The Gunnar Story

Very few mineral discoveries turn out to be mines. How often have the hopes of the prospector, having made a spectacular find, been dashed when the driller, who "looks into the earth", finds it to be too small and not rich enough to be economic. For every one that turns into a mine thousands are "written off' in the early stages of exploration. So when a discovery becomes a mine it is an event, not only in the life of the prospector but also in the life of the province in which it is found. Such a discovery was the find by Albert Zeemel in the Uranium City area that became the Gunnar Mine. Ted Ellingham was the Resident Geologist at Uranium City and said this . . . .

Yes, I was there when the Gunnar find was made, that would have been in 1952, I remember Albert Zeemel, and Walter Blair, the two prospectors who came across frost-heaved mineralization in the "Gunnar Swamp", as it was called. They found mineralization around the perimeter of this muskeg area. Reports had it that they were testing it on one side of the swamp and decided to see the outcrops at the far side. They had their Geiger counters on, and as they walked across they were getting a reaction. The radioactivity they were picking up was from frost-heaved material, immediately below the swamp.

So it wasn't long before they had a drill, several drills, working on the muskeg area, the scene of the show. The grade was very close to 0.22 percent uranium oxide (U308), pretty well the same as Eldorado. The size I don't remember, but it's on record. It operated until 1964, a run of nearly 10 years.

I flew in a helicopter to visit Jock MacKinnon in his prospecting camp east of Uranium City. "Gentleman Jock", as they called him, was 74 when I talked to him. He'd just returned to camp after tramping the Red Hills of the Uranium City area in search of additional uranium for Eldorado Nuclear. A Cape Bretoner, with that unmistakable, unique accent, he told me of some of the activity in the area when Gunnar was found . . . .

The major find was the St. Louis Fault, Philip St. Louis and his partner Einar Larum, a Swede, were the originals. The St. Louis Fault was named after him, he was sent down there by Eldorado. He got a pretty fair cheque, but he was dead when the cheque came through. I think his partner, the Swede, is still living, I never knew either of them, but my partner, Johnnie Wahlberg, knew St. Louis personally.

From then on finds were made, such as Cayzor, Lorado, then Gunnar. Albert Zeemel and Walter Blair found that, for Nesbit-LaBine. Johnnie Nesbit and Pat Reilly had a section of their own, Johnnie was the pilot. He put Albert Zeemel and Walter Blair right there, he planted them right on Gunnar. They were just about ready to leave when they found it. There was a lot of low ground. The Geiger happened to pick up a hot spot and they started digging around. The more they dug . . . once you find that first one . . . and they found lots of it. It was a rich mine, it operated for about 10 years.

>Cinch Lake. Circa 1957. — Cinch Lake. Circa 1957.
Credit: Saskatchewan Archives Board, Photograph no. RB 8466.

Bob Lee spent several days in the North with Albert Zeemel, finder of the Gunnar Mine and recalled this . . . .

Albert Zeemel told me how he found Gunnar. He told me it wasn't the prospecting on the ground that found the mine, this is something I didn't know before.

He said, "Bob, I was flying in the airplane and I always had a habit of looking out the window. I saw the red gash on Crackingstone Point. Geologically, there was not supposed to be uranium there, because it was granite. But I didn't care what they said, I saw this red rust, this big area of red rust, on Crackingstone Point, so when we made camp I decided to go over there. When I went over there the Geiger counter crackled all over the place, that's how I found Gunnar". That was quite a thing - to look out of an airplane window and find an orebody like Gunnar.

This was the time he sent that famous telegram to Gilbert LaBine. The wire said: "Come quick; have a tiger by the tail". That's the famous stock that went from 20 cents to 20 dollars in a month.

They told me when they turned the keys on Gunnar and wound it up they had 60 million of cold cash in the bank, and it all went down the drain. It went into McNamara Construction Company.

Every prospector has had the experience of "just missing the big one". This happened to prospector John Albrecht. He made a terrific mistake when he failed to "tie on to" Albert Zeemel's ground . . . .

I went in to stake, I had got to know about the Gunnar discovery. Maybe at a time like this if you know less about geology it would be better. The dip of the rocks was in towards the ground where Zeemel had staked, so it didn't look good to me. So I didn't stake. My mistake. So after two days, I was on my way back to Stony Rapids.

>Gunnar Uranium Mine. Summer, 1956. — Gunnar Uranium Mine. Summer, 1956.
Credit: Saskatchewan Archives Board, Photograph no. 56-305-62.

I met a party close to Fond du Lac. They were making dinner. They were no acquaintances, but they said come, have a bite. I told them I was in the Gunnar area and that I didn't think it looked good and didn't stake. When they heard this they threw the dishes in the lake, jumped in their canoe, and away they went. They staked where I hadn't, they made money out of it, they made darn good money. There was a 3,000,000-share company formed on their ground. There was nothing, but they were tied onto a big property. That was a loss, a real loss, for me.

I fished their dishes out of the lake, the gas stove was left on the island, they never called back, they travelled light. That was the closest where I could make money, easy.

