From camaraderie to paranoia lessons from Hemlo

Recklessly jumping from choppers still several feet in the air, eager to get some of the action of the Hemlo discovery, mining men alighting in the camp with a thud in 1981 were heard to use some pretty colorful language but never the expression “perfect fairness and good faith.” That legal phrase will doubtless, however, again fall trippingly from the tongues of pin-striped lawyers equally eager to stake another piece of the Hemlo action, not in the bush, but in the highest court in the land.

The Supreme Court of Canada has allowed Lac Minerals to appeal earlier court rulings awarding ownership of the Page- Williams gold mine in northern Ontario to International Corona Resources. When the hearing begins, that key phrase and another “the custom and usage of the mining industry” will be salvoes in the 6-year war of words.

In early 1982, Lac’s announcement of its Hemlo discovery turned a sportingly competitive, but friendly, camp atmosphere into one of virtual armed adversaries. To the victors will belong fabulous spoils many billions of dollars worth of gold.

As Lac’s Hemlo project manager from 1981 to 1983, I witnessed the transition in the climate of the camp as the magnitude of the Hemlo discovery became evident. The atmosphere changed from one of traditional mining frontier friendliness into one of anxiety and sufficient fear that some bushwhackers began carrying sidearms. They also began toting fishing rods as well as their axes, to disguise their purpose for being where they perhaps ought not to have been.

I arrived in the camp in May of 1981 in charge of staking, surface exploration and drilling the so-called Williams property. It was usual after work to visit the local bars to pass the time with other geologists from such competing companies as Corona, Goliath Gold Mines and Golden Sceptre Resources.

It was great fun to swap hunches about what the orebody we sought might be like. My hunch, supported by a growing bank of geological data, was that it resembled an upright horseshoe-like structure, open at the bottom and perhaps tilted somewhat. Diametrically opposed notions were held by others.

At Waterloo University where I got my B.Sc. in geology, they certainly didn’t tell us how crazy a gold rush would get. I found out in what I call the “strikeout gold rush” of 1979-80 at Kirkland Lake. Though nothing of any great worth was found in that escapade, I got some promising values from the drills I was directing.

Perhaps because of my “technical” success there, I was asked by Lac to head for Hemlo. The scene I encountered there, by comparison to the Kirikland Lake rush, was civilized to the point of tameness * * * at first.

I wasn’t yet 30, and perhaps somewhat too high-minded about my calling, having successfully pursued my career with work for such majors as Kerr Addison, Teck Exploration, Cam-Chib Resources and Rio Tinto.

I say “high-minded” because nothing in my prior experience had prepared me for the deterioration in personal and professional relationships I sadly witnessed during my Hemlo days.

On arrival, I found people’s outlook exciting as hell, charged with the anticipation of being onto something big even though, academically and statistically speaking, the Hemlo lode did not, and could not exist.

True, it had been known for many years that there was some gold in the area, with some historians attributing the first find to the French explorers Radisson and des Groseilliers in 1662.

Explorer-geologist Alfred F. A. Coyne claimed that the gold the pair brought home to France came from a 200-mile section, including the Hemlo area. However, they curously omitted it from the map they made of their trail-blazing trip from Hudson Bay to Montreal.

An Indian named Moses Pe-Kong-Gay found two gold veins a few miles from Hemlo in 1869, and another Indian, Peter Moses, made the first known Hemlo deposit discovery in 1944, showing his find to prospector Harry Ollman who, in turn, interested Dr Jack Kerr Williams, who eventually patented the claims.

Ollman and Williams never found enough gold to make a profitable mine, but almost 40 years later the claims were optioned from Williams’ widow by Lac Minerals, and those claims later became a focal point of the court case.

The Hemlo ground had been prospected for years and, though extensive Ontario Department of Mines’ studies were done, they failed to point the way to the significance of this singular and remarkable orebody.

Some geologists admitted in confidence they looked on Hemlo as nothing but promoters’ paper shuffles. However, growing geological information seemed to be indicating an ore structure scarcely credible because of the size that could be inferred from the data.

No one knew for sure, because no one had yet discovered it.

By early 1982 my crews had covertly staked some 25,000 acres for our project, both to the east and the west of where drilling was already under way on the adjacent Corona property.

Having carefully plotted my targets, in a mood of excitement and expectation I prepared to drill.

