Bonanza in the Bush

Beside an ice-blue lake deep in the glacier-scoured hills of central Quebec, spinning diamond drills last week probed and measured a great new underground treasure trove. In Chibougamau, 320 miles north of Montreal, the discovery of a vast deposit of copper ore has set off a lively boom in the wilderness and assured the free world an important new source of a scarce and strategic metal.

Chibougamau* was a long time coming into its own. For more than half a century. Canadian mining men knew of its copper-ore outcroppings, but because of lack of transportation saw no way to mine them at a profit. As late as 1950, when a road finally reached Chibougamau, the town consisted of little more than a rundown general store and a couple of bootleggers who sold illicit liquor to passing trappers. Then, with little fanfare, Campbell Chibougamau Mines Ltd. in 1952 sewed up a U.S. Government contract for its output, the next year started to sink a shaft. Last year it went into production, hauling concentrates laboriously by truck to the railroad at St. Felicien, 125 miles to the southeast. With a world shortage driving copper prices towards records (last week's U.S. price: about 40-c- a lb.), other companies holding long-neglected Chibougamau claims decided to have a closer look.

Wealth Under Ice. Diamond-drill crews moved in, soon realized they were atop an ore body of gigantic size. After freeze-up, drillers moved out onto the ice of nearby Dore Lake, traced out rich seams of ore extending deep beneath the lake bed. Last March the newly organized Copper Rand Chibougamau Mines Ltd. announced plans to build a mill to concentrate 5,000 to 7,000 tons of ore a day, and the boom was on in earnest.

Campbell Chibougamau, in production since June 1955, now spews up $1,000,000 worth of ore a month. Four other companies (Copper Cliff Consolidated Mining Corp., New Royran Copper Mines Ltd., Chibougamau Jaculet and Copper Rand) around the rim of Dore Lake are shooting for production next year. The investment already totals $50 million. Dotted over the lonely countryside, some 100 drilling crews are probing the Pre-Cambrian rocks for new deposits or extensions of established finds. Reported Toronto's Northern Miner: "There's no reason to think that the peak of exploration has been reached. It's big-game country, and skilled hunters are on the trail."

Dust on the Boulevard. Chibougamau's engulfing flood of men and money has produced only the slightest civilizing effects on a town that is still rude and crude. Cold westerly winds deliver a raw penetrating drizzle on one out of every two summer days. One night last week snow fell. Even so, cars churning through the town's main street--pridefully named the Boulevard--kick up clouds of chalk-colored dust; paved streets and sidewalks are still luxuries for the future. Chibougamau's population has shot up to more than 2,500 permanent residents; their new clapboard houses, many still unpainted, are crammed with the latest in electrical gadgetry.

To soak up some of the free-floating wealth from well-heeled miners, drillers and claim-speculators, a Toronto stock-brokerage firm set up a branch office in Chibougamau, now handles $500,000 worth of business a week. The town's four hotels (a fifth is building) seldom bother to take down their "no vacancy" signs, and their barrooms are perpetually jammed around the clock with unshaven miners and prospectors just in from the bush, and ready to swing a rock-hard fist at the drop of an insult.

Chibougamau's No. 1 promoter is Randolph Pope Mills, of Montreal, president of New Royran Copper Mines and a major stockholder in most of Chibougamau's other more promising companies. Virginia-born Randy Mills first visited the area in the 1930s, never quite forgot it during subsequent years of promoting Labrador's famed iron mines and the titanium mines at Havre St. Pierre, Que. As he sees it, the boom has just begun. Arrival of the Canadian National Railways' branch line by year's end seems certain to give the bonanza a new lift. And out in the bush to the north of Chibougamau, a crew of college engineering students hand-picked by Mills are busily prospecting for new strikes. Said Mills last week: "I've waited 22 years for this boom, and it was worth waiting for. I've been paid back handsomely, thank you."

* Pronounced shi-boo-gum-moo, from an Indian word meaning "gathering place."

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