The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame was conceived by the late Maurice R. Brown, former editor and publisher of The Northern Miner, as a way to recognize and honour the legendary mine finders and builders of a great Canadian industry. The Hall was established in 1988. For more information about the extraordinary individuals who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, please go to their home website: http://mininghalloffame.ca/
 
It was not for nothing that The Northern Miner, the weekly journal of Canada’s mining industry, in 1977 chose Stephen B. Roman as its first Mining Man of the Year.

He received the title, the newspaper said at the time, “because Stephen Roman has graphically shown that Canadian money and expertise can compete very successfully with anyone in the world.”
At that time, he had engineered, through his already big and fast-growing company, Denison Mines, the largest-ever uranium sales by a uranium producer.

A Slovakian immigrant who began his working life in Canada as a tomato picker. Roman subsequently took control of a penny mining stock in 1953, and from this built Denison into one of the country’s largest mining and resource empires, rising from the foundation of the company’s sprawling uranium mines at Elliot Lake, Ontario.

That globe-spanning empire now includes, in addition to its uranium interests, coal mining in British Columbia, potash mining in New Brunswick, and oil and gas production in Greece, Egypt, Spain, Italy and Western Canada. Read the rest of this entry »

Like the recent record setting price of gold and the stock market recovery, the general mood at the annual Canadian Mining Hall of Fame dinner at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel a few weeks ago in Toronto, was upbeat, bright and a  turnout. Master of ceremonies Pierre Lassonde, Chairman of Franco Nevada Corp. – the Billy Crystal of the mining sector – was practically “giddy” discussing the high price of gold and Tiger Wood’s problems. “Gold miners never had it so good, like mosquitoes at a nudist colony” quipped Lassonde. He continued, “there is not enough mustard in the U.S. to cover that hot dog,” in reference to Tiger Wood.

One of the highlights of the evening was a spontaneous outpouring of sympathy and financial donations for the earthquake victims in Haiti. Lassonde started the initiative with a $150,000 donation from the head table and challenged the audience to contribute. Lassonde and head table colleagues Goldcorp’s Ian Telfer, Teck’s Norm Keevil and Inmet’s Jochen Tilk each put in $25,000.

“We raised approximately $900,000 between soup and dessert,” stated Edward G. Thompson, Director and Treasurer of the Mining Hall of Fame who also donated $25,000. The money which will be matched by the federal government will be given to the Canadian Red Cross.

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The Porcupine Gold Rush of 1909 was a transformative event in Canadian history, with three gold mines discovered by separate prospecting parties a few miles from each other. The rich discoveries made by Benny Hollinger (1885-1919), Sandy McIntyre (1869-1943) and John (Jack) Wilson (1872-1948) in northern Ontario wilderness led to the development of one of Canada’s premier mining camps and the founding of Timmins, the City with a Heart of Gold.

The Hollinger, McIntyre and Dome mines built from the discoveries of these intrepid prospectors are in a league all their own, having produced 19.5 million ounces, 10.8 million ounces and 15.9 million ounces of gold, respectively. During the past 100 years, the “Big Three” and other mines in the Timmins Camp have collectively produced 67 million ounces of gold, with production continuing into a new century.

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Graham Farquharson has earned a reputation as a senior statesman of Canada’s mining industry by demonstrating a commitment to integrity, fairness and technical excellence throughout his career with Strathcona Mineral Services Limited, a consulting firm he created with two partners in 1974.  He is one of the industry’s most prominent consultants, best known for taking on extraordinary challenges, including developing and managing Canada’s first mine north of the Arctic Circle and debunking an Indonesian property once believed to host the world’s largest gold deposit.

Born in Timmins, the son of a mining engineer whose first love was prospecting, Farquharson began his mining career in 1960 at a copper mine at Tilt Cove, Newfoundland, moving on to work in mines across Canada.  After graduating as a mining engineer from the University of Alberta in 1964, he spent four years in Africa, at Kilembe in Uganda and Tsumeb in Namibia. With an MBA from Queen’s University, he joined the consulting firm of Watts, Griffis and McOuat before founding Strathcona. 

