Falls. It is about a one-hour drive from Timmins, the major city of the region. It is the seat of Cochrane District...
. As it expanded northward it allowed prospectors to support longer surveys deeper into the bush, looking for the minerals that were expected to stretch across all of Northern Ontario. Almost immediately the massive silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
deposits in Cobalt
Cobalt, Ontario
Cobalt is a town in the district of Timiskaming, province of Ontario, Canada, with a population of 1,223 In 2001 Cobalt was named "Ontario's Most Historic Town" by a panel of judges on the TV Ontario program Studio 2, and in 2002 the area was designated a National Historic Site.-History:Silver was...
were discovered, leading to a "silver rush" in 1903. This, in turn, filled Northern Ontario with miners, assayers, prospectors and all the requirements for rapid development of new mining sites.
A near miss
Reuben D'AigleReuben D'Aigle
Reuben Bennett "Sourdough" D'Aigle was a Canadian prospector who made numerous discoveries in the Klondike, Ontario, Quebec and Labrador. Although successful with several of these ventures, he remains best known for missing the Porcupine Gold Rush by only a few feet, a huge deposit being...
was the first to explicitly set out for the Porcupine Lake area in hopes of finding gold. D'Aigle had earlier been a latecomer to the Klondike
Klondike, Yukon
The Klondike is a region of the Yukon in northwest Canada, east of the Alaska border. It lies around the Klondike River, a small river that enters the Yukon from the east at Dawson....
, arriving after the initial rush but nevertheless sticking it out and eventually striking it rich. After returning south he enrolled in a geology course at Queen's University
Queen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...
, and used the library to pore over mining reports for new gold deposits. Discovering Parks' earlier report, he finished his course at the University and immediately set out for Porcupine.
Ignoring the new railway, he hooked up with a Métis
Métis people (Canada)
The Métis are one of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada who trace their descent to mixed First Nations parentage. The term was historically a catch-all describing the offspring of any such union, but within generations the culture syncretised into what is today a distinct aboriginal group, with...
guide, Billy Moore, and used the Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
's mainline running along the northeastern edge of Lake Huron
Lake Huron
Lake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the larger portion of Lake Michigan-Huron. It is bounded on the east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the west by the state of Michigan in the United States...
to the Mattagami River
Mattagami River
The Mattagami River is a river in the James Bay drainage basin in Cochrane District, Timiskaming District and Sudbury District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada....
. They started off by canoe
Canoe
A canoe or Canadian canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over A canoe (North American English) or Canadian...
and eventually reached Porcupine Lake, exploring around the area for some time. Although he found gold in numerous quartz outcroppings, the tiny flakes he saw were in stark contrast to the nuggets that could be panned in the Klondike, and he remained unimpressed.
Nevertheless he returned the next summer in 1907 with a larger party including several experienced prospectors and tools needed to break down the rock. Several test pits were dug, but none of them seemed terribly promising. Bob Mustard, one of the prospectors in the D'Aigle party, stated "Quartz veins in Ontario never pay to work." D'Aigle apparently agreed, and they simply abandoned their tools in their latest pit and headed south. Seven claims were staked by the team during their prospecting, but all of these eventually lapsed.
Although D'Aigle's parties were the largest, several other prospectors also made attempts to find gold in the area, potentially after hearing of his efforts. In 1905 Edward Orr Taylor claimed a plot on the south side of Night Hawk Lake, but the low grade of gold in the ore dissuaded Taylor from setting up a mine. Following his lead, two Finnish prospectors, Victor Mansen (or Mattson) and Harry Benella (or Penella) set up a mine on the lake in 1907, along with a crude mill. They had managed to produce a single bar of gold by the next year, when a fire burned the mine down. They decided not to bother setting it back up again, and abandoned the site.
Discovery
By 1909 the north was being inundated by prospectors travelling up the new railway and hunting down any hint of riches. As the stories of the Porcupine gold started to filter back to the larger supporting towns along the line, more and more teams headed out for Porcupine. During the summer of 1909 there were several parties in the area; it was only a matter of time before the main veins were discovered.George Bannerman from Haileybury overheard two fur trappers talking about finding gold in the Porcupine area. He set out with a partner, Tom Geddes, and started prospecting in the area north of Porcupine Lake. They found an excellent surface sample, staked several claims, and started their return trip to Haileybury to register them. When they arrived they were mobbed by a crowd who formed to see the samples. They received backing from a group in Scotland to develop the plots, forming the Scottish-Ontario Mine. The name later changed to Canusa (Canada-USA) and finally to Banner Porcupine over the years. The mine proved to have excellent surface gold veins, but stopped shortly underground and was never very productive.