JOCK MACKINNON ON HAND STEELING

We did a lot of trenching in those days - expose it, and try and get down to the fresh rock, get away from the rust. In those days that meant hand steelwork; single jack and double jack. I guess I'm one of the few left who've done hand steeling. I was broken in by the old-time Swedes. They had their hammers, you know. They brought their hammers from Sweden and their hammers were only about an inch and a half across. And the handle was only about the size of your middle finger. ou swung it right over your shoulder, always off the shoulder. You never got tired. You could hammer all day long. The man holding the steel, he gives it about an eighth of a turn, you know, that's his cut. Every time you hit with the hammer he turns, by the time the hammer comes down again he has already turned the steel to the new position. f there's two hammering there's one on each side, and you're sitting down in the middle turning the steel. So you come up with yours - you're up and the other fella's down, so you've got to be pretty fast. if there's such a thing as a seam, or a crack in the rock and the steel stuck, you have a homemade steel wrench you put on and you turn it. Then you've got to use water, you know. When you're down four or five feet you have a hand pump, a suction pump that draws the sludge up.

KEY LAKE MINE ON THE VERGE OF STARTUP

By Doug McConachie of the Star-Phoenix
B SECTION
Star-Phoenix, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Saturday, September 17, 1983

KEY LAKE - On time and slightly below budget, Key Lake will become Saskatchewan's third-producing uranium mine later this month, capable of producing four million to five million kilograms of yellowcake annually.

Despite a three-month construction strike in mid-1982 that threatened to delay the $500 million project until 1984, Key Lake Corporation president Peter Clarke says construction has been completed to the point where ore can be fed into the mill sometime later this month.

"Right now we're commissioning the plant . . . we're testing and feeding waste material through," Clarke says. When the plant is in operational condition, the first ore from what is considered the richest ore body in the Western world will be processed. It will employ between 400 and 500 full-time workers, working on a seven-day in, seven-day out shift, and over the 15 to 20-year life of the project provided in the neighbourhood of $2 billion in royalties to the provincial government.

Owned by three companies - Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation (SMDC) 50 percent, Uranerz Exploration and Mining 33.3 percent, and Eldor Resources the balance - Key Lake will come in slightly below the projected $500 million price tag, Clarke indicated.

Even with the lengthy 1982 construction strike, the depressed economy of the past three years has proven attractive in terms of building costs, Clarke admitted, because bids came in extremely competitive.

The ore bodies that will feed the mill were discovered in 1975 and 1976, four years after the first discovery of an ore body six kilometres away at a place called Zimmer Lake. Preliminary drilling indicated ore reserves above 150 million pounds of yellowcake, but now Clarke says subsequent testing has indicated reserves closer to 200 million pounds.

The richest orebody, the Gaertner, 40 metres below the sandy surface, is the first that will be open-pit mined and contains the "richest" ore, while the Deilmann will follow. The lower-grade ore will be stockpiled for later milling when the price of yellowcake is expected to climb from the present $20 to $23 a pound.

Located about 240 kilometres north of La Ronge, the Key Lake project is the province's third-producing uranium mine. Rabbit Lake was brought into production in 1975 and is now owned by Eldorado Resources Ltd. along with Cluff Lake owned by Amok Ltd., which was brought into production in 1980 and is capable of producing 4 million pounds of yellowcake yearly, are the other two.

The development of the Key Lake mine hasn't been all smooth sailing for the three companies, but almost from the first day of discovery the provincial government (then the New Democratic Party) has been of the view that it would be a "go."

Almost three months of public hearings were conducted by a board of inquiry in 1980 to discuss everything from waste management to native hiring policies and radiation dangers.

The board recommended approval of the project - which came as no surprise to anyone - and the provincial government gave Key Lake the formal approval in February 1981. There were brief complaints about the lack of hiring of northerners and northern contractors for the project and in late 1981 Key Lake Mining Corporation was charged with draining part of the area without a proper permit and fined $500, but basically the project went without a hitch.

SMDC, which will get half the uranium through its 50 percent ownership, announced in early 1982 it had secured markets for most of its product, and then late last year SMDC broke tradition and revealed the identities of the companies that it was selling to.

Two Swedish electrical companies and five United States utilities are committed to buying the Key Lake uranium until at least 1990, while the other companies are known to need some of the uranium for their own needs, and it is believed the remainder will be sold to Ontario Hydro and some other United States electrical utilities.

Key Lake Uranium Mine.

One of the criticisms levelled at us in potash was that we waited until somebody else developed the industry before we got in. And we said that inevitably that did happen concerning potash. But we're not going to let that happen concerning uranium. We believe that with people going up there prospecting there should be public participation from the start. The Saskatchewan Mining and Development Corporation is bearing its share of the initial expenses, sharing the losses or the gains. And it looks like one of the earlier endeavours where we're a one-third partner in what is going to be a very major mine. It was the first joint venture signed. Quite a stroke of luck, because Key Lake looks like a very large ore body. No one knows yet just how economic it will be, but based upon current indications and the current price of uranium it is an economic body. And could be a very major development for the Province of Saskatchewan and a big winner for the Saskatchewan Treasury - Premier Allan Blakeney.