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Victor Wansbrough served Canada’s metals mining industry with distinction for more than 20 years as the first full-time Managing Director of the Canadian Metal Mining Association (CMMA), the forerunner of the Mining Association of Canada. His appointment in early 1947 was a surprise, as he knew nothing about mining at a time when the industry faced serious challenges, notably a labor shortage and a gold mining industry in decline because of rising costs and a fixed gold price.

He worked cooperatively with governments to devise innovative solutions, which included recruiting displaced persons from post-war Europe to alleviate the labor shortage and creating subsidies to support and keep the beleaguered gold mining industry alive. The CMMA had 32 members when Wansbrough assumed full-time leadership, and had grown to represent 102 companies when he retired in 1968. During this period, Canadian mineral production rose from $502 million to $4.39 billion, including $3 billion from metal production.

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Hugo Dummett was one of the world’s most respected economic geologists, aptly described as “the brains, the ideas and the energy” behind the first discovery of economic diamond deposits in Canada. In the 1970s and ‘80s, he worked with Canadian geologists Charles Fipke and Stewart Blusson and South African university professor John Gurney in a quest to find diamonds in North America. Almost a decade later, he convinced BHP Minerals to sign a joint venture with Fipke and Blusson’s junior company, Dia Met Minerals, and continue the diamond hunt in the Northwest Territories. The result of their collaboration was Ekati, Canada’s first diamond mine, and the development of a hugely successful, major new industry.

Dummett’s successes were not confined to diamonds or Canada. He was a respected authority on porphyry copper deposits. During his tenure as Vice-President of Ivanhoe Mines, he contributed to the discovery of a huge porphyry copper-gold deposit that bears his name at the advanced Oyu Tolgoi project in Mongolia.

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Peter Brown has contributed to the growth and prestige of Canada’s mining industry by helping many resource entrepreneurs and emerging companies gain access to venture capital that enabled them to acquire and explore promising mineral prospects or develop and operate new mines.  He has been a dynamic force in the Canadian capital markets since 1968, when he joined Ted Turton in purchasing control of a small Vancouver brokerage firm for $23,000. By focusing on the small to mid-sized resource and junior industrial firms, long ignored by senior investment firms, he transformed Canaccord Capital Inc. (since renamed Cannacord Financial Inc.) into the largest independent investment dealer in Canada, with successful operations in Europe and the United States.

A third generation British Columbian, Brown began his career in the early 1960s with Greenshields Inc. in Toronto and Montreal.  He returned to Vancouver in 1967 just as scandals in both the Toronto and Montreal markets greatly reduced the capital available for small and emerging companies, and in particular the risk capital desperately needed for mineral exploration and development.

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This profile came from the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame. The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame honours the mine finders and developers who helped develop our northern and rural regions and created enormous wealth for the country. For more exciting profiles on the individual who made Canada a global mining powerhouse, go to: http://www.halloffame.mining.ca/halloffame/

Thayer Lindsley, the father of such mining giants as Falconbridge Ltd., Ventures Ltd. and Frobisher, has been described as the greatest mine finder of all time.

Not only did he found Falconbridge, a multinational organization ranked now among the largest mining companies in the world, but throughout his long and extraordinarily dedicated career, Lindsley either found or was involved in the development of such other famous Canadian mining names as Sherritt Gordon, Giant Yellowknife, Canadian Malartic, United Keno Hill, Lake Dufault and Opemiska Copper, Connemara in Southern Rhodesia and Whim Creek in Australia.

His geological and creative genius touched the fortunes of perhaps more than 185 companies in all.

In a book on exploration he published in 1966, he aptly described the kind of attributes that made he himself a giant among mining men: “To be a successful mine finder,” he said, “one must have determination, knowledge, tenacity, a rugged constitution to withstand the rigors of outdoor life, and enjoy overcoming obstacles of every description. Also, a little dash of imagination and enthusiasm is helpful.”