In early June, Jack Wilson, backed by two Chicago businessmen, led a party of four prospectors and three native guides into Tisdale Township. On June 9 then came across a dome of quartz sticking out of the ground and decided to trench around it. As Wilson later noted;
As I was examining the seams in the quartz, about twelve feet ahead of me I saw a piece of yellow glisten as the sun struck it. It proved to be a very spectacular piece of gold in a thin sean of schist... when the boys came back we got out the drills and hammers, and that night had about 132 pounds of very spectacular specimens.
Following the vein they found it to be several hundred feet long and about 150 wide, running down the side of the hill. The vein later became known as the "Golden Stairway", and the dome of rock gave its name to the Dome Mine, which would become one of the "Big Three" mines in the area.
Following right behind them was the smaller team of Benny Hollinger, a young barber from Haileybury, and his partner, Alex Gillies. Arriving in October they met Wilson's Dome group, who told them that most of the good sites were already staked as far as six miles (10 km) to the west. They decided to skip those six miles, and moved westward where they came across one of D'Aigle's test pits, the one with the abandoned tools. Gillies' report of the find shows just how unlucky D'Aigle had been:
... Benny was pulling moss off the rocks a few feet away, when suddenly he let a roar out of him and threw his hat to me. At first I thought that he was crazy but when I came over to where he was it was not hard to find the reason. The quartz where he had taken off the moss looked as though someone had dripped a candle along it, but instead of wax it was gold.
The team later found the bootprint of one of the D'Aigle team-members pressed directly into a vein of gold.
They staked twelve claims near their discovery and then, because different sponsors had staked them food money, they flipped a coin to determine how to divide the claims. Hollinger won the toss and chose the six claims on the west. Noah A. Timmins, a former storekeeper in Mattawa and the owner of the LaRose silver mine in Cobalt, purchased Benny Hollinger's claims and opened the Hollinger Mine, one of the greatest gold-producers in the western hemisphere. Noah's nephew, Alphonse Paré, described it: “It was as if a giant cauldron had splattered the gold nuggets over a bed of pure white quartz crystals as a setting for some magnificent crown jewels of inestimable value.” On the strength of his nephew’s information, Noah paid $330,000 for the mine. Alphonse Paré, a Royal Military College of Canada
Royal Military College of Canada
The Royal Military College of Canada, RMC, or RMCC , is the military academy of the Canadian Forces, and is a degree-granting university. RMC was established in 1876. RMC is the only federal institution in Canada with degree granting powers...
trained mining engineer, continued working for the family company exploring stakes and mining operations all over the world.
The third great discovery was made by Sandy McIntyre (née Oliphant) an adventurous Scotsman who, years before, gave up his factory job as to become a prospector. He teamed up with Hans Buttner, a young Dutchman who worked as a waiter, and together they staked four claims north of Hollinger's. Continuing to prospect on his own, McIntyre uncovered a quartz "stringer" showing visible gold. His findings formed the basis of what eventually became McIntyre Mines. Although his name made millions, Sandy McIntyre himself had serious drinking problems
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, and sold his claims to various buyers for a pittance.
The Hollinger was the first of the three mines to go into production. In 1935 Timmins wrote that he set out with a mining party in December 1909, following an old logging road that had fallen into disuse, cutting a new trail where needed. They arrived at the mine site on New Year's Day, and within weeks began mining gold. In 1910, Dome Mines began operations by sinking four shafts, the deepest being seventy-five feet. McIntyre was the last of the three to go into operation; McIntyre's partners were constantly quitting due to his behaviour, and it was not until 1915 that any real production started.
