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Gilbert A. LaBine
1890 - 1977
Gilbert LaBine helped shape the course of world history when in 1930 he
discovered pitchblende at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories.
With his discovery there of the ore that yields radium and uranium,
LaBine pushed Canada into the atomic age. He was probably one of the few
Canadian prospectors of that time who could have identified the
pitchblende mineral.
A largely self-taught man, LaBine well before his historic find of
the famous Eldorado uranium mine at Great Bear had already tried to make
his mark on Canadian mining, though his earlier efforts at discovery and
development of silver and gold had not borne much fruit.
Born in 1890 near Pembroke, Ontario, LaBine early on in his life was
active in the silver fields of the province's Cobalt area, and enjoyed
some modest success at the time of the Porcupine and Kirkland Lake gold
staking rushes. He prospected in the years before the First World War
with such notables as Benny Hollinger, and lent a hand to Harry
Oakes when Oakes was just a greenhorn fresh out from England.
But LaBine and a brother, Charles, had little luck with a gold
prospect at Sesikenika Lake, or with another gold find in central
Manitoba, where he and Charles formed a company, Eldorado Gold Mines.
Though Eldorado Gold didn't succeed as hoped, it did provide LaBine
with the finances he needed to move further afield, and led directly to
Great Bear Lake, and the new Eldorado uranium mine.
That trip, with partner C.E. St Paul, was an epic of human hardship
and perseverance. LaBine's successful development of the mine, and the
building of a refinery at Port Hope, Ontario, to produce radium and the
then-useless uranium was another battle against great odds.
The Eldorado radium/uranium ore was so rich that it broke a
stranglehold on radium then held by Belgium. But with a saturated market
and stockpiles building, production at Eldorado was suspended until the
advent of World War II and the sudden urgent demand for uranium -
uranium used to produce the first atomic bomb, the bomb that at Nagasaki
and Hiroshima ended the most devastating war in history.
As a war measure, the Canadian government had arbitrarily
expropriated the Eldorado mine in 1943, although LaBine continued to
manage it until 1947.
Just a few years after he discovered the great Eldorado deposit,
however, LaBine had returned to central Manitoba, where, in 1934, he
formed Gunnar Gold Mines, a successful gold producer for several years.
Then, in the post-war period after LaBine had left the now Crown-held
Eldorado operation, his Gunnar Gold company discovered a large uranium
orebody in northern Saskatchewan, and it too made a significant
contribution to Canada's pre-eminent and continuing position as a
uranium producer.
LaBine richly deserved the title as Canada's Mr. Uranium, and honors
were heaped on him from all sides. He was invested into the Order of the
British Empire in 1946, received the coveted Inco Medal in 1957 and in
1969, toward the end of his life, was made a member of the Order of
Canada.
| Labine,
Gilbert |
 
Labine
with Spud Arsenault (left) examining pitchblende at Great Bear
Lake, 1931 (courtesy Public Archives of Alberta/66.122/190).
On July 28, 1931, the first precious cargo from Gilbert LaBine's
new discovery -- consisting of eight tons of rich radium-bearing
ore -- is loaded onto a small craft at LaBine Point, on the
eastern shore of Great Bear Lake (McTavish Arm), NWT.
Public Archives of Canada
C-23960
Labine
with Spud Arsenault (left) examining pitchblende at Great Bear
Lake, 1931 (courtesy Public Archives of Alberta/66.122/190). |
|
Gilbert LaBine helped shape
the course of world history when in 1930 he discovered pitchblende at
Great Bear ... the Order of Canada. Gilbert LaBine,
born in 1890 at Westmeath, Ontario ...
On July 28, 1931, the first precious cargo from Gilbert LaBine's new
discovery -- consisting of eight tons of rich radium-bearing ore -- is
loaded onto a small craft at LaBine Point, on the eastern shore of Great
Bear Lake (McTavish Arm), NWT.
