Goundhog day

All producing mines usually have unique stories associated with their discoveries. Sometimes these stories are truth, sometimes fiction, and sometimes a hybrid of both. Sometimes the stories never even get told. This story is about the Nor-Acme gold mine at Snow Lake in northern Manitoba, as it was told to me by my late father, Lew Parres.

In some parts of Canada, groundhogs are considered a delicacy. Indeed, people claim they are quite tasty. They were widely hunted and eaten at one period of time, for, as we all know, if you’re hungry enough . . . But who would have thought groundhogs would make good prospectors?

In October 1924, my grandfather, Christopher Parres, was scooping up material from around Mister Groundhog’s burrow by the shore of the S-shaped lake in northern Manitoba. He placed the rusty material dug up from a buried gossan into his gold pan and swirled the reddish solution around. The snow was coming down in wet blobs, and the chill in the wind told him there would be ice on the bay in the morning. He had felt that same chill many times as a young lad raised near Carman, Man., where he had hunted and guided in the Boyne Marsh.

It was time to vacate the Northlands as freeze-up was close at hand. Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds, and the reflection from the bottom of the pan stabbed his eyes, triggering the realization that the bottom of the pan was covered with fine gold! The heady excitement of all that gold was tempered by his urgent dilemma. He definitely had to stake some claims on this showing, but if he stayed even one day longer he could get caught in the freeze-up with deadly consequences. He was, after all, in the middle of nowhere.

It had been a long summer, blasting and digging out trenches with the Bonter brothers. Sunday was his day off, when he prospected on his own. There hadn’t been much colour in the pans during the mosquito-and-blackfly months, but now that the cool autum was at hand, the conditions for prospecting were ideal. The bugs were in torpor, and the leaves had fallen off the trees, making it possible to see outcrops and quartz veins for long distances through the bush.

It was a chilly October day and his last chance to traverse an area of interesting geology in the gneissic garnetiferous rocks. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon, on his way back to the canoe at the S-shaped lake, that he spotted the rusty groundhog excavation and was attracted as if by a magnetic pull. The daylight was fading fast and he had to get back to camp. He had, once before, seen a bit of gossan on the shore while paddling around the lake, but now a tree had blown over, exposing it in full.

He stowed his prospecting gear in the front of the wet canoe for extra weight alongside the large boulder that was placed there for solo trips. The gold pan went in the middle with its precious lode. As he dipped his paddle into the water in long powerful strokes, the icy sting on his pull hand made him wince. An old war wound — shrapnel had torn off a finger in the First World War — was highly sensitive to the cold, and the pain helped bring him back to reality after the euphoria of seeing so much gold.

It was crucial to make big Wekusko Lake by the following night. He would have to portage all his gear, and there were four portages. He could stay overnight with Dick Woosey and Kate Rice at their island cabin. The big lake wouldn’t freeze for a few days, the way the weather was acting, unless the wind went absolutely still. Stranger things had happened.

His thoughts drifted back to the war — of lying there in France, severely wounded by the shrapnel blast, unable to move, while the German sniper in the tree tried to finish him off but couldn’t quite find the range.

He mulled over his circumstances. He had survived France, and chances were the groundhog’s showing would not be discovered under a thick blanket of snow. His discovery would be safe until next spring. He had to survive to fight another day, he thought. Once he got across the lake to the east side to Herb Town, he would finish packing his gear and catch one of the larger, much safer boats to the south end at Hale’s Landing. From there, it was a 13-mile portage to the Hudson Bay Railway at Mile 62.

Crossing Wekusko Lake at that time of year in a paddling canoe loaded with gear was dangerous. Most years someone died trying. Conversely, if the wind didn’t calm down, he could end up waiting days to cross. There were no islands for shelter, and the lake had a reputation for tricky waves. Sometimes it seemed as if the wind would come at you from three different directions, making canoeing hazardous.

Back at his tent camp, sipping on hot tea after a quick supper of beans and caribou meat, he made his final decision. It was too risky to stay even another day and stake some claims. He had to be gone in the morning, and even then he would be breaking ice in the bays. He knew it would be a long, tenuous winter back in Sutherland, Sask., without the peace of mind of knowing the ground was safely staked.

He had spent a year in a London hospital recuperating, fuelled by stories about the lure of gold, told to him by an Australian friend in similar shape. Trips to the Royal Museum to view the rock and mineral specimens only reinforced the dream. What was another seven months?

On May 12, 1925, he recorded his claims in The Pas, Man. He’d been back to the North on the ice, as early as he could get back to big S-shaped lake. Now it was breakup.

Chris Parres’ gold showing eventually produced nearly a million and a half ounces of gold during two periods of production and created the town of Snow Lake.

— The author is a geologist who resides in Thunder Bay, Ont. He is seeking stories and pictures for a book he is writing on Snow Lake, and can be reached at aparres@shaw.ca