A lawyer by profession, James Y. Murdoch, who became first president of the fledgling Noranda Mines in 1922, at the age of 32, was one of the greatest its builders Canada has ever produced. Not just a mine-builder, but a nation builder.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
Prominently displayed in the halls of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, is a plaque that reads:“GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY FRIENDS OF DR. W.F. JAMES, SAINT FRANCIS XAVIER UNIVERSITY ON 12 MARCH 1980..."