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There was a somewhat subdued feeling by many in the mining sector at the 21st annual Canadian Mining Hall of Fame dinner, last Thursday, at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto.

As Master of Ceremonies, David Harquail, President and CEO of Franco-Nevada said, “…base metals are in the tank, good projects can’t get financing and Hy’s steakhouse is now serving crying towels with those martinis!”

However, the four inductees for 2009 – two entrepreneurial engineers, Grenville Thomas, Bernard Michel, a geologist, Roman Shklanka, and a mineralogist professor, Donald Gorman, – seemed to symbolize the industry’s amazing ability to create enormous wealth and employment as well as the importance of training the next generation of skilled technicians that have made this country a mining superpower.

Mr. Harquail added, “…if there’s one thing a miner knows, it’s a commodity cycle. And when times are bad, opportunity knocks. Many of those at our head table tonight got here by not only surviving many downturns but by capitalizing on them.”

That head table included individuals such as Ian Pearce, CEO Xstrata Nickel, Jim Gowans, President and CEO De Beers Canada, Terry Bowles, President and CEO Iron Ore Company of Canada, and Jack McOuat, Director of the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame, just to name a few.

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Check Against Delivery

Ladies and Gentlemen, and Head Table Guests.

I’m sure I’m not the only person in the room happy to see the back end of 2008.

However in spite of that generally miserable year, there was at least one bright spot for the Canadian Mining Industry.

One month ago, the Teck Suite of Earth Science Galleries was opened at the Royal Ontario Museum.  There are three galleries within the Suite; the Vale Inco Gallery of Minerals, the Gold and Gem Gallery and especially for us here tonight, the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame Gallery.

These are all remarkable, and I’m sure, there is not a person in the room who would not learn something new during a visit – either about minerals, gems or people.

I recommend a visit to the ROM to everyone in the room, including your families, not only to visit the Teck Galleries but also to visit the other wonderful new Galleries now open.

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The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame honours the mine finders and developers who helped develop our northern and rural regions and created enormous wealth for the country. For more exciting profiles on the individual who made Canada a global mining powerhouse, go to: http://www.halloffame.mining.ca/halloffame/

Grenville Thomas left the Old World as a young mining engineer to become a pioneering prospector and company-builder in the New World, where he made a series of important mineral discoveries and contributed to the advancement of Canada’s fledgling diamond industry. He began his career as a 16-year-old coal miner in his native Wales, moving to Canada after graduating from University College, Cardiff, in 1964. He found his calling in remote northern Canada. 

Inspired by its vast untapped mineral potential, he rose to the challenge of working in unforgiving terrain under extreme conditions. He honed his prospecting skills and over several decades built up a multifaceted track record of discovery, culminating with the early 1990s discovery of diamond deposits ultimately developed into the world-class Diavik mine in the Northwest Territories (NWT).
 

Gren Thomas began his Canadian career with Falconbridge, taking posts in the Sudbury nickel camp of Ontario, and at the Giant gold mine in Yellowknife, NWT.

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The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame honours the mine finders and developers who helped develop our northern and rural regions and created enormous wealth for the country. For more exciting profiles on the individual who made Canada a global mining powerhouse, go to: http://www.halloffame.mining.ca/halloffame/

Roman Shklanka has strengthened the prestige of Canada’s mining industry through his geological expertise and willingness to consider potential growth opportunities in diverse settings around the world. While educated and trained in Canada, he is known best for identifying quality projects in far-flung foreign lands and transforming them into world-class mines and deposits. He is one of only a handful of Canadian mining greats who have helped create immense mineral wealth on several continents, most notably for the benefit of developing nations.

