Odds ‘n’ Sods: Surviving Soviet-style exploration
After the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Eastern Europe was a rich hunting ground for mineral exploration companies. In the mid-1990s, I was part of a small, enthusiastic team assembled…
Odds ‘n’ Sods
Odds ‘n’ Sods: Rocks can talk
Rock is remarkable stuff. It lets you know when it’s not happy, and like the best of us, it gets stressed from time to time. When it gets very wound…
Odds ‘n’ Sods: My project in Pakistan went ‘boom’
Half a day south of the N40 highway in Pakistan, the main road heading west to Iran through the Balochistan desert, lies the Ras Koh mountain range. Steep, rugged mountains…
Odds ‘n’ Sods: Dodging drug smugglers in Western Pakistan
Western Pakistan is a fascinating place. It’s remote, arid, tribal, and these days, a Taliban stronghold — not the friendliest of spots for westerners planning on coming home still attached…
Odds ‘n’ Sods: Lassonde praises Meikle, takes final bow as CMHF MC
During the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony held in Toronto in January, master of ceremonies and Franco-Nevada chairman Pierre Lassonde shared a story of a fateful encounter he…
Odds ‘n’ Sods: The treasure of Leija Cave
After spending 17 years with Newmont Mining as a senior exploration geologist, and being transferred twice in the same year (1997), I decided it was time to strike out and…
Odds ‘n’ Sods: My three ‘Eureka!’ moments as a Canadian explorer
The excitement of a mineral discovery is a “Eureka!” moment, and this is the story of my three Eureka moments. I’m 77 years old now, so some of the details…
Book excerpt: Placer Development and Amelia Earhart’s final flight
The following is an extract from the newly published coffee table book A History: Placer Development Limited and Placer Dome Inc. compiled by Nean Allman and Justin Baulch, and available…
Book excerpt: Budding mogul J.P. Bickell’s hunt for gold in Ontario
The would-be millionaire John Paris Bickell had first become interested in the metals of the earth during a trip to the Yukon goldfields as a young man. Then, in 1903,…
Odds ‘n’ Sods: Memories of Sourdough Bay
I read the article “Callinex grows Flin Flon footprint” (T.N.M., March 22/17), and it reminded me of an anecdotal incident that happened back in the 1960s when my father Lew…
Odds ‘n’ Sods: Doda, Dink and Zoran
My first winter in the bush, after graduating from MIT in June 1958 with a degree in geology and geophysics, began on Dec. 5, 1958. I flew from Toronto to…
Odds ‘n’ Sods: Young Johnnie gets bushed
Toward the end of my first summer in the bush in 1958, we had a crew change. I was party chief of a three-man McPhar Geophysics crew locating and detailing…