Public Archives of Canada
C-23960
Older buildings, made of logs, can be seen in the foreground. The
bunkhouse on the left is heated with steam, and has electric lights as
well as hot and cold running water. A dog team is pulling a sled on the
roadway. The mill and power plant are in the background, along with
diesel oil tanks from the Fort Norman Arctic well on the Mackenzie
River.
Public Archives of Canada
C-23966
In today's atomic age, uranium has become one of the
world's most precious metals. When scientists first began to explore the
possibilities of atomic energy during World War II, they were severely
limited by the shortage of uranium. But, even at that time, uranium was
more plentiful than gold or silver. Unfortunately, this precious metal,
found in over one hundred minerals, is rarely mined in a pure state and
is extremely difficult to extract. Today, a sizeable portion of the
world's uranium comes from Canada's Eldorado uranium mine at Port Radium
near Great Bear Lake. This deposit was first discovered in 1900, when
James Mackintosh Bell went to the area. While he was there, he noticed
that the lake's rocky shores were stained with cobalt-bloom and
copper-green. In 1930, Gilbert LaBine found Bell's report and assumed
that these deposits indicated the presence of silver. LaBine then flew
to Great Bear Lake and discovered both silver and pitchblende, an ore
containing radium and uranium. The pitchblende turned out to be the
world's richest source of radium. And, as interest in atomic energy
grew, pitchblende was recognized as a high grade source of uranium. This
discovery gave the Canadian nuclear industry its start. In 1945, Canada
completed the first nuclear reactor built outside the United States.
And, in the early 1950's, they built CANDU, internationally recognized
as the world's finest power reactor system.
- On May 16, 1930, Gilbert Labine
discovered a vein containing silver and pitchblende near this site.
The discovery led to the development of the Eldorado Mine and the
townsite of Port Radium by his
company, Eldorado Gold Mines. The Eldorado Mine commenced production
of silver and radium in 1933.
The mine was the only source of radium
outside of the Belgian Congo. Because of the high demand
for radium for use in medical treatment, this source was of world
significance.
The Eldorado Mine was closed in 1940
due to World War II and an over-supply of radium.
- The mine was re-opened in 1942 by
Eldorado Mining and Refining Ltd., a federal crown company, to
supply uranium for the Manhattan Project (the development of an
atomic bomb).
Processing of the radium .
The secrecy that shrouded atomic energy research
and development during the war years was absolute.... I think it is
fair to suggest that early in 1942, when the British proposed a
joint programme to be carried out in Canada, most of us who were
engaged in pressing war research had reservations about the
practicability of producing an atomic bomb in time for use in the
current war.
From the Foreword by Dr. C. J. Mackenzie,
President of the Canadian National Research Council
during the WWII A-Bomb Project.
- Debate on the use of the bomb will continue but it can be
argued that it brought the Second World War to a sudden end and
may have saved the lives of millions of people in so doing. One
of the incidental effects of this abnormal wartime programme was
the early involvement of Canada on a scale highly improbable
under other circumstances. The greatest scientific project of
research and development in Canada's history followed. Happily
the foundations thus laid in an era of terror were capable of
important peacetime applications in the next two decades.
From Chapter 1: Canada Enters the Nuclear Age.
p. 4
- [In 1940] Events were brewing ... which made it inevitable
that Canada's help would be sought as a supplier of materials
essential in the making of a bomb. The uranium deposits on the
shores of Great Bear Lake were among the richest in the world;
and at Port Hope, Ontario, was located the only uranium refinery
in operation in North America.
There was, as it happened, a substantial stockpile of uranium
oxide at Port Hope. This had not been accumulated in shrewd
anticipation of the nuclear age; it was merely a by-product of a
radium refinery.... At all events, uranium oxide in quantity was
available for refining and use in any wartime application that
might materialize.... [Chapter 4: Canada Is Drawn In, p. 41]
- The first wartime interest in Eldorado's unique holdings was
shown by the United States. In the Spring of 1941, Dr. Lyman J.
