Recognized as the leader of a group of five men who invested their energies and resources in founding first the LaRose silver mine in Cobalt and later the Hollinger gold mine in Timmins, Noah Timmins is unquestionably a founding father of this country’s mining industry.
A pioneer of Canada’s mining and metallurgy industry, Lloyd Pidgeon is best known for the development of the process for the production of high purity magnesium. The process, which bares his name, remains to this day unrivalled in the production of the world’s highest purity magnesium metal.
Paul Penna was a successful mine maker and the builder of a substantial corporation destined to thrive long into the future. As chairman and president of Agnico Eagle Mines, he brought his company from small beginnings to senior status.
Along with many other prospectors of his generation, Edmund Horne came to northern Ontario at the turn of the century with hopes of finding his pot of gold. Success was elusive, but rather than give up, Horne decided to venture across the border into Quebec, based on his belief that good geology did not stop at the Ontario border.
For almost three decades the 1970s, 1980s and until his death in 1995 Robert Hallbauer was recognized by industry, government and labor as a giant in terms of his presence and influence over the mining industry in British Columbia.
Joseph Tyrrell has been variously described as the doyen of Canadian mining men, the dean of mining, the man who conquered the Canadian North, Canada’s senior geologist, and the last of the great breed of mapmaking explorers and first of the modern mineralfinders and technologists.
Alfred Powis is a company builder with exceptional leadership skills and a keen eye for opportunity. During his tenure as chief executive officer at Noranda, he was instrumental in creating one of the largest natural resource conglomerates in Canada, with few rivals internationally.
An enquiring mind, skill as a field geologist and the desire to find orebodies led Walter Holyk to make an outstanding contribution to the understanding of the genesis of volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits.
Walter Curlook was a man of vision who helped shape the world’s largest nickel producer. Throughout his lengthy career with Inco, he was responsible for fostering new technologies and products, new working environments and a new era of government and public relations.
Mining promoters have been an integral part of the Canadian mining industry for more than a century, with some more dedicated to discovery - and more successful - than others. Murray Pezim ranks among the most successful of them all; his enthusiasm and perseverance led to the discovery of Ontario’s Hemlo gold camp, one of the great Canadian mineral discoveries, and the Eskay Creek gold deposit in British Columbia.
