Odds ‘n’ Sods — Balancing the books at Pioneer

The Main vein, a magnificent, gold-bearing structure which had sustained the Pioneer mine for more than 20 years, was coming to an end at a vertical depth of 4,500 ft. However, a new structure, the 27 vein, equally rich in gold, had been discovered during the 1940s and was poised to breathe new life into the old townsite on Cadwallader Creek.

Howard James, astute operator that he was, assembled a team around Jack Graham, newly arrived from the goldfields of eastern Canada. Ewart “Hughie” Langille came from Stewart’s Premier mine; Jim McNulty arrived from Val d’Or; Mac Hunt followed Hughie from Premier; Jim Hutter and Bill Tobey left Polaris-Taku; Lorne Basher came fresh from the armed forces and Haileybury School of Mines; Al Pike was already attending to mining problems; and Monty Montgomery was from Hedley Mascot. With such heavyweights on the payroll, the saga of “the 27 vein” began.

Past mining had been from the Main vein, a vertical structure extending more than 2,000 ft. in strike length, averaging 8 ft. wide, and carrying about 0.4 oz. gold per ton. Competent greenstone walls contained the vein, so there was minimum dilution. In contrast, the 27 vein was shallow-dipping with numerous dip-faults and a hangingwall that was not competent in places. On the plus side, the 27 vein had good strike continuity and an average grade of 0.46 oz. before dilution.

Mine planning proceeded quickly under Langille, who was a stickler for detail. He developed a reserve system based on face and muck sampling that identified each ore block with an initial development reserve figure plus assays; this was followed by a corrected diluted figure with the incorporated muck samples; finally, an overall correction factor tied in the mill production results for the month. It was a nightmare for James McNulty and me, who were in charge of grade control.

Every month, Jim and I pored over the assay results and rushed to complete our stope summaries for month-end. Meanwhile, Paul Schultz, mill superintendent, and his able assistant, Tommy Bevister, assembled details of refinery production, tailings losses, cyanide solution and in-circuit inventory.

Jack Graham, wily operator that he was, insisted that both mine and mill staff balance their books before the month-end report went to Howard James. And this posed a dilemma, as Paul Schultz and Ewart Langille were stubborn warriors.

They met in Hughie’s office and, like two bantam roosters, sat down to balance their figures. If there was a large discrepancy, Paul insisted that he was correct. If the margin was small, Ewart would claim victory. Either way, Jim and I lost. Hughie would come to us with a smile of consolation and say, “We have a few revisions, gentlemen. Could you both work on them tonight so Jack will have the final summary in the morning?”

Jim and I once outfoxed them. A belt for sorting waste rock was in place, ahead of the main mill conveyor, the purpose of which was to pass the rejected waste back into the mine as backfill. This material was found to be waste, and so presented a zero-assay value. However, Jim was shrewd enough to use this situation as a ploy, and occasionally he had samples collected. We held back the information from Paul and Hughie, however. And provided there were adequate differences in the compared results of both senior antagonists, we would not hesitate to throw in another variable. This added some spice and mollified our frustration at having to work the extra time. In the long run, people were the real winners. The extended operation continued to produce admirable results with a controlled head grade of 0.42 oz. gold, and provided life to the community. Ewart and Paul’s efforts were not in vain.

— S.J. Hunter, a retired mining engineer and regular contributor, resides in Vancouver, B.C.