Briggs, acting as Chairman of Roosevelt's Advisory Committee on
Uranium, placed an order with Eldorado Gold Mines Ltd. for eight
tons of refined uranium oxide. This was required for preliminary
experiments....
Less than a month after Pearl Harbour, the U.S. Planning
Board began a survey of all key strategic materials. This
brought out the information that Eldorado had three hundred tons
of uranium concentrate [ not yet refined ] located at Port Hope,
Ontario. It was also noted that Eldorado's mine at Great Bear
Lake could, if re-opened, produce up to three hundred tons of
good grade uranium ore a year.
In the following month, the U.S. Planning Board recommended
the purchase of two hundred tons of uranium oxide from Eldorado....
In April 1942 Gilbert LaBine was invited to Ottawa by the
Hon. C. D. Howe, Minister of Munitions & Supply to talk over
the offer.... The whole transaction, on the insistence of both
U.S. and Canadian governments, was to be conducted with the
greatest secrecy. In view of the tremendous possibilities of
uranium fission which had just opened up, the question of the
wisdom of leaving such a strategic war material in exclusive
private hands occurred at once to Mr. Howe.... [Chapter 4:
Canada Is Drawn In, pp. 44-45]
- The second approach came from the United Kingdom. This time it
involved Canada's prime minister. It was his initiation into
these ultra-secret matters....
The Canadian prime minister's diary disclosed that on June
15, 1942, he "had an interview with Malcolm MacDonald [the
British High Commissioner] and two scientists from England"
about "the acquisition of some property in Canada, so as to
prevent competition in price on a mineral much needed in
connection with the manufacture of explosives."...
Mackenzie King ... agreed to have the matter discussed with
his Minister of Munitions and Supply and with C. J.
Mackenzie.... "They told me there had been complete
agreement among them as to the desirability of Government not
only controlling, but owning, the particular mineral deposit in
question, and I was asked if I would authorize the Government
getting the majority of shares from the owner.... I agreed to
this step being taken at once so long as the Americans were
advised...."
- Dr. C. J. Mackenzie left for Washington later on in the week
and arrived there on June 19. The entry he subsequently made in
his journal reflects the rising tide of uranium activity:
"At 2:30 to see Dr. Bush [Head of the Atomic Bomb
Project]. Had a long meeting with him to discuss the work of the
S-l [Uranium] Committee. He gave me a clear account of what has
happened in the U.S.
- "The originators of course, were the scientific
people in NDRC [National Defense Research Council], it was
then taken up by OSRD [Office of Scientific Research &
Development] and the War Office, and later approved by a
special committee of Bush, Vice-President Wallace and
General Marshall and accepted in principle by the President,
who discussed the matter with Churchill....
- "Bush showed me a letter to Sir John Anderson on the
general uranium problem suggesting co-operation, telling him
that the present progress was encouraging and that they were
working on three research projects, and that they had
contracts ready to let for a large plant which was to be
built under the Army.
- "Highest priorities have been arranged, and they only
await a final green light from the President.
"Bush said he would let me know as soon as he got that
final signal which he expected that day but Winston Churchill
had just arrived on a flying trip and it probably will be some
time before he hears...."
- On the specific purpose of his mission to Washington, Dr.
Mackenzie wrote: "Bush thinks we should proceed with the
acquisitioning of the property [Eldorado].... He thinks there
should be an international arrangement as between the United
States, the United Kingdom and Canada for post-war control [of
uranium]. He is going to England shortly to discuss the
matter."
On his return to Ottawa, on June 22, Dr. Mackenzie
immediately saw his minister, Mr. Howe, who agreed with Vannevar
Bush's recommendations about the Eldorado property and undertook
to expedite the acquiring of machinery and equipment necessary
to get the Great Bear uranium mine into full production as soon
as possible.
