Walter Baker named Prospector of the Year

Walter Baker, an 83-year-old Kirkland Lake prospector who first suggested to Donald McKinnon that claims around the cpr whistle-stop of Hemlo might be worth looking into, has been named Prospector of the Year by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (pdac).

Those Hemlo claims in northwestern Ontario are now the site of three of Canada’s major gold mines, 27 years after Baker made a gold discovery in the area. In 1961 he had outlined, by the almost lost art of gold-panning, an anomalous gold zone 3,000 ft in length striking from the patented Williams claims on to open ground to the west.

But that work alone was not the only reason for honoring Baker. The pdac’s citation refers to his “career as a prospector and the many discoveries to (his) credit.”

A. J. Walker, chairman of the association’s awards committee, comments in a letter of notification to Baker that “there were many of your friends supporting your nomination.”

Other annual pdac awards, which will be presented at the association’s annual banquet March 7 in Toronto, include:

— Developers Award to partners Terrence Flanagan and John McAdam, principals in several junior mining companies including Muscocho Explorations and Flanagan McAdam Resources, for their careers as explorationists resulting in the development of several mining projects.

— A distinguished service award goes to M. E. Holt, former vice-president exploration for American Barrick Resources, in recognition of his achievements in mineral exploration and persistence which resulted in the successful development of the Holt-McDermott gold mine in northeastern Ontario, as well as for his support of the pdac as a director and president.

— A distinguished service award goes to James Geddes, vice- president administration secretary of Dickenson Mines and secretary of Kam-Kotia Mines, in recognition of his many years as treasurer of the pdac and his assistance in running the association’s annual conventions over the years.