The Nisto Discovery

Exploration for uranium in Saskatchewan started in 1945 under federal government control. Out of this work came the mines of Eldorado Mining and Refining (now Eldorado Nuclear) and other mines in the Uranium City area, then Gunnar Mine. Pitchblende was the main mineral sought and it began to look as if it occurred only in the Uranium City area. So the Black Lake discovery, well to the east, in 1948, made exciting news. John Albrecht, a co-discoverer, tells the story in his fashion, he says . . . .

In 1948, in the spring, I met him - Tobey. He was prospecting and working for some mining company from Yellowknife. So he came out and said, "John, I got Geiger counter, you know me, let's go prospecting for uranium." So we went, we had maps, he had come from the South, from Prince Albert, he had aerial photos and so on.

Holy God, in the Norite area north of Stony Rapids and west a little bit — norites, gabbro, and so on, we found the nickel - goddam, helluva good nickel showing. I think 2.7% in nickel and about 1.8% in copper, damn good, you know. It was not big, like a dome, like half an acre, but we were out for uranium.

"I quit," I said, but Tobey didn't want to. "It's not too late in the year, there's that main fault that runs on Black Lake

There was nearly a split-up, but this fault ran right into the Territories, it was a long stretch to go to explore.

By the end of July, or the first days of August, I said, "Tobey we get out of here, or I get out and you can stay and trap and prospect. We're in the wrong area."

So we came out, not by plane, by canoe. We came into the Robillard River and into Lake Athabasca and paddled up to Stony Rapids. Stayed there, replaced our grub and the next thing we were on our way to Black Lake.

One day we camped, next evening, about maybe four o'clock, we were there on Black Lake. There comes a sandy point, there's a big high cliff that runs along the shore. But there comes a sandy point - jack pines and so camping place we had right there. We didn't even have to look, so we kept on paddling and make it there, we were fine.

So next morning with this one Geiger - we always had one day one, the other day the other one. We changed off with the Geiger. The one who had no Geiger, he prospected by eye, so we went off. We went in a circle. He is a little bit short. I went farther around. We were about five miles from camp. I came around the circle, and came to the Fond du Lac River around Elizabeth Falls, so along the ridge I was going towards camp.

So I heard a crash. "What the devil is it?"

It must be, it was, Tobey. "Hullo," hollering. "How was it?" "Nothing, nothing."

Going home by the Caribou Trail. It was not bad going. Otherwise, there was underbrush. By golly, we got the first kick, you know. Right on the Caribou Trail. Excited. We got uranium, you know, from Eldorado first when we prospected, and we always had some in our pockets. Perhaps the kick is from something in our pockets. But we scratched off with a hammer. We couldn't see very much. Sort of brown, rusty, you know. We didn't come to the green and yellow colour. We got to break in. So we knew it was uranium. The Geiger counter kicked like hell, you know. So we left this and walked on, you know. By eleven o'clock at night, we had the whole Nisto showing discovered.

Tobey was under the Prospectors' Assistance Plan. I was not, but then came this find they said we'll put you both under the Assistance Plan. This was under the CCF.

Came Malcolm Norris out, Jim Bichan came out. There were others, from the high class of the mining people. This was the first good discovery.

Norris said we need this and that, dynamite, plugger, we didn't know existed. We could blast out with dynamite and hand steel. So we started stripping. It was easy. The cliff broke down. So we stripped and stripped. Then came fall, and I said we will have to quit.

>Mining Plugger. — **Air operated mining plugger.**

Jim Bichan said, "Right now there's a party in Regina." Bichan was the Director of Mines. He didn't know how long, but this would be the time to approach him. So we said what in hell we can do nothing more now, winter's come so I got to get up North to tend to the traps.

"Tobey, you go into Regina and see if there's a deal possible."

By God, I was there in the cabin, I had some fox and some mink. There comes the Hudson's Bay man, and he said, "You can quit."

There was a thirty thousand dollar down payment. Tobey was trapping already and cannot even go in. We had the paper all ready to sign. It was good. Thirty thousand dollars, fifteen thousand for him and fifteen thousand for me. Three hundred thousand shares, a three million share company formed. Hundred and fifty thousand each. The first clear money we made, so I signed right away. No other way.

I don't know who the principals were in Regina. The company was a Vancouver outfit. I don't know even who's the president of Nisto Mines.