- Correspondence between Dr Mackenzie and Dr Bush on uranium
control continued through-out the summer of 1942. On July 15
Bush wrote to say that he had taken up the matter with President
Roosevelt, "who agrees that we should encourage the
Canadians to go ahead." On July 22 Dr. Mackenzie wrote to
Dr. Bush reporting that shortly after his return from the
Washington trip in June, Mr. Howe had started "informal
discussions with the parties interested." The minister had
re-affirmed "that he would be most willing and anxious to
have the [uranium] output allocated in a manner agreeable to the
Governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and our
own."
On August 29 Mr. Howe sent a letter to Dr. Mackenzie
containing information that Eldorado had recently arranged to
purchase 500 tons of uranium ore from Afrimet. The ore assayed
approximately 68 per cent U3O8.
It was a part of the stocks of Congo ore then held in the United
States. A further 700 tons stocked in the United States, Mr.
Howe added, was available from the same source. This purchase
would assure Eldorado of the stocks required to meet its current
contract with the U.S. Army for uranium oxide. [Chapter 4:
Canada Is Drawn In, pp. 45-48]
- The Anglo-Canadian nuclear research laboratory in Montreal was
established during the fall and winter of 1942-43.... [Chapter
5: A Promising Partnership Deteriorates, p. 54]
- On January 2, 1943, Dr. James B. Conant signed a letter
addressed to Dr. Mackenzie laying down the terms of American
cooperation with the Canadian laboratory in a surprisingly harsh
fashion....
Since it formed a historic turning point in relations with
the United States, its salient paragraphs are reproduced here:
"Since it is clear that neither your Government or the
English can produce elements '49' [plutonium] or '25'
[uranium-235] on a time schedule which will permit of their use
in this conflict, we have been directed to limit the interchange
correspondingly ... in what is, after all, a joint aim --
namely, the production of a weapon to be used against our common
enemy in the shortest possible time under conditions of maximum
security."
... In part the new attitude was a logical consequence of
turning over the problem of producing an atomic weapon to the
U.S. Army. Military men, not scientists, were now in the
saddle.... [Chapter 5: A Promising Partnership Deteriorates, pp.
64-66]
- While the British and the Americans were still at loggerheads
over exchange of nuclear information, there was a display of
impatience which erupted in Ottawa and affected all three
parties....
It concerned the destination of the supplies of uranium ore
and refined oxide coming from Canadian sources. The aggressive
and relentless drive of General Groves and his American
colleagues had resulted in a series of secret private contracts
being reached between Eldorado ... and the U.S. Army. For a time
the Canadian government was thrust into the indefensible and
embarrassing position of not even being able to find out just
what deals Gilbert LaBine and his associates had made with the
Americans for Canadian ore and oxide.
The Canadian government held all the cards of course, in the
event of a showdown. As an autonomous power, it could step in at
any time, expropriate the properties of Eldorado ... and take
over complete control of its uranium contracts with the United
States. This, however, was a step which the Canadian government
would be reluctant to take....
- And if the British, lacking a satisfactory agreement with the
United States, were compelled to go it alone, what about raw
materials? In particular, what about uranium? Was Canada in a
position to assure an Anglo-Canadian uranium programme
sufficient quantities of uranium to get started? Or would they
find that the United States meantime had tied up the entire
Canadian supply of ore and refined oxide?
- In December 1942, Eldorado and the U.S. Army had negotiated
new contracts bringing the total order of refined oxide to about
700 tons. Canadian ore deliveries to the Port Hope refinery,
assisted by an air lift from the Arctic Circle, rose sharply in
1943. LaBine and the United States' negotiators were aware that
the whole transaction required at least the blessing of the
Canadian government....
- Dr. C. J. Mackenzie went to New York early in July 1943. On
July 6 he saw General Groves and told him that the U.S.
engineers, by their aggressive enterprise in tying up LaBine and
Eldorado for supplies of ore and oxide, had put Canada on the
spot.... General Groves replied that the United States'
programme was very tight and to allow Canadians to have the
amount of uranium oxide they were asking for [for the Montreal
lab] might embarrass that programme.... It was agreed something
might be done. General Groves explored the idea that the
efficiency of the refinery at Port Hope might be increased and
that the output of ore at Great Bear Lake might be stepped up at
the same time. There would then be enough uranium for both....
