The Reminder is pleased to republish this article by Morley G. Naylor, which originally appeared in our sister publication, Cottage North magazine.
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This is the story of a Canadian boxer turned mining promoter who had his hands on the huge Flin Flon ore body and came oh-so close to keeping the gigantic find that has kept Flin Flon on the map for 80-plus years.
Had he retained the property, we may well be living in Hammellton, not Flin Flon, today.
This interesting character’s name is Jack Hammell.
Saskatchewan’s first gold rush began in 1913 when Tom Creighton discovered gold on Beaver (Amisk) Lake.
An influx of 1,000 prospectors resulted in a mini gold rush to the area and the railhead at The Pas attracted would-be millionaires to the route from The Pas – west on the Saskatchewan River to Cumberland House, north across Namew Lake to Sturgeon Landing and up the Sturgeon Weir River to the south shore of Beaver Lake near the Old Fort Henry Hudson Bay Post.
By 1914 Beaver City had been established at the mouth of the lower Sturgeon Weir River, on the south shore of Beaver Lake.
In its heyday Beaver City included a federal government ranger station and fire tower, Revlon Frere’s Trading Post, Hayes Boarding house, a Royal Northwest Mounted Police Post, and Colette’s Boat Ferrying Service.
One of the many entrepreneurs who arrived at The Pas and traversed the water route was John Edward Hammell.
Hammell’s early life was spent in a boxing ring fighting under the name Kid Walton after leaving his home in Beeton, Ontario, and the love of battle led this guy with a rough edge to the life of a mining promoter.
Hammell had big plans for Beaver City and had a huge investment in its future. When Tom Creighton and his partners (Dan and Jack Mosher, Leon and Isadore Dion and Dan Milligan) discovered gold, their backers and money came from Prince Albert.
The Prince Albert group made huge profits on claims and quickly established the the Beaver Lake Gold Mining Company and began working the property.
The “Creighton group” ended their ties with this group because they were more interested in developing a paying gold mine than seeking out additional claims.
Tom Creighton and his partners were now forced to look for a new financier and partner. Enter Jack Hammell.
Hammell considered Tom Creighton a top-notch prospector and their loyalty to each other would carry them not only to the gold fields of Beaver Lake, but to the eventual discovery of the huge ore body at Flin Flon in 1915.
In 1914 the Prince Albert backers organized the Beaver Lake Gold Mining Company and sunk an inclined shaft at the mine site. Mining equipment was shipped by rail to The Pas and then over ice by freight teams to Beaver lake.
The equipment included a small secondhand steam power plant; shaft-sinking equipment and an amalgamation mill from a defunct mine in Ontario.
By the time the equipment arrived on site, the Beaver Lake Gold Mining Company was out of money and unable to obtain refinancing. As a result the equipment was never installed.
These events left Hammell and Creighton frantically searching for producing properties to sustain Beaver City. They chose an unexplored area north of Beaver Lake to search for new gold showings.
In the fall of 1914, Creighton and Hammell expanded the search to include copper as well as gold because the industrial demands of the First World War had caused huge price increases.
Creighton established a campsite at Phantom Lake. (eventually the entire group joined the Creighton party). Meanwhile, Dan and Jack Mosher and Leon Dion remained at Amisk (Beaver) Lake where they continued staking claims.
By this time Dan Mosher had obtained financial backing from Jack Hammell for claim work at the north end of Wolverine Lake. The work carried out between 1915 and 1918 proved, disappointingly, to reveal a below grade average of gold content.
Around July-August of 1915, an explorer and trapper named David Collins showed rock samples to the Creighton prospecting party, which guided them to the sulphide ore body on the shore of Flin Flon Lake.
Hammell and his wife, who were checking out the Wolverine Lake claims, fished and holidayed for a couple of weeks before coming down to view the Flin Flon find.
Once there, Hammell immediately recognized the importance of the find and sent samples to the assay lab at Amisk (Beaver) Lake for analysis.
With Dan Mosher, he set off to the Pas to register the claims. To prevent a possible staking rush like Beaver City, the claims were registered as “Unique” and “Apex” with no mention of Flin Flon.
Between the time of finding the mineral deposit in the late summer of 1915 and freeze-up in November, the group completed enough work to make it apparent that there was a large amount of ore, although low grade.
The Hammell group had visions of mining the property themselves, and regaining the prestige enjoyed at Beaver City, which was floundering due to the sudden emphasis on copper exploration caused by the demands of the First World War.
