OBITUARY — Dennis Sheehan discovered Bousquet for Lac

Well-known geologist Dennis Sheehan died Oct. 15 from a heart attack, while playing in a hockey game. He was 56.

President of Tri Origin Exploration, Sheehan was born and raised in Blind River, Ont., and landed his first job at the nearby Pronto mine. He later worked as an underground geologist at Willroy mine in Manitouwadge, Ont., which became part of the Lac Minerals group in 1966. He stayed with Lac until January, 1988, rising through the ranks to become senior vice-president of exploration.

Sheehan was credited with the discovery of the Bousquet No. 1 and No. 2 gold mines in Quebec as well as the main portion of the Hemlo gold deposit in Ontario that later became the Williams mine. He turned the Doyon gold deposit in Quebec into a mine and contributed to the development of the Macassa gold mine at Kirkland Lake, Ont. Also, he acquired the Toqui base metal deposit in Chile for Lac.

In 1986, he received the Dr. A.O. Dufresne Award from the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. The next year, he was a joint winner of the Barlow Medal.

Much to Sheehan’s disappointment, his efforts to bring New Mexico’s New Cinch gold property to the Lac fold in 1980 turned out to be ill-fated. As well, Lac eventually lost its Hemlo gold mine to International Corona in a lengthy and costly court battle that attracted worldwide attention in the mid-1980s. In 1989, Sheehan, with another former Lac employee, founded Tri Origin, which was listed by The Toronto Stock Exchange in January. The company intends to continue funding university and student research, in which he strongly believed.

“Dennis was an extremely enthusiastic explorationist who always kept the big picture in mind,” says Tri Origin Vice-President Robert Valliant. “The whole business to him, in his own words, was to find mines. Despite a variety of interests, his main objective was to get the next drill hole into one of his properties, for example, Tri Origin’s polymetallic discovery in Australia this year.”