James Thomson embodied dedication to the mining industry throughout his 44-year career with the Ontario Department of Mines (ODM), later the Ontario Geological Survey (OGS). He revived, enlarged and modernized ODM, transforming it into an increasingly important body recognized in Canada and internationally for its technical excellence.
Bernard Michel has made profound and enduring contributions to Canada’s mining industry during his transformative 15-year tenure with Cameco Corporation, the world’s largest publicly traded uranium company.
Victor Wansbrough served Canada’s metals mining industry with distinction for more than 20 years as the first full-time Managing Director of the Canadian Metal Mining Association (CMMA), the forerunner of the Mining Association of Canada.
When Gerald Grandey joined Cameco Corporation in 1993, his mandate as senior vice-president of marketing and corporate development was to help the company grow beyond its core Rabbit Lake and Key Lake uranium mines in Saskatchewan.
Jules Timmins’ finest hour, and his claim to mining fame, occurred when he brought into being the iron ore fields of northern Quebec and Labrador, in one of the greatest projects in Canadian mining history.
Karl Springer, a highly successful mine-finder, has amply proved in his career as a prospector that not only could he find the mines but that he could provide the inspirational leadership and drive to make them pay. As well, he has done pioneer work, particularly with the helicopter, in the use of aviation in exploration and mine development.
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.
In a life span of 89 years, Hector Authier drank deeply from the cup of Canadian life and enriched his country in the process. All Abitibi was his cause and Val d’Or one of the effects.
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.
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.