Less than two weeks later General Groves and his associate,
Colonel Nichols, were in Ottawa seeking a mutually satisfactory
answer to the problem of uranium supply.... [Chapter 5: A
Promising Partnership Deteriorates, pp. 79-82]
- On February 2 at Ottawa, Malcolm Macdonald [the British High
Commissioner] telephoned Dr. Mackenzie to say that he had
received word that the uranium problem had been discussed at
Casablanca between the two leaders [Roosevelt and Churchill] and
"one hundred per cent cooperation agreed upon". Dr
Mackenzie added, in his journal "what that means I don't
know." His skepticism was justified; nothing happened then
or for a long time afterwards....
Churchill kept hammering away. He renewed his inquiries
during [his] visit to Washington in May 1943.... Still nothing
happened....
Fortunately the end of the dispute was in sight. In July
1945, there were renewed meetings in London.... By this time
also the historic meeting of the leaders at Quebec City had been
arranged, and Tube Alloys [the A-Bomb Project] was on the
agenda.
- Early in August Sir John Anderson was in Ottawa. On August 8
(as recorded in the Mackenzie King diaries) Sir John had tea at
Kingsmere with the Canadian Prime Minister and talked for an
hour on the uranium project. He reported, among other matters,
that he had "reached an agreement which he thought the
President and Churchill would both sign. It made Canada also a
party to the development."
- On August 10, Mackenzie King arrived in Quebec City for the
Quebec Conference. J. W. Pickersgill reports the incident and
quotes extensively from the Prime Minister's diary:
"... Churchill discussed the atomic project, which had
the code name "Tube Alloys", with Mackenzie King and
secured his agreement to the suggestion Churchill planned to
propose to President Roosevelt, that C. D. Howe [Canadian
Minister of Munitions and Supply] be made a member of a combined
policy committee of the United States, the United Kingdom,
and Canada."
Joint action to set up such a committee was taken on August
17. The Articles of Agreement on Tube Alloys [A-Bombs] were
signed by Roosevelt and Churchill on August 19....
- The text [of the Quebec Agreement] was typewritten. At the
bottom, in Roosevelt's handwriting, was the single word Approved
and the date August 19, 1943 . The signatures of
the two leaders, Roosevelt and Churchill, were appended. It was
then a secret document and long remained so; the text was not
seen by the public until tabled in the House of Commons at
Westminster in April 1954.
The preamble noted it was "vital to our common safety in
the present War to bring the Tube Alloys [A-Bomb] project to
fruition at the earliest moment." This might be more
speedily achieved if all available British and American brains
and resources were pooled. It was agreed that:
- "We will never use this agency against each other.
- "We will not use it against
third parties without each other's consent.
- "We will not either of us communicate any information
about Tube Alloys to third parties except by mutual
consent."
The fifth and last section [of the Quebec Agreement] outlined
arrangements for "full and effective collaboration."
It provided for a Combined Policy Committee,
to be set up at Washington, composed of:
- The U.S. Secretary of War [U.S.]
- Dr. Vannevar Bush [U.S.]
- Dr. James B. Conant [U.S.]
- Field Marshal Sir John Dill [U.K.]
- Colonel the Rt. Hon. J. J. Llewellin [U.K.]
- The Honourable C. D. Howe [Canada].
... The new committee met for the first time at the War
Department on September 8....
A meeting of the Combined Policy Committee was held on April
13, 1944, in the office of the Secretary of War ... in
Washington.... Hon. C. D. Howe ... on April 14 ...
reported the decision of the Combined Policy Committee to
provide for immediate construction of a
large-scale heavy water pilot plant [reactor] in Canada.
[Chapter 6: An Agreement Finally Brings Action]
Under a cloak of extreme wartime secrecy
a novel wartime establishment had to be brought into being
as speedily as possible.... On August 21, 1944, General Leslie
Groves was in Canada and was briefed on recent Canadian
developments, including the decision to locate the heavy water
project at Chalk River....
