Nic-Cop Mines active through ’50s, but now gone

Recently, while going through the estate of my late father, we came across a share certificate for Nic-Cop Mines Limited, issued in 1955. According to the stock certificate, the company was incorporated in the Province of Manitoba. Would you be able to tell us if this company, or any successor company, still exists?

Warren Neufeld

Blind River, Ont.

Nic-Cop Mines was chartered in Manitoba in 1954, just as you said. It was formed to take over properties held by another Manitoba company, Kay Lake Mines, which had itself been formed to offer properties in the Flin Flon area in exchange for shares in the purchasing company. Kay Lake did just such a deal with Nic-Cop in 1954, taking 750,000 shares of Nic-Cop in exchange for a 7-claim block it owned near Cranberry Portage, Man., and for its option on an adjacent block of 34 claims.

Kay Lake had done some initial surface prospecting and drilling on the Cranberry Portage property, and Nic-Cop followed up on this work in 1955. Nic-Cop was also assembling a large land portfolio at the time, all across Manitoba and in northwestern Ontario. Apart from the Kay Lake property, it held three properties in the general area east of Lake Winnipeg, and it also had whole or partial interests in two properties in the Atikwa Lake area of northwestern Ontario. (The early work was managed by the well-known Manitoba explorationist Lew Parres, who, forty-odd years later, is still swinging his pick.)

Exploration on these properties over the next two years convinced the company to concentrate its efforts on two properties southeast of Kenora and one in the Bernic Lake area of Manitoba. More work went on in 1957, but by about 1960 the company had become inactive. The Canadian Mines Handbook for 1965 indicates that the company’s charter was cancelled in October 1964.

Other records show the charter was cancelled in 1971, so it is possible there was an attempt to revive the company’s legal incorporation. At any rate, the company now no longer exists.