Thayer Lindsley, the father of such mining giants as Falconbridge Ltd., Ventures Ltd. and Frobisher, has been described as the greatest mine finder of all time.
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.
The claim to Canadian mining immortality for Herman H. “Spud” Huestis came with his introduction to the world of the large tonnage, low-cost Highland Valley copper deposits in British Columbia, several hundred miles northeast of Vancouver.
An eminent economic geologist, known internationally for his many contributions to mineral exploration on nearly every continent of the world, Duncan R. Derry was one of the Canadian mining industry’s leading spokesmen.
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.”
Robert C. Stanley was the driving force that built Inco into the largest nickel company in the world and one of the world’s most successful mining and metallurgical enterprises. Sudbury, Ontario, with a complex developed around eight mines, and Thompson, Manitoba, with it's large mining and processing complex, are two of a number of communities whose fortunes have gone hand in hand with those of Inco.
Since the turn of the century, the mining prospector has been a romantic figure in Canadian folklore. Justifiably so, because it has usually been the prospector who has triggered the metamorphosis of idle wilderness ground into a wealth-producing production centre providing the necessities of life for many in the mining community and opportunity on a far-reaching scale, to industrial operations across Canada.