-
from ''Manhattan: The Army and the
Atomic Bomb''
- In early 1942, the OSRD planning board had located sufficient
raw uranium ore in North America to satisfy the anticipated
requirements of the project for many months to come....
[The] source was the mine owned by Eldorado Gold Mines Ltd.,
at Great Bear Lake in Northwest Canada.... The mine itself had
been closed and allowed to fill with water in the summer of
1940, because sufficient ore had been stockpiled to meet
anticipated demand for five years.... When the OSRD placed a
sizable order in 1941, it obtained additional equipment and
supplies for getting the mine back into operation and,
meanwhile, [ Eldorado ] continued to supply amounts of [ uranium
] oxide refined from the stockpiled ores....
- To ensure an adequate supply of uranium oxide, Colonel Nichols
directed Stone and Webster to buy 350 tons from [ Eldorado ] to
cover the project's needs for the year ahead [ beginning July 7,
1942 ].... Thanks to these measures, by the fall of 1942 [
uranium ] production ... from Eldorado's ore had increased
sufficiently to supply the project's requirements.... [ pp.
62-64 ]
- Ore procurement activities, which reached a high point in 1944
and then levelled off somewhat in early 1945, were concentrated
in three major areas: Africa, Canada, and the United States.
Project leaders were aware in 1943 that the wartime needs of the
bomb program were likely to exhaust both the immediately
available domestic and Canadian deposits, and the security
implications of this situation led to a ... policy of using, to
the greatest extent possible, ores from foreign sources.
- The most significant foreign source was the Belgian Congo....
All Canadian ore ... came from the Great Bear Lake area.
-
From Radium to Uranium
- The New York Times editorialized on 3
Feb. [1939] ... that splitting
the uranium atom meant 'the release of enormous amounts of
energy.'... That which released energy could also
cause an explosion. What exploded could be
used in war....
There were three possible sources of
uranium.... One was now in German hands [Czechoslovakia],
and the other two were the Belgian Congo
and 'Arctic Canada'. [ pp. 84-86
]
from Chapter 4: Private into Public
- On the morning of 15 June 1942, three men
were ushered into the office of the prime minister of Canada,
William Lyon Mackenzie King. One was familiar to the prime
minister: Malcolm MacDonald, the British high commissioner....
MacDonald introduced his companions ... Professor G. P. Thompson
[and] Michael Perrin.
What the British wanted, King learned, 'was the acquisition
of some property in Canada, so as to
prevent competition in price on a mineral much needed in the
manufacture of explosives.' Perrin then took over.
What was involved, he told the Canadian leader, was a
'military weapon of immense destructive force,' based on
intra-atomic energy. Naturally it also had
implications for industrial power later, but for the moment the
bomb was the thing. Perrin recalled that 'a look of
absolute horror and panic' stole over King's face as the lecture
proceeded. 'The first country to possess a
military weapon of this kind would win the war,' King
was told....
- Another meeting was convened, this time with Howe presiding
and C. J. Mackenzie, president of the National Research Council,
sitting at his side.... Once the scientific preliminaries were
over discussion centred directly on radium
and uranium supply.... It was obviously important that the
government 'control' Eldorado.
The British delegation contemplated acquiring control for
themselves and the Americans, in effect
locating a small and autonomous part of Tube Alloys and the
Manhattan Project [the British and American code names for the
A- bomb project] on Canadian soil. This idea was now
put to Howe who did not reject it.... From this emerged a
conclusion that eventually Eldorado would be subject to
tripartite control.... The Americans were to be informed ... and
their approval sought.
The most surprising thing about this proposal is that C.D.
Howe agreed to it. It was, on the face of it, a most unusual
proposal.... [pp. 119-121]
from Chapter 3: From Radium to
Uranium
- In May 1941, [ Eldorado ] sold
Lyman Briggs [the Chairman of Roosevelt's Uranium Committee] six
or eight tons of uranium oxide....
