LABRADOR LORE

The 1950s were frenetic years for the mining industry. Discovery followed discovery in rapid succession. Brunswick in the Maritimes, Mattagami Lake in Quebec, Ontario’s Geco base metal find and the uranium bonanza midway between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie. In northern Manitoba, Inco Ltd. was beginning to unearth nickel deposits, and in British Columbia, Bethlehem, a precursor of that province’s eventual big-league copper orebodies, was found.

Somewhat muffled because of the noisy excitement of discovery elsewhere was the opening of the Labrador iron fields. This belt of iron-bearing rocks was first mapped by Dr. A.P. Low of the Dominion Geological Survey (now the Geological Survey of Canada). None other than Dr. William F. James (former Falconbridge President Bill James’s father) and Dr. J. E. Gill (Aur Resources President Jim Gill’s grandfather) prospected the ground in 1929.

Later, indications were to come of the mammoth proportion of this deposit. A study had cautiously hinted at an “indicated reserve of 50 million tons.” But the range within which that tonnage was found represented “the epitome of the wildest imaginings of any engineer,” said Frederick Reid in a paper published in 1969. The entire range was 180 miles long, he wrote.

Size was a prerequisite to development. The range was 350 miles from the St. Lawrence River. Not only were two railways built to accommodate iron ore shipments, but deep sea ports were also dredged out at Sept Isles and Port-Cartier, Que. In fact, the St. Lawrence Seaway project was given impetus by the shipping requirements of inland steel-makers who needed Labrador ore.

Now, more than three decades later, some of the finds of the 1950s are petering out — Geco, for one, Mattagami Lake for another. The Labrador iron fields, while they have suffered through a deep recession and a restructuring of the worldwide steel industry, are still functioning. And, as Technical Editor Patrick Whiteway’s story in this issue makes clear, they should be clawing at the hematite and magnetite in the Labrador Range for years to come.