They also fully realized the enormity of outside capital required, and the tremendous challenges of railroad construction north from The Pas to Flin Flon, as well as the construction of a hydroelectric dam to power the mine and metallurgical plant.
Jack Hammell had the telegraph lines humming and went to New York City to sell his vision. A $3-million financial deal fell through, as did an all-Canadian syndicate.
Dion and Dan Milligan sold out in 1918. Between 1915 and 1922 the Flin Flon property was held or was under option to numerous investors and mining concerns.
Few options
Prospective partners and investors slowly abandoned Hammell and his group, leaving them with few options.
Reluctantly, in 1922, Hammell and Creighton sold their interests to “The Complex Ore Recoveries Company” owned by Harry Payne Whitney and run by Roscoe H. Channing.
The Whitney millions would go on to form the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company Limited under Whitney’s son, C.V. “Sonny” Whitney.
Jack Hammell’s dream was over. As for Beaver City, Hammell’s ongoing participation in the Flin Flon ore body was the final death knell.
Most business departed for Sturgeon Landing or Flin Flon after 1916 when the high-grade copper Mandy Mine came into focus – much to the dismay of Hammell and Creighton.
However, Jack Hammell and his partners did not go away “broke.” According Time magazine’s July 29, 1935 edition: “Hammell and his hungry crew of prospectors had already been paid off on substantially their own terms.”
Hindsight and second-guessing are cheap commodities, but here are some possible reasons that Jack Hammell did not hold on to the huge find:
• Despite the rising fortunes of copper brought on by the Second World War, Hammell and Creighton were decidedly slow to switch from gold to copper exploration
• When David Collins reported copper findings to Creighton, it was a cautious Jack Hammell who waited two weeks fishing at Wolverine Lake before a hands-on visit to the site viewed by Creighton.
• The Flin Flon ore body was extremely complex, bearing six minerals in combination.
• Hammell and Creighton were never able to unveil the complexities of the ore – at one point Hammell even acquired the abandoned gold mill from Beaver City, thinking that it could be put to good use at Flin Flon.
It must be noted that the ore complexity was a serious concern, and the Whitney interests took several months to resolve the problem before committing the millions of dollars to the massive project – the Flin Flon Option.
• Financial backing ran out in 1922. It was probably the biggest deciding factor – Jack Hammell could not get his hands on the millions required.
Like all mining promoters, and those involved in the Flin Flon ore body, Jack Hammell was quite a character and entertainer.
In speaking about preparations at the Flin Flon site, Hammell once said: “ I went to The Pas, rounded up all the merchants and said, ‘We’re going to buy everything from your shopkeepers here and don’t push (prices) above 10 per cent on cost price.’
“By the time the engineers got in I had purchased two mining plants and enough stuff for 118 men for eight months shipped in. It astonished the engineers to see ten tons of bacon, ten tons of ham and all that..”
On the future of mining in Canada, Hammell said: “ We have one Flin Flon. There are plenty more to be found.”
After the Flin Flon discovery – and failure to hold on to the property – like a true boxer, Jack was down but not out.
It was another of his dreams to “crack open the North” by use of aircraft to move men and materials to areas previously accessible only by dogsled or canoe.
In the late 1920s Hammell was instrumental in forming Northern Aerial Minerals Exploration (NAME) to push back the frontier of Canada’s North by operating a fleet of 10 aircraft from a string of 34 bases stretching across Canada’s North to service a crew of 200 prospectors.
In 1925 he negotiated the use of aircraft to supply a distant gold discovery 200 miles from a railroad. As a result, Howey Gold Mines came into operation and was a profitable mainstay of the famous Red Lake, Ontario, mining district for many years.
During Hammell’s lifetime, this gregarious Canadian was responsible for developing scores of mines, with eight of them being profitable producers. At the time of his death in 1958, they had paid out $200 million in dividends.
Outside of his first passion of mining, Jack Hammell was a lover of art and his Oakville, Ontario, home housed many masterpieces. He was a confidant of Prime Minister Mackenzie King, exchanging correspondence with him regularly.
“Gentlemen, there is more to life than a mad scramble for dollars,” he once said. “Let’s mine the rich veins of character in our youth as well as the veins of gold in our mines. Let’s make this country the finest place in the world to build manly men and fine women. With a Northern Plan we can do it, gentlemen, and our work for young Canada will be our monument.”
A sign points to Hamell Lake outside Creighton. It should be spelled “Hammell.”
