Most successful Conwest marks 50th anniversary

One of the most successful resource companies in Canada today, Conwest Exploration (TSE) will be celebrating its 50th anniversary next month. A success story from Day One, it is something of a chronicle of just how a mining company should be run.

But the real Conwest story spans much more than 50 years — it goes right back to the great silver rush to Cobalt in 1903. For in that year a young undergraduate in mining at Queen’s University named Frederick Martin Connell headed to that bustling new camp to prospect in search of a fortune.

And silver he did find, though the fortune was to come later. However that venture was to launch him on a legendary career that extended over seven decades that saw him prospecting throughout Canada and the American southwest and on to the boardrooms and executive offices of this country’s most important mining companies.

Known as FM to a great host of friends and associates, he quickly established an enviable reputation for fair dealing and honesty that is still the very hallmark of the Conwest organization today. “Your integrity is only handed you once. If you compromise it, it will haunt you forever” was his doctrine through life.

With brother Harold, who was to become a lifelong partner and business confidant, they established a Toronto exploration-mining office in 1911. Among other ventures they managed to stake a claim at Kirkland Lake which just so happened to be on the main break of Harry Oake’s famed Lake Shore gold mine which was soon to become Canada’s richest gold mine. They eventually sold it to that company for shares which netted them a very tidy sum.

Prospectors turned to Fred Connell in droves, knowing they would be treated fairly. Too, he would move quickly. In Noranda from Day 1

In 1922 he participated in a syndicate seeking gold in the Rouyn district of Quebec which spawned the big Noranda mine. In fact he served on the board of directors of that company for a 36-year span until 1964 and remained an honorary director until his death in 1980.

Another early feather in the Connell hat was the staking in 1928 of what was to become the Central Patricia gold mine in the Pickle Lake area. This they brought right through to production in the very heart of the Great Depression — no small feat. That mine operated profitably for 17 years.

Still another jewel in the crown of their private Connell Mining and Exploration Co. was its participation in a syndicate that optioned a property at Larder Lake that was to become the Kerr Addison, one of this country’s great gold mines. Birth of Conwest

By 1938 the Connell interests had expanded to the point that called for a public corporate vehicle. That was the birth of today’s Conwest Exploration — a company that has never looked back. Granted there was a natural slowdown in its activities during the war years when FM was serving in Ottawa as one of C. D. Howe’s Dollar-A-Year men.

But right after the war he was back in full harness despite the age of 6l. Successes followed quickly, starting with the development of the United Keno Hill silver mine in the Yukon in partnership with the late Thayer Lindsey’s Frobisher Exploration. As its first president, Fred Connell quickly established this as the largest silver producer in Canada. And it’s still turning out that metal.

Then came the Cassiar Asbestos, a bold adventure if ever there was one. After seeing some asbestos samples in the Conwest exploration office at Whitehorse, he dispatched his local exploration team to a remote spot atop a mountain in northern British Columbia to secure that property, which he developed into one of Canada’s richest and best asbestos producers (still producing). Into oil patch

Then with much foresight, he entered into a partnership with friendly Calgary interests that pioneered oil and gas exploration in the Yukon and Arctic Islands in the late 1950s and early ’60s that has led to the establishment of one of Conwest’s important money-making arms today.

In 1965 Conwest formed an Australian subsidiary that scored handsomely in the big nickel boom that was sweeping that country.

While Fred Connell retired as chairman of the board in 1973, he was seen frequently in the Conwest offices almost to the time of his death at the ripe age of 95.

An integral part of the Conwest success story, of course, has been the calibre of the engineers, geologists and prospectors it has always employed.

Although the mining business has changed and matured since the FM heydays, the Conwest corporate philosophy has changed little under Martin P. Connell, his grandson, who assumed the presidency on Fred’s retirement and who is now chairman of the board. Too, John Lamacraft, its president and chief executive officer, appears to be tarred with something akin to the FM brush.

Evidence of this is apparent in some of the company’s more recent moves, like the acquisition of a 50% controlling interest in Mineral Resources International, the company that owns the Nanisivik zinc- lead-silver mine in the Canadian Arctic. Or that acquisition of a 25% equity interest in Hemglo Resources at a cost of $6.8 million which it subsequently sold for an after-tax gain of $28.2 million.

Indeed Conwest is entering its next 50 years with a strong and astute organization, with earnings now running higher than at any time in the company’s history. And its balance sheet, too, is strong. Today, it has the capacity and guts to undertake new investments in the order of $150 million-$200 million.