James Carter is a giant in the history of Canada’s oil sands and an exemplary leader in their sustainable development. He transformed the fledgling industry — and the frontier town of Fort McMurray, Alberta — into a powerful economic engine for the nation while building Syncrude Canada into one of the world’s largest and most successful energy producers.
Minefinders get the glory, but it is the minebuilders who get the ore. For 65 years, while others discovered and financed the deposits, John Maclsaac applied his energies to breaking the first rock, sinking the first shafts and preparing the mines for their first production.
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.
The list of mines in which Mervyn Arthur Upham played a significant role developing is considerable - 22 in Canada alone, several more internationally.
James McCrea was instrumental in building Dome Mines into one of the giants of the Canadian mining industry. He was responsible for acquiring and developing Dome’s Sigma mine in northwestern Quebec in the early 1930s, which has been producing gold for 56 years, and the Campbell Red Lake gold mine, one of Canada’s premier gold producers and also still in production.
John Kostuik exemplified the rough and ready ways of the hard-rock miner. A mining engineer, he cut his teeth by somehow managing to eke out of profits for what was in the late 1930s the lowest-grade mine in Canada. Howey Gold Mines, in fact, proved to be a training ground for low-cost mining methods.
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.
Robert Isaacs is best-known for his role in the discovery and development of the massive lead-zinc deposits in New Brunswick that became the cornerstone of Brunswick Mining and Smelting. A talented mining engineer, he also had a hand in financing and developing many smaller producers, particularly in Newfoundland, where he developed a reputation for building mines with low capital and operating costs.
Michael J. Knuckey’s induction into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame recognizes his leadership role in the discovery or development of at least 10 mineral deposits, of which two are truly world class. Of these deposits, eight have become mines.
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.