The Rush
By the spring of 1910 the rush was in full swing. Thousands of fortune seekers poured into the area, either in an attempt to stake their own claims, or more and more commonly, looking for work in high paying mining jobs. Towns, often nothing more than tent camps, sprung up along the banks of Porcupine Lake, at that point the terminus of the canoe route into the area. Golden City (later Porcupine) and Pottsville sprung up almost overnight, followed by South Porcupine at the end of the lake, closer to the main mining areas. As the area was quickly explored and staked, the main gold producing area was revealed to be three miles (5 km) wide and five long, running along an east-west axis southwest of the lake. Mines all along the area started production over the next few years, buying plots staked during 1910 and 1911. Seeing the obvious potential of the area the T&NO started construction of a spur line, but was delayed by the constant defection of workers to the goldfields. The province responded by shipping prisoners to work the line, handing secondary duties such as clearing trees and rock. The spur reached Golden City on June 7, 1911, and an official opening followed on July 1. More people poured into the towns, and by the end of the summer there were 8,000 active claims.The Fire
The summer of 1911 was unusually hot, reaching a record temperature of 107 F on July 10. There had been no rain for several weeks, and by the evening several small bushfires had been spotted. The threat to the mining townsites was obvious, and starting on the morning of the 11th boats started ferrying women and children from South Porcupine to Golden City at the other end of the lake. Throughout the day the smaller fires combined, and by the afternoon had merged into a single wall of fire up to 20 miles (32 km) wide at points, sweeping eastward on gale force winds. It swept through South Porcupine around 3:30 p.m., burning it to the ground, and continued to burn its way as far as CochraneCochrane, Ontario
Cochrane is a town in northern Ontario, Canada. It is located east of Kapuskasing, northeast of Timmins, south of Moosonee, and north of Iroquois Falls. It is about a one-hour drive from Timmins, the major city of the region. It is the seat of Cochrane District...
, sending blankets of ash hundreds of miles downwind. Tom Geddes, co-claimer of the sites that started the gold rush, died attempting to save his dog.
The T&NO spur line, unharmed north of the lake, sped relief supplies to the area. Eaton's
Eaton's
The T. Eaton Co. Limited was once Canada's largest department store retailer. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an Irish immigrant. Eaton's grew to become a retail and social institution in Canada, with stores across the country, buying offices across the globe, and a catalogue...
funded an entire train of supplies, including blankets, tents and supplies, while churches across Ontario responded with clothing and other supplies. As crews returned to South Porcupine they found and collected the dead, including people who had died of smoke inhalation or asphyxiation and were seemingly uninjured. The dead, officially numbered at 73 but thought to be as high as 200, were buried in a new cemetery across the point of the lake from the town, known to this day as Dead Man's Point.
On Labour Day 1911 Noah Timmins held a public auction
Public auction
A public auction is an auction held on behalf of a government in which the property to be auctioned is either property owned by the government, or property which is sold under the authority of a court of law or a government agency with similar authority....
for building sites on a relatively flat area of land just west of the McIntyre and Hollinger mines, creating the village that would soon develop into the town of Timmins. By the time it incorporated on January 1, 1912, it had already surpassed both Golden City (now known as Porcupine) and South Porcupine in size. Timmins has remained the real center of the mining area to this day.
Buildout
Although most of the Porcupine area mines were destroyed in the fire, the return to production was almost overnight.The Dome founders held an emergency meeting within two days, and funds to rebuilt were immediately forwarded. By March 1912 the site had grown so large they were able to host a major party for the investors, shipping them in via a new spur line that ran to the site. In its first full year in operation the mine had already produced almost a million dollars of gold, with a profit of $500,000. Over the next five years the quarry mining gave way to shafts, producing $5 million in gold. The Dome started sinking new shafts around their properties over the next few years, leading to the Dome Expansion, Dome Lake Mine and several others.
The Hollinger site was also wiped out in the fire, but rains that followed washed off the now unprotected topsoil to reveal many more veins of gold-bearing rock. the mine was processing 800 tons of ore a day by 1914, and that year they were able to announce that they had proven reserves worth at least $13 million, and started paying dividends. In 1916 they were the first mine in the area to install underground electric railways, which paid for themselves in six months due to faster movement of man and ore. Hollinger then purchased the Acme and Millerton properties, creating a single 440 acres (178.1 ha) plot, and becoming the Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mines in the process.
McIntyre lacked the financial backing of the Hollinger or Dome, and took longer to get into full production. They had constant problems finding reasonable veins, and moved to the north side of Pearl Lake, eventually digging five shafts before finding a reasonable deposit. By this time the company was having trouble paying bills and was often being delivered goods "cash on delivery", but without a strong financial backer this was difficult to arrange. There is an oft-told story in Timmins that the first bar of gold produced by the mine was rushed to the bank so quickly that it was still warm. Things improved dramatically when Sir Henry Pellatt
Henry Pellatt
Major-General Sir Henry Mill Pellatt, C.V.O. was a well-known Canadian financier and soldier....
