John Zigarlick, Jr. was a visionary mine-maker and company-builder who left an enduring legacy in Canada’s North through innovative infrastructure development and the formation of progressive Aboriginal business partnerships.
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.
The initiative of Jack Hammell to harness the potential of the airplane opened the floodgates to mineral exploration in Canada’s north. It was Hammell’s ambition to “crack open the north,” and he did that through his pioneering use of aircraft to move men and materials to areas previously accessible only by dogsled in winter or canoe in summer.
The metallurgical magic of Randolph Diamond transformed British Columbia’s Sullivan mine from a unique but uneconomic mineral deposit into Canada’s most productive zinc-lead producer and catapulted Cominco Ltd. into the forefront of Canadian mining companies.
A.O. Dufresne, born April 10, 1890, devoted his 45-year professional career to Quebec’s department of mines. He molded it into an efficient support system for mineral exploration and mine development that has assisted in exploiting the province’s mineral riches in an orderly fashion.
Harold Wright has been associated in some measure with virtually every significant mining operation in Western Canada and the Yukon during the past 45 years, as well as many operations internationally, through Wright Engineers, the consulting firm he established in 1947.
Technical innovation spurred the development of Sudbury, Ont., as the world’s premier mining and metallurgical centre. Louis Secondo Renzoni, as a chemical scientist working on the nickel refining operation of Inco Ltd. for more than three decades, did much to further the company’s fortunes and those of the entire industry.
Dedicated to the prevention of accident and injury, Neil George was instrumental in establishing Canada’s exemplary record in mine safety. He was the Quebec Mining Association’s first director of safety, who changed mine accident prevention in Canada and abroad.
Were it not for the development of geophysical techniques applied to mine-finding, Canadian mining would never have attained the stature it has enjoyed. Because of this, the industry owes an enormous debt to C. Stanley Davidson.
It has been said of Frederick R. Archibald that he had a genius for devising creative metallurgical solutions and transforming those solutions into operating process facilities.
