CANADA’S RADIUM FIND

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 24, 24 December 1932, Page 2

CANADA’S RADIUM FIND

GREAT BEAR LAKE FIELD. RESULTS AND PROSPECTS. The Great Bear Lake radium field has ended its first year of active development, and one is able to take a dispassionate view of its record to date, and its prospects (writes a Vancouver correspondent). Certainly they seem to bear out the estimate of mining assayers that the radium ore deposits discovered by Labine Brothers, two French-Canadians, will rival, if . they do not exceed in value, the deposits in the Katanga Basin in the Belgian Congo, hitherto regarded as the world’s main source of supply.

Great Bear is not a prospector’s or an alluvial miner’s proposition. The radium field, on the shore of Canada’s largest expense of fresh water, has over 800 miles of impassable swamp and muskeg country between it and the northern terminal of the railroad, at Waterways, Alberta, the “jumpingoff” point of the Arctic air mail. The aeroplane fare from Waterways is £IOO a passenger. The freight is £45 a ton. Coffee is 6s per lb, bacon 4s 6d, flour 2s 6d. TRANSPORT DIFFICULTIES. Radium ores are now assaying £1250 to the ton. There is open water for not more than two months of the year. Ores must be conveyed across a section of the lake, 80 miles down Bear River to the Mackenzie River then up the Mackenzie by Hudson’s Bay Company steamer through Great Slave Lake and Lake Athabasca to Waterways. The only alternative route is from Aklavik, at the mouth of the Mackenzie, westward and south along the Alaska coast, through Behring Strait to Vancouver. Transit by road seems at the moment impracticable to a degree, but Colonel J. K. Cornwall, “Peace River Jim,” who has lived 30 years north of Fifty-three, has already surveyed a road over the hill country between Groat Slave and Great Bear. The next richest find to radium is a high-valued silver deposit, mingled with the pitchblende that forms the basis of radium. Much of the silver explored to date is on the surface. Copper is there in vast quantities, but cannot be mined at a profit at the present ruling price of 3d per lb. There is gold, assaying £5 to the ton; cobalt, used in steel manufacture; coal,' bismuth and manganese. None of these may be Imined at present freight rates. From May 10 to August 10 there is continuous daylight. Underground working is done while snow is on the ground; surface work in the two clear months. There is a post office at Murphy’s store, which is a huge tent. A mounted police officer has installed himself. Dogs are scarce. The only regular visitors are Eskimos and Dogrib Indians. Being located beyond the timber line, game is confined to ptarmigan and Arctic fox. The rivers carry trout, up to 501 b., herring, whitefish and Arctic grayling. ONE WOMAN ON THE FIELD. The winter population is 200, comprising some notable Arctic explorers. Major Burwash—Bunvash of the Arctic —who, for 34 years patrolled the North-west Territories for the Dominion Government as .-inspector, and reported on the discoveries of Franklin relics, heads a mining syndicate. Bill Walton, the best-known prospector in Manitoba, who discovered Long Lake field, is there. The most picturesque figure is William La Valle, tlie 82-year-old Yukon sourdough. There are 2000 claims, mainly held by syndicates. There is one woman on the Great Bear field. She is Mrs Berhart, wife of a Peace River prospector. She admits she is lonely, but she will soon have company, as other women arc going in by air in the course of the coming winter, following their men on the eternal quest for precious metals.