It is impossible to know what the company or its president
made of this, but it is reasonable to suppose that they knew it
had to do with the military applications of uranium.
Early in March 1942, [Eldorado
received] an order for 60 tons of uranium
oxide, approved by [ Vannevar Bush, ] the head
of the US atomic project....
The 60-ton order from the Americans was enough
to re-open the mine.... In other, older days the news
would have been trumpeted from the rooftops. In March 1942 it
was a secret.
- Work at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Company
in St. Louis Missouri ... improved the ... [Canadian] uranium
oxide 'to a degree of purity seldom achieved even on a
laboratory scale,' as the Manhattan Project later reported....
This breakthrough eliminated a botleneck
that might have proved fatal to any hope of constructing a bomb
for use in World War II.
Uranium oxide from Eldorado
('grossly impure commercial oxide,' according to the official
1945 Smyth Report) could now be shipped to
St. Louis, and then sent on....
Starting in May 1942,
therefore, Eldorado shipped 15 tons a month.
The company assisted the Americans by reducing the impurities in
its oxide to what the latter considered a more reasonable level
-- one per cent or less. To do that, it merely had to clean up piles
of oxide in the refinery yard, start emptying its silos,
and begin forwarding concentrates piled up
at Waterways, Alberta, and, once the Great
Bear Lake mine reopened, the concentrates
there as well. It would only be in 1943 that the
misadventures in mining in the Arctic would begin to have an
impact on Eldorado's ability to deliver on its contracts. [pp.
108-9]
- If [the mine at] Great Bear Lake was
really to get going, the Americans were told, the
next contingent of 150 men would have to go in almost
immediately. To supply them with equipment, and to keep them in
fresh food, would require regular flights
in and out.... Could the Americans expedite the
scheduled delivery of two Lockheed Lodestar aircraft by nine
months, changing the delivery date from February 1943 to May
1942?
By July, by air and by water, LaBine's supplies were getting
through. Fortunately there was a reserve of
ore available for instant shipment, having been
abandoned on the docks in June 1940. But it would take longer
than expected to get the mine back into production....
Removing ore from the Great Bear Lake mine, mid-1930s
Flying radium and silver concentrates in winter to railhead
One of Eldorado's ore-laden barge convoys.
photo credits: Eldorado Resources Limited
in Eldorado: Canada's National Uranium Company
- The mine was geared to maximum production. The
Americans wanted as much uranium as possible, as fast as
possible. [p. 104]
Those who got to Great Bear were better treated than their
predecessors... In 1943 a recreation hall sprang up, complete
with library, pool tables, store, and movie facilities. In 1944
a bowling alley was added. But if conditions above ground were
better, those below ground were in many respects worse. The
basic cause was the tendency of Great Bear Lake to flood the
mine.... [p. 105]
- Despite all the rush, and the selection of only the best
stopes for mining, production ... tended to
fall. Its best month, August 1943, yielded only
80,000 pounds of U3O8
embodied in concentrates. By December, the worst month, yield
was down to 18,454 pounds.... The Americans were not pleased by
this development, which Eldorado's management did its best to
conceal. 'It will be noted,' a U.S. Army
geologist reported in early 1944, 'that the mine is behind in
production some 27 tons of U3O8
as of April 1944 and that it has continued to fall behind
continuously since 1 December [1943]. Unless this rate of
production is considerably increased ... it
seems unlikely that the contract commitments can be met.'...
Some of the blame definitely attaches to the company. In the
first place, the pace of demand was more than the company seems
to have anticipated, and more than it could satisfy. But while granting
that the demand was American, the decision on how to supply --
at what rate, and at what cost -- was Canadian. [p.
106]
- It might seem that the disappointing returns from the Eldorado
mine would prove embarrassing to the company and distressing to
its client, the United States government. So, up to a point,
they were. But the United States did not
depend entirely or even mainly on the output of the mine.
