Neil Campbell’s abilities at geological deduction were responsible for several important mineral discoveries, but it is the Pine Point mine on the south shore of Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories with which he was most closely associated.
Sometimes referred to as “the King of the Minemakers” at the height of his career, James Boylen was best known for the discovery and development of the volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits in the Bathurst area of New Brunswick in the early 1950s.
Robert Boyle grew up in southwestern Ontario, where he developed his fascination with and love for science and the natural world. He went on to make many contributions to the mining industry; however the most important was his pioneering work in geochemistry.
An imaginative exploration philosophy, sound academic approach and the resolute perseverance of a risk taker - these were the qualities that made Charles E. Michener a major factor in the success of Inco Ltd.‘s mine-finding endeavours during the middle decades of this century.
While every graduate engineer is familiar with the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer, there may be a few who do not know that the ritual dates back to 1922 and a certain Professor Herbert Edward Terrick Haultain. In a talk he gave that year, Professor Haultain recommended developing an oath or creed for graduating engineers.
Long before the Brenda mine was developed into a world-class copper producer, the low-grade Okanagan area deposit was scoffed at by many in the industry. Bernard Brynelsen, however, was not among the sceptics.
Adventure, fame and fortune all came the way of Sir Harry Oakes, the self-made prospector and mine-finder who transformed Ontario’s Kirkland Lake district into one of the world’s most famous gold camps.
The scarcity of jobs during the Depression years prompted a young Egil Lorntzsen to pursue a prospecting career, starting in the Bridge River gold camp of British Columbia. But success was not to come until decades later, when he made an “elephant” copper discovery in nearby Highland Valley.
Mining engineer and geologist Georges H. Dumont has truly earned his place among the great contemporary discoverers. A pioneer of the Quebec mining industry, Dumont was actively involved in the engineering, development and production of the eleven mineral deposits he helped discover.
Archibald Bell contributed to the development of several mines during the course of an illustrious career that epitomizes the progress made by the mining industry this century. He is best known for his role in the discovery of the Copper and Needle Mountain orebodies of Gaspe Copper which, at 67 million tons averaging 1.3% copper, could be termed an “elephant” discovery.
