The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jim Parres and I started talking about a follow-up, almost immediately after the 2006 launch of our first book, The Nor-Acme Gold Mine Story. We thought the second book would tell the story of something that had been touched upon over the years, but never quite fleshed out Ð the Northern Manitoba ghost town of Herb Lake. We figured that we'd get busy on it right away and have something ready for publication the following winter. Well, things change, so do priorities; months turned into years and years came and went. Regardless, work continued and pages did flow, albeit, not nearly as quick as originally planned. The initial idea of basing the book on a subject that has never really been fleshed out remained; however, that subject matter expanded considerably along with the aforementioned time frame. Here it is three years later and we are finally getting around to launching the second book. It no longer focuses solely on Herb Lake. The idea has grown to include not only the mines and mining communities of Northern Manitoba; it has morphed into somewhat of a story of the people who worked the mines, built the communities, and stayed to watch them prosper in some cases and wither in others. That new book is titled Headframes, Happiness, and Heartaches Ð The Mines of Manitoba and it will be launched at the Orange Toad (2-4 p.m.) and Centennial Library (6:30-8 p.m.) in Flin Flon on July 2 and during Main Street Day (1-5 p.m.) on July 3, as well as at Sweet Nothings (2-4 p.m.) in Snow Lake on July 4. See 'Signif...' on pg. Continued from pg. The book will hold some significance for those familiar with HBMS as it gives readers an in-depth overview of their 1950s-1970s expansion into Northern Manitoba. It also covers some of their newer prospects as well as mining activity around Sherridon, Lynn Lake, Leaf Rapids, Wabowden, Thompson, Flin Flon, Bissett, and, of course, Herb Lake. We would also like to do readings and a launch in Thompson, Wabowden, and The Pas, but really don't have the local connections to set them up (Was that too obvious?) The book itself is a beauty, if I do say so myself. It is chalk full of colour and grayscale pictures, many of them never seen before. It is a self-published offering and was laid out and printed by Country Graphics of Rosenort Manitoba, and is available in both hard and soft cover. The following is an excerpt from a chapter called Men of the Mines. It is former Snow Lake general manager for HBMS, Bob Doak (retired) talking about how the Chisel North Mine came to be and some of his time operating it. Being a small mine, Photo Lake only operated for three years, but its proximity to the Chisel North ore body allowed its infrastructure and ramp to carry on in a new capacity. In June of 2001, they changed the signs on the road and on the buildings; Photo Lake was now the Chisel North Mine! Doak explains how the idea of accessing the Chisel North ore body from the Photo decline came about. "It happened at a safety party for Photo Lake at the curling rink," Doak explained. "It had always been said that you could never mine as deep as Chisel North was and haul it out in trucks. Anyway, Stan Weslake (the then-HBMS superintendent) was at the party, and I said to Stan, 'If you have big enough trucks, once you've got it loaded, what's the cost, other than fuel and the operator?' He went back to Flin Flon and about a week later he phoned and said, 'You know you're right. We can do it and we can make money.' So, we put together a feasibility study and it went forward from there." Doak says that at present the underground haul at Chisel North is 5.5-5.8 kms from the bottom. Loaded 50-ton trucks make nine or ten trips in a 12-hour shift. Doak has some good and bad memories of his time as the GM of Snow Lake operations. He says it stands to reason that his best memories are of when prices were up and everything was booming. "I'd love to be running a mine right now," he says with a laugh and a nod of his head (the interview took place in 2007). "In the five years that I operated Chisel North, at least once every two months I did a shutdown scenario and I had to cut something else or do without something, just to keep it going. It was terrible. Zinc was .33 per pound, and what was it yesterday; $1.60. We were still breaking even at .33 cents. But we had everything cut right to the bone. We were also very lucky; we were constantly under budget and ahead of schedule. We were $11.5 million under on the capital cost for Chisel North. Budget was close to $55 million and we came in at $44 million for everything, and it was all brand new; jumbos, trucks, scoops, everything." My Take on Snow Lake runs Fridays.
