Obituary: Albert Decker

Albert Decker, Ontario’s oldest prospector and one of Canadian mining’s most colourful characters, has died. He was only days away from turning 93.

Decker was born July 12, 1914 in North Cobalt, Ont., one of 12 children of Margaret and Edward Decker, who immigrated to Canada in 1912 from Germany. Decker grew up on a small farm at Mountain Chutes, near New Liskeard in northern Ontario.

He left home at 16, working in logging camps in the Matachewan area and later living with an Ojibway family, from them learning how to hunt, trap and make snowshoes, paddles and Peterborough-style canoes. He also learned to play the violin during this period and became a decent “fiddler.”

He also briefly worked at the Ashley and Ventures gold-silver mines in Matachewan and at the Wright-Hargreaves gold mine in Kirkland Lake, Ont.

He obtained his prospector’s licence in Ontario in 1932 and staked his first three claims on a gold property in McMurchy Twp., near Houston Lake, Ont. He sold a half interest in these claims to a pilot for $25, and received some flying time as part of the deal. In fact, as of April of this year, he had held his pilot’s licence for 74 consecutive years.

He moved to Gowganda, Ont., in 1937, where he married Pauline Costello in 1940 and worked underground at the Tyranite gold mine. In 1942, he entered the Canadian army but soon fell ill with pneumonia and received a medical discharge. He returned to Gowganda to work as a trapper and prospector. In 1948, he accepted a position as caretaker at Tyranite, which had been shut down in 1942 due to a shortage of manpower caused by the war. The mine was scheduled to reopen following the war, but didn’t. The caretaker position, however, allowed Decker some freedom to pursue other interests including trapping in the winter along his 15-mile line with a team of sleigh dogs. In the summers and fall he worked as a fishing and hunting guide.

Decker’s true love, though, was prospecting, and he spent as much time as possible staking claims in Knight, Tyrrell, Leonard and McMurchy Twps. in northern Ontario, focusing on gold, but also considering silver, cobalt and base metals.

At the 2003 Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto, the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines honoured Decker as the prospector with the oldest continuously valid licence in the province.

Decker remained active until the end, staking the occasional claim and passing on his extensive knowledge to younger prospectors. His wife, Pauline, passed away in 1979 and he lived alone since then. He moved to New Liskeard in 2000, having spent more than 63 years in the Gowganda area.

Decker is survived by daughters Shirley and Nancy, son Jim, as well as grandchildren Allison and Colin.

The family requests that any donations be made, in Decker’s memory, to either the Canadian or American Cancer Institute, directed towards prostate cancer research.