I can remember one fellow who came here from somewhere in the interior of British Columbia. Very secretly he came in and told us he wanted to go up into the area near Ithingo Lake, near Black Birch Lake, northwest of La Ronge. He was a great camper. He had a canoe. He had a great outfit, but I began to suspect he didn't know what he has doing. But anyway, I flew him in myself, landed him on this lake, and arranged to come back and pick him up. I guess we took him in on open water and came back a month later.

He was almost out of his head. It confirmed my suspicions that there was something wrong. I gathered he wasn't used to isolation. As soon as I pulled into the shore, he climbed into the airplane and said, "We're going back to La Ronge".

He left his camp and the whole business right there - canoe and everything. So we brought him down to La Ronge, and then to Prince Albert, suggesting he take it easy for a few days. In a few days, he said he was feeling better and he went back. So we called in about once a week from then on and he was okay. He made it - Floyd Glass.

The airplane was an essential vehicle for the successful operation of exploration and mining in the North. Especially in times of emergency, the airplane saved the situation. Scotty MacLeod recalls a case where the Norseman was used to fly in a massive shaft for Nisto Mines . . . .

At Nisto Mine, on Black Lake, they had an adit rather than a shaft, a tunnel into the hill, straight in off the lakeshore. As the work was going on they had to pump air into this tunnel for ventilation, and they had a big compressor going, a power plant and a pump house. Mind you, a lot of their supplies came down the lake by barge to Stony Rapids and were flown from there to Black Lake, 14 miles.

The shaft from the compressor burned out, it was some shaft, as I recall it. It was 8 or 9 feet long, by 18 inches in diameter, and it weighed about 1800 pounds. We had to fly that in from Prince Albert. It was a complete load for a Norseman, just that one shaft.

It was a kind of a tricky thing to fly, it tended to roll. We had to shim it up so it wouldn't roll around. Rene Beaudais flew it in with a Norseman. I had another Norseman with a crew, tools, and a whole raft of accessories that had to go in with it.

We were a little concerned about the weather, because if you got a real rough day and hit some waves on landing, there was very little to stop that shaft from shooting forward, and then it could well go right through the front of the airplane. But everything went well, and we got it there safely.

It's really kind of hard to put it in words, it's such a very deep feeling. To me it's nearly like a religion. The people and the philosophy. I think of it often, of the many wonderful people I've met in different communities. Each in their own little way trying to make things a little better. In the papers we usually hear the negative side of things. You don't hear about the little people who are concerned and trying to do something for themselves and their fellow man. That's really the big thing, to me, of the North. There are everywhere these people who are trying - Helga Reydon.

HISTORY DOES NOT STOP HERE

No, of course, history does not stop here, or anywhere else. But in the case of prospecting and exploration, while it has not stopped, it certainly has taken a very sharp turn and is now adopting new approaches, new techniques, and even a different kind of person in the continuing search for mineral wealth.

The prospector used to be the lead dog, the one who opened the way, who found and grubbed out the showing so it could be examined and then developed by those with the money. Today the prospector is an adjunct to the highly trained technician and the sophisticated electronic equipment used in the industry. The prospector, when he is used at all, is now merely a follow-up man who helps to locate on the ground the features that made the scintillometer buzz, or the dial on the electromagnetic apparatus flit, or the needle on the magnetometer dive.

Today in the exploration business, as in everything else, bigness is the byword. The old fifty-acre claim has been replaced by the claim block and the permit, encompassing thousands of acres. Where access into an area in the past was by canoe it is now by aircraft, both fixed-wing and helicopter, which can quickly move men and equipment into the most inaccessible, the driest, area. Where in the past surveys were done on the ground, now most are done from the air, covering thousands of square miles in a matter of hours. The ground crews have been relegated, as have the prospectors, to locate on the ground those features detected from the airplane.

All this bigness also means big money, so big as to make it impossible for the individual to play the role he used to, as a prospector, a promoter, or a small speculative mining company.

That is the corner the history of prospecting and mining has turned in Saskatchewan, and it will never be the same. The kind of stories that have been told in this history will never be told again, unless the space age of the future elevates computers, electronic gadgets and robots to the level of people, and can discover ways of communicating with them and putting on paper their recollections of their exploits. If that ever happens, I hope it is after I'm gone.

>Goldfields with Box Mine in foreground, 1937. — Goldfields with Box Mine in foreground, 1937. Watercolour by E. Chappell,
Courtesy M. Wilson, Saskatchewan Energy and Mines, Regina.