Gilbert LaBine helped shape the course of world history when in 1930 he discovered pitchblende at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. With his discovery there of the ore that yields radium and uranium, LaBine pushed Canada into the atomic age. He was probably one of the few Canadian prospectors of that time who could have identified the pitchblende mineral.
Like another great Canadian mine-finder, Gilbert LaBine (now, too, enshrined in the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame), Franc R. Joubin also made his name and enduring reputation, in uranium. For it was Joubin who found the vast Blind River area uranium field in northern Ontario, today the site of the major operations of uranium miners Denison Mines and Rio Algom at Elliot Lake.
Frederick M. Connell The citation accompanying the 1973 Inco Medal award to Frederick M. Connell, probably said it all: “In recognition of the leading part he has played as a mine-finder and mine-maker, placing his name in the foremost rank of those whose names and accomplishments will always be associated with laying broad and firm foundations to one of Canada’s greatest industries.”
Mining on Canada’s northern frontier poses a particular set of challenges and few mining men had more successful experience with them than Eldon Leslie Brown. The operations he managed during his career - Sherritt, God’s Lake, Sachigo River, Lynn Lake - all had their Beginnings in remote, northern areas supplied and developed by tractor trains on winter roads and the bush pilots who appeared after World War I.
So diverse were the achievements of John Bradfield that he can well be characterized as a coach who built a winning team capable of excellent performance on more than one type of playing field.
Selwyn G. Blaylock devoted a working lifetime to mines and minerals and left a number of monuments to his effectiveness including: A successful Canadian mining and metallurgical enterprise, Consolidated Mining & Smelting Co. of Canada, moving upward in this organization from assayer in 1899 to president and managing director in 1939.
It is largely due to the direction of John Simpson that Placer Development, a predecessor company of Placer Dome Inc., developed a global perspective that characterizes a growing number of Canadian mining companies. Under Simpson’s direction and foresight, Placer became pre-eminent in high-tonnage, open pit mining operations in British Columbia and overseas and in the production of a variety of minerals.
Pierre Beauchemin was a towering figure on the mining horizons of the province of Quebec. As one of French Canada’s most outstanding mine makers, he was the founder of one of this country’s leading mining organizations, the Sullivan Group of companies. A rough-hewn coureur de bois raised on the shores of the St. Lawrence and in the woods of Abitibi, he had a firm faith in the mineral wealth of his native province, and pursued this faith with tenacity and perseverance.
To win acclaim in one lifetime either as a prospector, a scientist, a mine maker or a corporate builder is no small achievement; each occupation requires a high degree of talent, competence and energy. These three qualities Norman Keevil possessed and employed in abundance as indicated by the act that he achieved preeminence in all four endeavors.
