Gold helped to open the Manitoba frontier

Gold was often the catalyst that opened new lands in Canada’s north and west, and Manitoba was no exception. Soon after gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1879, prospectors moved north.

Manitoba’s first documented gold discovery took place in southeast Manitoba at Rice Lake, near the present town of Bissett. There, in 1911, Ephrem Pelletier staked the Gabrielle claims. Pelletier’s assistant, Alex Desautels, later staked a claim that was, in 1932, to become the prosperous San Antonio mine.

Although the Rice Lake area provided the first discovery, it was Manitoba’s north that provided the first mine. As early as 1896 some prospectors worked the country north of The Pas, but the first systematic exploration began in 1907.

In 1912, The Pas was incorporated as a rail and supply centre for the north. Gold provided the first recorded metal shipment from Manitoba. In 1917, “28 1/2 tons” of gold-quartz ore, averaging “$81 per ton,” were shipped to the smelter at Trail, B.C., from the Moose Horn claims at Herb Lake, near Snow Lake.

In 1918, the Rex claim at Herb Lake produced 43 kg of gold. During 1924-25, these claims produced 172 kg. Later, in 1933, Laguna Gold Mines took over these claims, eventually producing a total of $1.8 million worth of gold and silver between 1936 and 1940.

The Rice Lake or Bissett gold district of southeast Manitoba may not be as well known as camps like Red Lake (its possible extension to the east in Ontario) or Timmins, but it has an equally interesting history. The first of many small- to medium-sized gold mines in the Rice lake area of southeastern Manitoba was the Kitchener mine at Long Lake, operated by Central Manitoba Mines from 1927 to 1937. Others followed, including the Gene, Growler and Hope mines next to Kitchener, operated by Central Manitoba from 1932 to 1937; the Oro Grande from 1932 to 1934; the Gunnar mine from 1936 to 1941; Ogama-Rockland 1941-42 and 1948-51, and the Jeep mine from 1947 to 1950.

The San Antonio mine, by far the biggest operation in the district, ran continuously from 1932 to 1968 and was reopened briefly by Brinco Ltd. from 1982 to 1983.

In the years following the First World War, gold was also discovered northeast of Lac du Bonnet at the Diana-Gem Lake property which produced 236 kg from 1932 to 1938. Farther south, near Falcon Lake, the Sunbeam-Waverley gold prospects, first staked in 1932, produced 25 kg of gold and 5.7 kg silver in 1940.

In remote northeastern Manitoba, high grade gold was discovered at Inland Lake Gold Mines produced 156 kg in 1834.The renowned prospector, R. J. Jowsey, who discovered the Elk Island deposit at Gods Lake in 1932, established the prosperous Gods Lake mine in this wilderness area in 1955. It eventually produced 491,000 tonnes of gold ore, then valued at $6 million, before closing in 1943.

The Gurney mine, 40 km east of what is now the town of Flin Flon, opened in 1937 and produced 778 kg gold before ceasing operations in 1939.

The large Nor-Acme deposit on the northeast shore of Snow Lake, discovered by C. R. Parres in 1925, produced 15,900 kg gold and 1,300 kg silver between 1949 and 1958. This was Manitoba’s largest gold operation, at 1,800 tonnes per day, and second only to San Antonio in total production. Reprinted from Mining in Manitoba.