Gilbert La Bine

Gilbert La Bine

Gilbert LaBine, OC (10 February 1890 – June 8, 1977) was a Canadian prospector who in 1930 discovered radium and uranium deposits at Port Radium, Northwest Territories. He has become known as the father of Canada's uranium industry. LaBine was president of Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited from its start in the late 1920s to 1947. He left the company (which became a crown corporation in 1944) to prospect for uranium minerals as an independent mine developer, and in the 1950s he brought the Gunnar Mine to production at Uranium City, Saskatchewan.

Birth and Early Career

Gilbert LaBine was born on a farm at Westmeath, Westmeath township, Renfrew County, Ontario in 1890. He studied at the Hailybury provincial school of mines and made his first prospecting strike “in some silver claims near Cobalt” in the Ottawa valley. He incorporated his own company in 1926 under the name “Eldorado Gold Mines, Limited.”

Discovery

At the end of March in 1930 LaBine travelled to Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories to do some prospecting. On 16 May, while exploring an island at Echo Bay LaBine discovered “a very rich deposit of uranium ore.”

LaBine stockpiled uranium ore at Great Bear Lake from the time of early production after the staking of the company’s first two claims in May of 1930. Eldorado’s pitchblende (the outcrop of rock containing uranium, cobalt, radium, silver etc.) was refined initially for radium because it traded at a high value and was used for treating cancer. Uranium was a by-product of the refinery process, and the company had little use for it. When radium prices dropped operations slowed down. “By mid-1940, Eldorado’s sales totalled less than $8 million and its prospects were not encouraging...In July, the mine was shut down and allowed to fill with water.”

War Effort and Awards

By 1944 Canadian Munitions and Supply minister C.D. Howe had purchased a controlling interest and expropriated Eldorado mining company. Howe authorized Gilbert LaBine, then Eldorado’s president, to begin buying the company’s stock in secret. Howe considered Gilbert LaBine to be both a personal friend good manager,” because the minister reassured the British government that he “could be left in control of the company.”

According to Peter C. Newman’s analysis financing could not have come from investors, “who would have had to be kept in ignorance of the project’s significance.” The government had the mine immediately “drained and cemented…and employed prospectors to search for additional uranium deposits.” The miners hired to reopen Eldorado were screened by the RCMP and sworn to secrecy Given this notion it seems secrecy was conducted the same way uranium contracts had been allocated; efficiency and development of an atomic weapon took precedent over political concerns like communist attitude amongst the workforce or homage to Britain. According to historian Robert Bothwell, Howe concluded that the issue over Canadian uranium was “of extreme, and permanent, importance. If Eldorado were seized using the government’s emergency powers, the company would revert to its original ownership and control when the war emergency lapsed.”.” Because Eldorado was purchased outside the scope of the War Measures Act Canada remained in control of the mine after the war had ended. Howe left discretionary power in the hands of LaBine who continued on as manager. LaBine was kept on as Eldorado president until 1947 and made “an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his war work.” The miners hired to reopen On 27 June 1969, Roland Michener awarded LaBine the Medal of Service of the Order of Canada which was his last recognition before his death. He also is an inductee of the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame.