The Prospector's School

The Saskatchewan Prospectors' Schools and the Prospectors' Assistance Plan are inseparable. References to both are scattered throughout this book. The School was started in 1948 and the Assistance Plan in 1949. Don Sheridan together with Malcolm Norris were the first organizers and administrators of the schools.

Don Sheridan recalls that strangely enough, the Prospectors' Schools had their beginnings from brokerage houses. Penny mining stocks were very popular, and the investors wanted to know something about mining so a lot of the classes were attended by little old ladies with fat wallets. We held them in Saskatoon, Regina, Yorkton, and Moose Jaw.

We first gave them a background of mining in Canada and then brought it down to what was happening in Saskatchewan. We explained how to acquire mineral rights, which they seemed to be interested in, and we had kits of mineral samples which we showed them and identified.

It was obvious that their first interest was the value of their stock, they were always asking "What do you think about this company, or that"?You couldn't express opinions about particular companies, but you could talk about what they said, where they were operating, and the possibilities of the area, if you knew anything about it, or had some literature.

This went on from 1948 to about 1953, our largest classes were the ones we held at the Penitentiary at Prince Albert. Talk about eager! Malcolm used to say that they had lots of time to do their homework, everything they could get their hands on they read.

The other classes during this period were night classes, to accommodate working people, they would run from 30 to 60 people. The teachers included Malcolm and myself, and at that time we had taken on a couple of geologists. And we brought in people who were in the brokerage business when we could, to explain that aspect of it.

The first geologist I believe was a fellow by the name of Harkness, who became Resident Geologist at Goldfields, I believe the next one was Bill Neelands, who had worked at Steeprock at one time.

By that time our Department had started to grow and we'd acquired a Director, his name was W. J. Bichan. He started to acquire a staff of geologists and others familiar with the mining business. Len McArthur for example, was one. We used him in connection with the Prospectors' Assistance Plan.

Art Sjolander was at one of the early schools and also operated under the Prospectors' Assistance Plan . . .

I arrived here first on April 16, 1959. I came here originally to take the Prospectors' School, I had heard what was going on here. I was on my way to British Columbia, actually, but I liked the looks of La Ronge, and I never left. I'm still here.

The Prospectors' School gave an extremely valuable course, I had done quite a bit of prospecting before the course, but I learnt a lot, I don't think there's anything comparable to it anywhere. I remember some of the people I met there, including yourself, a lot of the people who were there are still involved in the business. One I remember particularly was a Hungarian from Detroit, his name was John Pistosnik, and he was a wealthy man. At least his mother was wealthy, and John had never done a day's work in his life, he got the idea he wanted to go to South America and prospect for diamonds. He'd read about Jimmie Angel's diamond discovery in some river in the northern part of South America. He and I got quite friendly and he wanted me to go with him to South America, I'm sorry to this day that I didn't. He did go, oh yes, and apparently, he got somewhere into the interior and got chased out by Indians shooting poisonous darts. He even brought one back and had it analyzed, it had been treated with some very virulent poison, but he never did see a diamond, he didn't need them anyway.

There were some very good people at the School, a young chap went with me as a partner here in Saskatchewan - Mike Weatherly. He was 18 years old, six foot six, and he weighed about 110 pounds, he's a geologist now he was a really nice young chap.

On the other hand, there were a lot of students who were not very serious about prospecting and there were some women too. Vicki Nemanishen was one and Mary Hurd (who prospected with her husband), was also Vern Hogg's daughter. We had some Americans, various types, city people and farmers, but there were only about half a dozen really serious about the business and they're still in it, as far as I know.

I was raised in a house full of rocks, rocks everywhere. Even the flower beds were surrounded by mineral samples, so I came into it honestly.

George Findlay was another prospector who operated under the Prospectors' Assistance Plan . . . .

The following spring I quit diamond drilling, I had a little stake, so I went on my own. I applied to the Saskatchewan Government's Prospectors' Assistance Plan, Malcolm Norris was in charge and I knew him indirectly from Yellowknife, through his brother in Alberta. I found a partner, Curly Lanetti, but prior to this, after quitting the job, I had gone out and staked some ground.

The Mining Recorder then was Don Sheridan, he was one of the best mining recorders, in my book, simply because he gave as much attention to the individual free-lance prospector as he did to the big mining companies. He was number one.

So, anyway, we acquired four nice claims just north of Eldorado, some ground that the Eldorado Beaverlodge operation had dropped. But to fulfill the terms of the Prospectors' Assistance Plan we had to prospect out of staked areas. So that spring Curly and I came to Prince Albert, visited our homes, and met Malcolm Norris. We then flew into Dodge Lake, near the Territories' boundary. Uranium was the popular mineral around 1953, so we took our Geiger counters. We worked there until after breakup when Malcolm Norris picked us up, and flew us, on our choice, into the Rottenstone Lake area, but we had no luck there.

Come fall, I couldn't wait to get back on our claims, because I knew there was pitchblende there. We worked there all summer, and did succeed in turning up more than Eldorado had high grade, quite glamorous small ore shoots. The assays were very high, and you could get carried away, we were offered some deals, which we turned down. We had it made, or so we thought, so to be a millionaire was not enough.

Anyway, we turned down all the offers and went back to Nicholson underground as miners to refurbish the grubstake. We worked there all winter and then applied again to the Prospectors' Assistance Plan.

Eldorado had made a discovery at Middle Foster Lake, so we decided before breakup to go in as close as we could to Eldorado, taking in the canoe. We had no luck at all. I visited the Eldorado showing, I wasn't too impressed.

After studying some maps, we were attracted to the folded rocks in the Cup Lake area.

I might add that both the prospector and the mining company are very lucky to be provided services, such as geological maps, that both the Province and the federal government provide. All your tax money hasn't been wasted.

We camped on Cup Lake and on the first day out Curly picked up some uraninite, which he'd never seen before, but it sure moved that Geiger counter. It was in small cubes, hardly a quarter of an inch across.

During all of this, Malcolm Norris continued to kind of look after us, he seemed to think we might pull off the big one - the big onion, as I call it.

It wasn't long before he flew in a portable gas plugger (drill) for us, while we had to provide our own grub, the Government provided everything else - the air service, the maps, equipment, and other assistance, very good service. I doubt if, except over breakup, there was ever more than two weeks but Malcolm would show up. We ended up staking eighteen claims.

This discovery brought other prospectors, both Saskatchewan government plan and company prospectors. We turned the property over to a mining company from Edmonton, the uranium boom was on and it was very easy to sell a prospect. We didn't make a tough deal though, we got stock and four or five thousand dollars, I've still got the stock. The company was named Cup Lake Uranium.