The legacy Ralph Parker left to the International Nickel Co. and to the Canadian mining industry is rich, from advances in mining methods to the design and development of safety appliances and mining equipment.
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.
Adventure, fame and fortune all came the way of Sir Harry Oakes, the self-made prospector and mine-finder who transformed Ontario’s Kirkland Lake district into one of the world’s most famous gold camps.
Joseph Hirshhorn came to Canada in 1933, drawn by opportunities in gold mining. He was an unabashed promoter and entrepreneur who announced his arrival with a full page advertisement in The Northern Miner, entitled “My Name is Opportunity and I Am Paging Canada.”
Franklin Spragins was a risk taking engineer and a visionary business leader whose efforts led to the successful development of Canada’s oil sands industry. He was the founding president of Syncrude Canada, which operates the largest surface mine and mineral processing facility in North America and is now Canada’s largest source of oil and its second largest producer.
A lateral thinker long before the term was coined, Harry Warren applied his intellectual curiosity and scientific mind to the field of geochemistry, where he made remarkable contributions to prospecting and mineral exploration. He was a pioneer in a discipline which came into its own, to a large extent, through his efforts.
Richard Geren has been aptly described as a man with mining in his blood, mind and soul. As a geologist working with Labrador Mining and Exploration, he was a key member of a team that delineated high-grade iron ore in the Knob Lake area of northeastern Quebec.
During a distinguished career that spanned more than five decades, John Fairfield Thompson led Inco through a period of phenomenal growth and immense social, economic and technical change. As a young scientist, he explored the potential of nickel and helped discover new uses for nickel-based alloys.
Dick Ennis was among a select number of larger-than-life personalities that appeared in the early days of the twentieth century when an explosion of mineral discoveries launched Canadian mining on a wave of unprecedented growth.
For almost forty years, Nathanael Davis was the driving force behind Alcan as it grew into a progressive Canadian multinational and global leader in the multi-faceted aluminum industry.