Neither, as we shall see, did Eldorado's refinery at Port Hope.
It will be recalled that there were two
major sources of uranium available to the would-be
bomb-makers on the allied side -- the
Belgian Congo and Great Bear Lake. Both Great Bear
Lake and the Union Minière pit at Shinkolobwe were shut down in
1940, and the Shinkolobwe mine in fact remained closed until
1944.
In 1939 rich concentrates from
Shinkolobwe were introduced into the United States,
and there they sat, unwanted and largely forgotten, in a
warehouse on Staten Island in New York harbour. Like Eldorado,
the Union Minière also seems to have had uranium concentrates
in transit inside the Congo, or piled up around the mine; the
total of concentrates at its disposal, accordingly, was the 1200
tons from Staten Island, plus about 900 tons in the pipeline
between Katanga & the Atlantic Ocean.... [p. 107]
- The first 60-ton contract [for Canadian
uranium] was swiftly succeeded by another....
On 16 July [Eldorado]
negotiated a contract for 350 tons
of uranium....
On 22 December 1942, [Eldorado
signed] another order for 'five hundred
tons of U3O8
,' either commercial grade or purified. 'This order,' [it was]
stipulated, 'is to follow immediately the completion of our
present order [for 350 tons] and should be delivered before
December 31st, 1944....
Eldorado was now committed to supply 850
tons, in total, to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in
addition to the 60 tons first contracted for, and
supplied, in the spring of 1942....
- That was not all.... Pregel [Eldorado's US sales agent], in
the summer of 1942, was attempting to buy
the Union Minière's Staten Island uranium stock....
To refine it, he would have to get an export
licence.... When an application for such a licence
came before the responsible officials at the State Department in
August 1942, it occurred to someone that the army might have an
interest in what was happening. The army did. Within days ... the
world's largest and richest source of uranium passed into the
hands of the U.S. Army.
What the army now had was concentrates, rich concentrates to
be sure, which still had to be refined.
There was only one place where that could be speedily done, and
that was Port Hope.
What did this mean to Eldorado's ability to perform its
existing contracts? The capacity of the refinery in 1942-43 was
between 120 and 145 tons of feed per month. The Katangese ores
were different from those produced at Eldorado's Great Bear Lake
mine. If the Belgian ore had priority, then Eldorado's
own ore would have to wait until the Belgian order was finished,
since the two required quite different methods of treatment.
Consequently, it was agreed that even the first, 350-ton
contract, which was still pending, would be but into abeyance'
until the Belgian work was done....
- Thus, Eldorado's principal importance in the wartime atomic
energy project was established. In the
earliest stages of the Manhattan Project, down to December 1942,
Eldorado ores and (ultimately) oxide played a key role....
In the fall of 1942, however, things
changed. It was not the slow-moving Eldorado mine
that would determine the pace of the Manhattan Project, but the
rich African concentrates from Union Minière. Now
it was the Eldorado refinery that became crucial to the bomb
project.... [pp. 109-112]
- The Belgian contract was supposed, as of May
1943, to last until the end of 1943, at which time the
outstanding balance of the 350-ton contract [for Great Bear Lake
uranium] would resume. There were 195 tons outstanding,
and at the rate of a ton a day that would take Eldorado into the
summer of 1944.
The Americans had other plans.
First, they had some lower-grade Belgian
concentrate ... [as well as] another contract for 500
additional tons of Eldorado oxide [from Great Bear Lake]....
The Americans also had 200 tons of oxide
deribed from American vanadium residues. [p. 134]
- [Following the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, C. J.
Mackenzie was] asked: Just how important
was Canada?
Not as important as some believed, Mackenzie replied. The
Manhattan Project was 'not entirely dependent on Canadian ore'
and a bomb might have been managed entirely 'without our
material.' Nevertheless, uranium was scarce, and
Canada's uranium had probably gained in importance because of
the scarcity.
 in
dedication to my grand Dad , cmdr LaBine, Denis, My Book being
released soon
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