, rich from the Cobalt silver mines, took interest in the McIntyre, and the mine paid its first dividend in 1917. In 1924 the company went on a buying spree, purchasing the Jupiter and Pearl Lake mines, creating a single 626 acres (253.3 ha) plot. In 1927 they built their Number 11 shaft, who's headframe can still be seen on the north side of Pearl Lake, a symbol for the entire rush.
The initial rush resulted in scores of small mines, but the hard rock mining demanded a high level of investment to be profitable, and many of the smaller sites with less valuable plots failed. There was a major first-mover advantage
First-mover advantage
In marketing, first-mover advantage or FMA is the advantage gained by the initial significant occupant of a market segment. It may be referred to as Technological Leadership. This advantage may stem from the fact that the first entrant can gain control of resources that followers may not be able...
and many of the surviving properties were consolidated by the larger holdings to produce a single mine that was much more profitable. Although the "big three" were the most successful at this, there were a number of other success stories as well. The Coniaurum Mine was founded in 1924; backed by Cobalt money, they amalgamated several older plots north of the McIntyre area. The mine proved highly profitable due to the nature of the veins, which tended to run vertically. This allowed shafts to be sunk directly over the veins, without requiring the massive amounts of lumber needed to shore up horizontal drifts. The Coniaurum was successful into the 1950s, when the gold ran out. Another success was the Vipond, which had veins similar to the Coniaurum, and used their profits to build up a larger set of holdings.
Starting in the late 1920s and early 1930s a second wave of new mines opened across the area. Low labour costs due to the great depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
changed the economics of running a mine, and an increased demand due to a lack of faith in paper money led to higher gold prices on the market. A number of sites formerly ignored due to low production were suddenly rendered profitable.
Peak production
By the 1950s many of the original plots had been mined out, and only the richer veins remained profitable. By the mid-1960s most of the mines in the area had closed. Even the main Hollinger eventually closed in 1968.Gold prices started to rise, inflation adjusted, for the first time starting in the later 1960s, rising to $150 by the 1970s. By the late 1980s this had increased to an average around $400 a troy ounce. Improvements in mining techniques had by this time dramatically improved recovery rates and cost of operation, and a third wave of mines opened. These efforts included reprocessing of the massive tailing piles left by the previous mining efforts.
Most recently many of the remaining plots were acquired by Gold Corp Inc. (Porcupine Gold Mines).
The "Big Three"
- Dome Mine, 1910–present, 14,537,595 troy ounces of gold produced
- Hollinger MinesHollinger MinesThe Hollinger Gold Mine was founded by Benny Hollinger in Timmins, Ontario, and in 1910 the company was incorporated by Noah Timmins and partners. The main Hollinger Mine operated from 1910 until 1968. During that period 65,778,234 tons were milled, producing 19,327,691 ounces of gold,...
, 1910–68, 19,327,691 troy ounces of gold produced - McIntyre Mine, 1912–88, 10,751,941 troy ounces of gold produced
Other early mines
- Broulan Reef Mine, 1915–1965
- Buffalo Ankerite Mine, 1926–1953, 1978
- Cincinnati, 1914, 1922–24
- Coniaurum Mine,1913–1918, 1928–1961
- Crown Mines, 1913–1921
- Kam-Kotia Mines
- Miracle Mining
- Paymaster Mine, 1915–19, 1922–1966
- Porcupine Pet Gold Mines, 1914–15
- Vipond Consolidated Mines, 1911–1941, eventually merged with Huronia Belt and Keely Silver Mines to become Anglo-Huronian Limited
The second wave
- Aunor Mine, 1940–1984
- Banner, 1927–28,1933, 1935
- Broulan Porcupine, 1939–1953
- Concordia, 1935
- Delnite Mine, 1937–1964, reopened as a pit 1987-88
- DeSantis Porcupine Mines, 1933, 1939–42, 1961–64
- Faymar, 1940–42
- Halcrow-Swayze, 1935
- Hallnor Mine, 1938–1968, 1981
- McLaren Mine, 1933–37
- Moneta Mines, 1938–1943
- Naybob Gold Mines, 1932–1964
- Pamour Mine, 1936–1999, also operated the Hallnor and Aunor Mine
Newer ventures
- Aquarius, 1984, 1988–89
- Bell Creek Mine, 1987–91, 1992–94
- Hoyle Pond Mine, 1985–present
- Kidd Creek Mine, 1966–present
- Owl Creek Mine, 1981–89