Sharing The Wealth

I attended my first Canadian Mining Hall of Fame dinner last month and one of the first things that struck me when I walked into the reception was the age of the hundreds of people in the room. I don’t know what I was expecting but what I got was something that truly impressed me.

I guess I should have know by the name “Hall of Fame” that it wasn’t going to be a gathering of recent university grads or a salute to young geologists still out there chipping away in the cold, but what I found was something that truly made me sit back and think. Here I am in the midst of true pioneers… people who actually helped turn mad fantasies into booming realities. And some of them got extremely rich doing it too! I kept asking myself: “I wonder what that person’s worth?”

Anyway, I’m not really a history buff, nor do I care how much richer someone else is than me, but as I do get older, I find myself becoming more and more in tune with the past because like it or not, I was actually there when certain ‘historical’ things happened.

And I get reminded of that almost daily at work because I’m surrounded by an energetic group of really young and talented writers who put things into perspective for me when they say they’ve never heard of the musical “Guys and Dolls,” they have no idea who Stirling Moss is, and what made Bobby Orr, the man Don Cherry calls the “Greatest of them all,” the best hockey player ever?

See what I mean, and those are just a few examples confirming my ‘historical’ status. You can imagine the look and answer I get when I ask: “And where were you when President Kennedy was shot?”

But anyway, times change and like I said earlier about the people at the Hall of Fame dinner and their ages, we’re lucky that many of those who made the mining industry what it is today are still with us and even luckier that they’re still healthy enough to go out on a freezing January night to be with their peers to either reminisce about the “old days” or “bitch and complain” about the new ones.

Regardless, they were there to support ‘their’ industry and to share their thoughts with any of the younger generation in attendance with the nerve and confidence to ask questions. Unfortunately, most just sat back and watched in awe but for those who made a point of asking questions, the answers, I’m sure, were both enlightening and enriching.

Sharing knowledge and understanding of mining is something that has been going on throughout the ages and it’s a credit to the industry and its people that they support events like the Hall of Fame dinner to salute outstanding performers and most of all, to hear what made them worthy of recognition.

This year’s inductees, like everyone else over the past 21 years since the launch of the Hall of Fame, have done remarkable things for the mining industry and they deserve every ounce of recognition that was bestowed upon them.

And as I said earlier, the wealth in the room went far beyond knowledge and they earned every bit of that too!

*This year’s Canadian Mining Hall of Fame inductees are: Prof. Donald “Digger” Gorman, professor emeritus, Dept. of Geology, University of Toronto; Engineer Bernard M. Michel, Geologist Roman Shklanka; and Grenville Thomas, a self-described Prospector.