A legal tour of a turn of the century gold mine, so I figured some of you folks would like to see!
Before Conrad Black got his claws into the company, the Hollinger Mine was started in 1909 when gold was discovered. Hollinger, along with the MacIntyre, and Big Dome Mine were known as the Big Three, which formed the basis of the northern Ontario town we today call Timmins (Named after Noah Timmins, a businessman who went on to chair several major companies in the field of Natural Resources, having made his first fortune in Cobalt, ON, he became even richer in Timmins).
Timmins is located along The King's Highway 101 and is about 10 hours north of Toronto.
Since I didn't get a good shot of the historical Hollinger Mine complex...here's one of the MacIntyre Mine.
Our tour was started with us being equipped for our 'shift' down in the mine, including coveralls, hardhats, and heavy duty flashlights (although my little Quark AA2 by Four Sevens was a lot brighter and lighter than these suckers).
Claude was our shift boss and tour guide, himself an old Hollinger Mine employee. And he was great, because he really interacted with us and got us in the mood so to speak and brought the whole way of life to light for us.
The entrance into the mine, we walked in, but took the cage back out after our shift.
Goodbye sunlight and hot weather, we descend into darkness and a cool 4 degrees Celsius.
Escape ladders, both up and down.
Meet Oscar, he's the explosives expert, however I don't think he did too good a job.
A slusher, it would scoop up the broken up rocks and ore and scoop it into the ore carts to be taking further down and sent back up to the surface to the crusher, mill, and finally the refinery.
Showing off how drifts are made.
A fully functioning mine train, with several meters of track allowing for a short ride.
Back on the surface...this is a Hollinger House, there were hundreds, of these that made up Timmins back early to mid twentieth century, along the street they alternated red and green. A miner count rent one of these for $10.00 a month. (The 'cheque' (it's was an actual cheque for two weeks pay, cashed back in '38) was for $23.77, that's two month's rent with money to spare for other things).
Some new Gold prospecting being done on the surface in some old pits.
All shot with my Nikon D300, 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, the underground shots at ISO-3200.
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