Cobalt Silver Rush - Discovery

Discovery

James McKinley and Ernest Darragh were contractors supplying ties to the T&NO, working north of the Montreal River, about 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Haileybury. On the banks of Long Lake (one of many lakes in northern Ontario with this name) they found a number of pebbles bearing small metal flakes, and on 15 August 1903 they staked a claim and sent several samples to an assayer in Montreal. These proved to be disappointing, but a number of further samples they sent in in the fall returned 12% silver.

Fred LaRose, a blacksmith also working on the railway, had set up small cabin at the north end of Long Lake, near the Mile 103 post of the line. About two weeks after McKinley and Darragh, LaRose found similar rocks. LaRose noted "One evening I found a float, a piece as big as my hand, with little sharp points all over it. I say nothing but come back and the next night I take pick and look for the vein. The second evening I found it." LaRose had no idea what the metal was, he thought it might be copper, but staked a claim anyway.

When the contract ran out, LaRose started on his way back to his home in Hull, Quebec. On the way he stopped at the Matabanick Hotel in Haileybury, where he showed his samples to the owner, Arthur Ferland. He then started on his trip, and on the way stopped in Mattawa where he visited a store owned by locals Noah Timmins and his brother Henry. Larose showed the samples to Noah before moving on to Hull. Henry was in Montreal at the time, so Noah cabled him, telling him about LaRose's find. Henry immediately set out for Hull, meeting LaRose and offering him $3,500 for half of the claim. Some time later a story developed that he found a vein when he threw a hammer at a fox walking by his tent.

Shortly thereafer, Ferland had another guest stay at the Matabanick, Thomas W. Gibson, the Director of the Ontario Bureau of Mines. Gibson identified the mineral in the samples as niccolite, a nickel-bearing mineral, which was intensly interesting to the Bureau after finding the deposits in Sudbury in 1883. Gibson sent the samples to Willet Green Miller, a professor at Queen's University and Ontario's first Provincial Geologist. With the samples Gibson included a note which stated that "If the deposit is of any considerable size it will be a valuable one on account of the high percentage of nickel which this mineral contains. I think it will be almost worth your while to pay a visit to the locality before navigation closes."

In October another railway contractor, Tom Herbert, came across an open vein of silver on the east side of Long Lake. He told Ferland about it that night, and the two set out for the site the next day. Due to a loophole in the Mining Act, surface veins allowed prospectors to stake up to 320 acres (1.3 km2), rather than the typical 40. Ferland formed a syndicate with four railway engineers, purchased Herbert's claim for $5,000, and jointly staked a total of 846 acres (3.42 km2).

Meanwhile, Miller had examined the samples Gibson sent him, and was disappointed to find that only the surface had any niccolite, the interior being mostly cobalt of little commercial value. He nevertheless sent the samples for further analysis, which returned a report stating they had 19% silver within. Miller soon set out for Long Lake, arriving in November 1903.

Miller visited a number of the veins that had been discovered, reporting that at the base of the LaRose vein he observed "lumps of weathered ore weighing from 10 to 50 pounds carrying a high percentage of silver", while the Little Silver Vein had "pieces of native silver as big as stove lids and cannon balls" and that "loose silver is common in immediate proximity to the vein; every depression in the rock on the top of the hill contains much free silver. The earth occupying these depressions is deemed by the owners of sufficient value to sack and ship for treatment".