- Eldorado Mine
Eldorado Mine is located at Port Radium,
Northwest Territories ,Canada .It is also known as Port Radium, a name adopted for use at this specific site after 1942. Before 1942, the name Port Radium was used in reference to the name of the government facilities at Cameron Bay (post office and wireless radio station).
History
During a field trip along the east arm of
Great Bear Lake in August 1900, James McIntosh Bell of theGeological Survey of Canada noted evidences ofiron ,copper ,uranium andcobalt in the vicinity ofEcho Bay . Thirty years later, onMay 16 ,1930 , prospectorGilbert LaBine discovered high-gradepitchblende andsilver at this site. His company was then known as Eldorado Gold Mines Limited (later renamedEldorado Mining and Refining Limited .Eldorado started off as a
radium mine in 1932, extracting radium from pitchblende. Radiumore s were highly valued at the time because the price of radium salts, used incancer treatment and then monopolized byBelgium , was US$70,000 per gram. The first concentration plant was a big erection at the site in 1933, with a radiumrefinery built atPort Hope, Ontario . Concentrates and cobbed material were shipped by barge and air plane to rail head atFort McMurray, Alberta , then by train toPort Hope .In 1940 the mine closed because of the expansion of European markets for radium. In 1939, at the beginning of
World War II , ore from Eldorado had been used in the firstchain reaction experiments, and as soon as the scientists had found out that these ores contained a rich store ofuranium oxide and were useful as a source ofnuclear energy . Gilbert LaBine's company was able to secure a contract with the United States military early in 1942. The Eldorado Mine at Port Radium was secretly expropriated and transferred to theCanadian Government in 1943-1944 and renamed Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited. Uranium ore from the mine was used in the atomic bomb developments of 1945.Uranium mining continued after World War II. The mine was expensive to operate and grade of the ore was declining, so new technology was brought in to make the isolated mine profitable. The discarded
tailings were dredged from the bay when new machinery was installed to recover the uranium values. The underground workings were deepened and thecrown corporation sought out additional deposits of uranium across Canada. But in 1960 the original Eldorado Mine was exhausted and closed.In 1976 the Eldorado Mine was dewatered by
Echo Bay Mines Limited to recover old silver and copper minerals. All activity ceased in 1982 and Eldorado Mine and the Port Radium settlement was burned and demolished. Only an old log cabin remains today. In 1999 the Canadian Government signed a commitment with theDeline Dene Band to have the estimated 1.7 million tonnes of radioactive mine tailings in Port Radium cleaned up.References
External links
* [http://www.pwnhc.ca/timeline/1925/Uranium_1933.html Eldorado Mine - NWT Historical Timeline - A Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre Online Exhibit]
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