If the deposit did roughly resemble a horseshoe, as I believed, I hoped it would bring me the luck every explorationist can use in addition to modern mine-finding training and technology.

The first two holes I sank returned intersections of 0.2-oz (or better) gold per ton over 80 ft. Suddenly the expression “rush” took on new meaning for me. As I followed my planned westerly course of drilling there could be no doubt we had struck a huge orebody.

Core samples were distributed to various Lac branch offices for assay so results could not all be known at one lab, risking a leak. With scarcely believable results, Lac checked and double-checked each assay before making its announcement of the amazing discovery.

While tension in the camp had been mounting prior to the announcement, when finally made, its impact was to utterly change the environment of Hemlo and, in my view, negatively affect the relationships of all there.

When I left Hemlo in January, 1983, I had watched the climate of the camp turn from camaraderie to paranoia. I now knew from personal experience a bitter side of life in mine exploration camps (a life which I had come to love) that could, I believe, have been avoided.

Earlier we had been keen competitors but if, for example, a piece of one operator’s equipment broke down and another had a spare, it was immediately provided. No questions asked. No lawyers involved.

Sad to say, the ribbon of camaraderie running through the whole camp, especially among geologists and technicians, began to fray after the discovery and as non-fraternization rules were imposed by mine company managements.

For example, when it was learned that employees of competing companies were going to go to a picnic to benefit a local charity, one junior mining company forbade its employees to attend. Just one rather benign illustration of escalating tensions, as mine company presidents, promoters and their lawyers began squaring off to fight over the spoils of the Hemlo diamond drills.

We weren’t there, of course, to attend picnics, but rather to find a mine and reward shareholders in the companies in which high-risk capital financed their exploration ventures.

But the wedges driven into the human fabric of the camp were indications of the larger malaise finally to be adjudicated in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Immediately following the announcement of Lac’s discovery, the threatened law suits, which until then most of us in the camp took to be sabre rattling, took on new significance.

One result was in Hemlo being developed as three mines atop one orebody, rather than as one mine, an obviously more cost-effective solution, with those deserving to be involved sharing in the economies of scale in such a huge operation.

Many who were in the camp when the discovery was made will themselves reserve judgment on whatever the Supreme Court decides, the reason being that the judgment will be based solely on the “facts” as set out by the court.

Legal requirements are a necessary
part of mining but, as president of a gold exploration junior, it disturbs me that the legal costs expended over the Hemlo dispute could have kept numerous companies like ours searching their ground for years to come.

The mining pros I was privileged to work with at Hemlo appear to be still on good terms with each other and the intent of this piece is certainly not to evoke any unpleasantnesses of an earlier time in that camp. The prevailing mood was one of support and co-operation before the discovery.

When I was about to begin drilling Lac’s Hemlo property, a colleague who was already drilling on Corona’s adjacent ground offered me advice that I should drill to the east of his site. I appreciated his counsel, but my reasoning and strong hunch urged me to go west. My elation was thereafter to be experienced by my colleague as his drills, too, eventually hit home.

Mine owners and promoters, whose arts raised the monies for the high-risk venture, had plenty of reason to celebrate. And, of course, lawyers have feasted on the rich Hemlo spread, their financial burps larger than many juniors’ treasuries.

The media, because it obviously feels it makes a better story, likes to picture individuals involved in great undertakings as either heroes or villains, so its focus will again be on the high profile Hemlo players prospectors, promoters and presidents. A crowded spotlight.

But in truth mine-finding is almost always a team effort. So it was at Hemlo, with several exploration teams succeeding; and with the single orebody now being mined by three separate companies.

My great personal satisfaction was to have been lucky enough to have headed the exploration team that found gold in the unusual Hemlo type of geological host structure, about which there remains much to be known.

My great concern is that our industry suffers from grossly insufficient acknowledgment of its contributions to Canada and to Canada’s status among nations.

I hope the antagonisms which led to the court trials will not in future inhibit the companies mining the gigantic orebody from sharing the academic information they may obtain, to the benefit of all.

This, in addition to any lessons which may be learned from the Supreme Court hearing, I hope will mean that the Hemlo discovery will be best remembered for the incredible mining industry achievement that it truly was; not for the legal battle, whatever its outcome.00400 3/8 Garry Smith is president of Golden Terrace Resources, currently drilling two gold discoveries on its Richardson Lake project in northwestern Ontario.