Kenneth Darke, who helped discover the huge Kidd Creek base metal deposit near Timmins, Ont., has died following a long battle with cancer. He was 66.
Born in Trail, B.C., Darke obtained a geological engineering degree from the University of British Columbia in 1956. He soon accepted a job as a field geologist with Texas Gulf Sulphur in order to travel and work on projects of diversified geology and mineralogy.
Darke was sent to projects throughout North America. Before his tenure in Timmins, he evaluated the Alaskan Wrangall, the Hualapai Mountains of Arizona and the Solitario Mountains of Texas, and helped discover soda ash in Wyoming and phosphate in North Carolina. During a supply run to Baffin Island in May 1958, Darke and three other men survived 87 hours in the snows of Canada’s Far North after their plane crashed. George Podolsky, a fellow Texas Gulf employee, is credited with keeping Darke and the pilot and co-pilot alive until help arrived days later. Darke’s injuries included a broken back, and he spent the rest of the summer recovering in Trail.
Darke arrived in Timmins in 1963; it was to be a momentous year for both him and the small northern Ontario town.
By autumn of that year, Texas Gulf’s exploration budget was depleted and work was scaled back. Darke urged the company to continue with the program, confident that a major base metal deposit could be found in gold country. Darke’s intuition paid off when, on Nov. 8, 1963, hole K55-1, which he spotted himself, hit pay dirt. The town’s population swelled by 5,000 soon after the discovery was announced in the following year. Up to 100 companies invaded the region, snapping up property within a 20-mile radius of the Kidd Creek deposit.
Darke is reported to have made a small fortune selling property he acquired in the region. He resigned from Texas Gulf in June 1964, and opened his own consulting firm in Timmins, where he lived the rest of his life.
By 1966, the Kidd Creek zinc-copper-lead mine was in production. The operation is still the largest employer and taxpayer in town.
Darke is survived by wife Ann, daughter Hillary and mother Antionette Daniel.
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