EXPLORATION ’94 — Northern prospector learns to be

Prospector Bruno Poulin may be able to do just about anything.

From building trucks and bridges to healing people with his touch, this prospector is about as versatile as they come.

“I do all kinds of jobs,” boasts the 62-year-old native of Quebec. This is an understatement.

Poulin, who has prospected in the Yukon for a quarter-century, is full of surprises. Outside his trailer, half of a used Finning 950 Caterpillar sits next to the shop area where he builds his own trucks and trailers. Inside, near the window, are several pots of geraniums just brought out of winter dormancy.

The first thing Poulin produces for the interview is a small white piece of paper detailing his family tree in Canada, dating back to Jacques Cartier’s arrival in the 16th century.

“Some people tell me to go home,” he says. “I tell them this is my home.” Shortly after meeting Poulin, a burly man with a powerful-looking upper body, he takes my hands in his and says he has the gift of healing. My right hand feels strangely hot when I try to scribble some notes afterwards. This prospector-come-faith healer arrived in the region in 1958 and began working at a sawmill in Lower Post, B.C., just south of the Yukon border, near Watson Lake, Y.T.

After several years, he left, only to return in the late 1960s. At the time, Poulin was looking for lead and silver on behalf of Canol Mine Prospecting, near Mile 98 on the South Canol Road.

He then worked for Boswell River Mines, prospecting for zinc near Mile 49, in the vicinity of Teslin and Boswell Rivers.

Later, around 1970, Poulin explored near Mile 726 on the Alaska Highway, near the Rancheria River, this time for Boswell River Mines.

Several years later, he found himself working on a truck’s suspension in a shop at Haines Junction, when the suspension fell on him.

He suffered numerous broken bones and could not walk for four years. The injury was devastating for a man as physically robust as Poulin. “I used to pick up a 3-ton truck with a horse on it,” he says. “Got no jack? Well, we don’t need the jack! You think I joke? I don’t joke!” In 1978, Poulin travelled to an “alternative healer” in the Philippines for treatment. He was then able to walk again, though he was naturally much weaker than before the injury.

Poulin thereupon returned to prospecting in the Rancheria River area. At Mile 706 of the Alaska Highway, he and his family “poked” 34 miles of trail in four branches and did extensive staking.

They found a lead-zinc-silver deposit and, in the early 1980s, hauled the ore out themselves on one of the trails, a distance of about seven miles, to the highway. Bridges had to be built along the way.

“Four-hundred tons we bust with a sledge hammer and ship to Cominco in Trail, B.C.,” Poulin recalls. His wife, Antoinette, also worked on the operation, as did their daughter, Carmen, whom a proud Poulin claims is “as strong as a man.”

Poulin’s energy in recent years has been concentrated on the South Canol Road. He shows off photographs of his newly completed log home and greenhouse, just off Mile 26, adding that his wife can hardly wait to move there. (He says he has about 150 placer and 150 hard rock claims in the area.) There is a photo of one of the wood bridges the family built, one of Poulin’s daughter in a Cat doing mining assessment work, and one of his son Mario, a mechanic.

“That’s the way we make lumber — by hand,” he explains as we flip through the pictures. “See here, I made that bucket (for the placer mining operation). Here we sink shaft.”

Poulin is wary of revealing details of his latest mining venture. “We don’t like to say too much,” he says. What he does say is that it is a hard rock deposit which contains gold, copper and molybdenum.

“I don’t trust anyone anymore,” he says. “We do it ourselves. Every time I got option, I got stuck with the bill.”

Poulin says he uses his intuitive gifts in prospecting. Typically, he will hold coat hangers in both hands and estimate, aloud, how far a given object is away from him. “Ten feet. Nine feet. Eight and a half. Nine.” As the hangers turn inward, Poulin smiles with the satisfaction that he has hit upon the answer.

— The author is a freelance writer based in Whitehorse.