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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E. Charters who wrote (83097)	3/9/2002 10:58:15 AM
From: Gord Bolton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 117012

Open mouth, remove feet. The Port Radium facility was to be the only radium-uranium mine in Canada until 1953, but it sparked considerable prospecting activity in its vicinity. One occurrence about 100 miles south is said to have been discovered by smell in 1934. The story goes that Indians, who had camped at Labine Point long before it was thus named, claimed to have noticed a peculiar odour there. They reported that they had noticed a similar smell at the southern location, and offered to show a prospector the place. This was done, but as it was midwinter and the ground was blanketed with snow, no outcrops were visible. The Indians insisted that it was the spot, however, and sure enough, when the snow cleared a vein of pitchblende was found.18 Smell was not the only aid to finding uraniferous ores in the days before the geiger counter and portable scintillation counter. It was apparently the habit of some prospectors in the Great Bear Lake area to leave a roll of film on the ground in a likely looking spot. The radioactivity of a rich pitchblende deposit would take its own picture on the film, right through the protective wrapping.7 There are conflicting reports on the value of uranium to Labine's company before the war. While my grandfather described a thriving business in exporting uranium salts for colouring glazes and glass - nearly 27 tonnes was produced up to the end of 1934, with the company claiming a ready market for all it could produce14 - another source claims the oxide material piled up, unsold and unsaleable, and was given away to anyone who had a good use for it.19 One curious note is that enough Great Bear uranium was sold to Germany in 1938 to attract the attention of the British embassy in Berlin. 19 In any case, it was the demand for uranium for weapons development that revived the Port Radium mine in 1942.1 The project was given government priority for men and materials, and it took just four months to recommission the workings. The immediate, urgent requirement for uranium was met by collecting the bagged ore and concentrates which had been abandoned at the mine and various points along its access waterway in 1940. 19 uilondon.org