Shklanka entered the University of Saskatchewan in his home province at the age of 15 and was awarded a BA degree in 1951, followed by a BCom degree in 1953. A summer job with the Saskatchewan Department of Mineral Resources inspired him to switch direction, and by 1956, he had earned an MA degree in geology. He went on to Stanford University and obtained his doctorate in 1963.

After gaining field and mapping experience with the Ontario Department of Mines, Shklanka joined Placer Development and managed exploration programs in eastern Canada. Read the rest of this entry »

The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame honours the mine finders and developers who helped develop our northern and rural regions and created enormous wealth for the country. For more exciting profiles on the individual who made Canada a global mining powerhouse, go to: http://www.halloffame.mining.ca/halloffame/

Bernard Michel has made profound and enduring contributions to Canada’s mining industry during his transformative 15-year tenure with Cameco Corporation, the world’s largest publicly traded uranium company. Since 1988, he has steered the Saskatchewan-based company through a merger, a restructuring, privatization, global expansion and diversification into gold. He positioned Cameco as one of the world’s few integrated nuclear energy companies, encouraged the entry of First Nations peoples into its workforce, and enhanced its global stature by participating in the most significant nuclear disarmament agreement in history. 
    
Born and educated in Paris, France, and a graduate of the prestigious École Polytechnique, Michel was sent to Canada as a young mining engineer in 1967 to contribute to the design, construction and start-up of a large potash mine in Lanigan, Saskatchewan. He moved next to Amok, also a French-owned mining company then developing the very high grade Cluff Lake uranium mine in the province’s Athabasca Basin. His leadership and technical skills attracted the attention of the Canadian Energy and Mining Company (later renamed Cameco), which offered him the post of senior vice-president of operations in 1988. 

Two years later he became chief operating officer, president and a board member. In 1991, he was appointed chief executive officer, and in 1993 was elevated to chair of the board. Read the rest of this entry »

The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame honours the mine finders and developers who helped develop our northern and rural regions and created enormous wealth for the country. For more exciting profiles on the individual who made Canada a global mining powerhouse, go to: http://www.halloffame.mining.ca/halloffame/

Professor Donald Gorman has served the Canadian mining industry with distinction for more than half a century as a renowned mineralogist and superbly talented educator. Born in Fredericton, he completed a BSc degree in his native New Brunswick in 1947, after his studies were interrupted by wartime service in the Canadian Navy. After spending 1948-1949 studying economic geology as a graduate student at the Royal School of Mines in London, England, he earned a PhD degree at the University of Toronto in 1957 and launched his teaching career.

“Digger” Gorman taught mineralogy with unflagging enthusiasm for the next 41 years, inspiring hundreds of geology and engineering students to pursue careers in mining and mineral exploration. He commanded respect in the classroom by exemplifying the two sides of science: on the one side the rigorous analysis of minerals and their composition and significance; and on the other the pleasure that comes from solving geological puzzles and discovering mineral treasure.

To those he taught, minerals were not chemical formulae and crystal structures, but living things that tell a timeless story, shape history and spur human progress.

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This column was posted today on the Canadian Mining Journal digital update.

The Web has forever changed the way we search for information. In today’s digitized world, most journalists, policy analysts, political leaders and the general public – especially students – turn to the Internet as their first source for facts.

Two major drawbacks to Internet searches seem to be the lack of content that is over a decade old because no one has bothered to post it or information that is deeply embedded in corporate websites. Blog postings, on the other hand, generally show up on Google searches much more readily.

In the final week of December, the annual Mining Person of the Year Award given by The Northern Miner is eagerly awaited by the industry. Since the first award was given in 1977, I was very surprised that I could not find much information about previous winners when I searched the Internet.

After contacting The Northern Miner about my concerns, publisher Doug Donnelly graciously allowed the RepublicOfMining.com to post all the previous Mining Person of the Year winners.

I have created a separate file in my blog’s index site located on the left hand side of the screen called “Northern Miner – Mining Person of the Year Award,” for easy access. Or just Google “Mining Person/Man of the Year” and the address will pop up at the top of the page.

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