Our colleague Stan Sudol recently assembled a list of the Top 10 Canadian mining people. Here is a teaser. The entire article, including the honourable mentions, may be read on his blog, Republic of Mining. Do you agree with his picks?
A few months ago, my dear colleague Joe Martin, who is the director of the Canadian Business & Financial History Initiative at Rotman and president emeritus of Canada’s History Society, asked me a very simple question: who would be considered the most important individual in Canadian mining?
Considering Canada’s lengthy and exceptional expertise in the mineral sector, it was not an easy answer and I decided to research and create a top ten list of the most important mining men in Canadian history.
The lack of women on this list simply reflects the fact that for much of our history most women were not given the educational or social opportunities to excel in business, especially in a rough and male-dominated sector like mining. Times have changed, women are playing key roles in mining today and will definitely be included on this list in the future.
However, a few qualifiers need to be established. This is basically a list of mine builders not mine finders. Building a company through takeovers and discoveries is one way but I am also focusing on individuals who have built corporate empires and/or who have developed isolated regions of the country with the necessary infrastructure for mines to flourish and create multi-generational jobs, shareholder wealth and great economic impact.
In most cases, these individuals had enormous clout and influence with the Canadian business establishment and have left an enduring legacy that may still impact a community or the industry today. I primarily focused on gold and base-metal miners though some companies did have coal mining divisions.
I have included both Americans and Canadians as there really was no border between our countries when it came to mining expertise, capital and movement of skilled labour for much of our shared history.
Historica Canada Ignores Country’s Vibrant Mining History
This list is also very timely as Canada is celebrating the 150th anniversary of confederation next year – a fitting reflection of the enormous contributions that the mining sector has made to the development of many northern parts of our vast country and unfortunately, are largely ignored by our mainstream media
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To read the entire article, click here.
Comments
Mike
While Stan qualifies this list as being mine builders as opposed to mine finders, I still find it surprising not to see the names of Skookum Jim, George Carmack, Kate Carmack, and Dawson Charlie included on his list. Their discovery in the Klondike certainly meets his criteria for creation of infrastructure, the opening up of isolated regions, the development of multigenerational jobs, the establishment of a gold industry, if not mining industry, that built on the inertia of the rushes of the Fraser Valley and the Caribou. That discovery and the subsequent industrialization of the North had significant geopolitical and cultural implications not just for Aboriginal peoples, but Canada as well as Alaska, that reverberate today. In a similar vein, we might throw out similar arguments for Billy Barker, or even William Wright and Ed Hargreaves. And perhaps James Douglas should be added to the honourable mention of Canadian political figures. If Cobalt was the “cradle” of the Canadian mining industry, then the Klondike and the Caribou were the conception.