Canada/Ontario: Timmins Gold Mines

The area in the north central Ontario around the present-day town of Timmins is known in Canada for the Porcupine gold rush at the beginning of last century. At the time it was inaccessible wilderness and a prospector named Harry Preston came to the area and while exploring the woods, slipped on moss and uncovered and exposed vein of quartz with nearly pure gold. This led to a gold rush and eventually development of large commercial mines that were some of the largest in the world and also most productive in the world. The three super-mines established here were McIntire, Hollinger, and Dome mines. The open pit operations eventually depleted the gold reserves and mines closed one by one. Hollinger Mine was closed in 1968, having produced nearly 20 million troy ounces of gold. Some 20 years later in 1988, the McIntyre mines ceased having extracted around 11 million troy ounces of gold. Finally the Dome mine shut in 2017, having dug out 17 million of gold. We wanted to see the open pits and old mining towers, but surprisingly everything was off limit. Why? A new owner recently retook the mines to reopen them – good has just hit a new price record last Thursday!