ODDS’N’SODS — Another quiet giant of mining

A previous article (T.N.M., Nov. 15/93) concerned the late Randy Mills (or “RPM,” as I call him), a fantastic promoter and financier in the period 1950-1976. He was a great man and a quiet giant among mining men.

RPM’s partner and closest friend was the late Dr. John Harold Morgan (known as Harry to his friends and associates), who was an even quieter giant among miners.

RPM and Harry shared the same sterling character, but there was a difference: The former was the promoter whereas the latter looked at things with the clinical, scientific eye of an engineer and was much more cautious. These two gents made a formidable team and were responsible for the discovery of many orebodies. RPM was the driving force or pilot behind mining ventures whereas Harry was the guiding light which navigated him through murky situations.

Harry was the most intelligent, patient, modest, caring and generous man I ever met. He was even more tolerant of people than was RPM and went out of his way to listen to anyone, regardless of how zany a proposal or idea may have seemed. There were no frills with Harry — a president of a bank got the same treatment as a grizzled prospector from Chibougamau, Que. He was, moreover, a superb geologist and had a great deal to do with several important discoveries in Chibougamau and Nova Scotia. His passion, however, was for finding industrial mineral deposits such as talc, silica, barite and celestite, and developing new uses for them.

He was the most versatile man I ever knew in mining, being a geologist, chemical engineer, metallurgist and market person — all rolled into one. He later became a mine operator, producing talc in Highwater, Que. Harry had a lot in common with RPM: Harry never lost his cool under fire and I never knew a person who could solve the most complicated problems in the shortest time with the least fuss. He also had a great sense of humor, never got snarky and was very modest.

I first met Harry in December, 1960, when he interviewed me for a job as a geologist for many of RPM’s junior firms.

I will never forget that first meeting; we just sat and jawed about minerals. It was one of those rare meetings when two men of significantly different ages (a kid and a middle-aged man) immediately struck up a close friendship and great mutual respect for each other. This was to last for some 32 years. Harry was my best friend.

At this first meeting, I called him “Dr. Morgan.” He looked at me and said, “Should I call you Mr. Hudgins?” Before I could answer, he quipped: “Do I look like someone who would operate on your life? My name is Harry.” Talk about being modest. A friend of Harry told me he could have been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1946 but turned the offer down. Evidently, he was a successful manager of a high-explosives plant in Quebec during the Second World War and had invented something which helped the war effort a great deal.

One day I tried to get Harry to tell me about the OBE, but all he mumbled was “I did not deserve it” and immediately changed the subject.

The only time Harry ever got half-mad at me was in the Royal York Hotel at a convention of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. I had been out all evening for much liquid refreshment with the boys and staggered into the room Harry and I were sharing. My co-ordination being severly impaired, I knocked Harry’s spectacles off a shelf and pulverized them with my boots. Then, quite suddenly, the fire alarm went off, so we scurried out into the hall. There we were cursing some nitwit for causing a false alarm and standing with many other folk in their drawers, looking like frightened idiots.

Harry looked around and, in a loud voice, said: “If any of you people ever share a room with this guy, make sure you wear your glasses to bed.” I sure felt like hell.

— Avard Hudgins lives in Truro, N.S.