Nostalgic Trip To Saskatchewan by Dvae McKay

Lou - Scott - Dave 

On Saturday August 8, 2015 my buddy Lou Thornton and I started on a week's trip to Southern  Saskatchewan to revisit some of the places of our youth. We first flew to Saskatoon and began our trip from there.  Lou (being a retired Anglican priest) saw to it that we attended church at the cathedral on Sunday morning where we met Reverend Scott Pittendrigh who was the former rector of our church in Cobble Hill BC.

Afterward, we visited Dave and Sharron Porteous. Dave was my best man at Irene and my wedding in Timmins. Sharron organized the church service as she

was one of the wardens of the church. I first met Dave Porteous underground in Carlsbad New Mexico in 1965 where he was there testing a proto-type boring machine. He worked in Saskatoon afterwards at the Allan Potash Mine as the assistant mine superintendent and then moved to Timmins

While in Saskatoon, we took a picture of the "Iron Bridge" (That's its name) which was built in 1902.

Lou's father was chief engineer on that project. The bridge was closed last  year and will be dismantled this year as it has now served its usefulness. When I lived in Saskatoon, I generally travelled the Iron Bridge as it was very handy. Anyway Saskatoon now has two bridges for the railways (CP-CN) and five for pedestrians and automobiles.

As a bit of nostalgia I drove up to Arlington Avenue to see my former residence on that street. The house seems to be in good shape and has been improved somewhat as well as can be seen from the photo. Those two trees in front were given to me to plant by the city. It was the practice in Saskatoon that all new houses would be given saplings to plant in order to dress up the boulevard.

On Monday I got up early and tested the Saskatoon Inn swimming pool. The pool curves around an in-door garden and stream that encompasses the dining area and bar.  It's quite unique and very beautiful. After breakfast we drove out to Vanscoy, a town about 25 miles south-west of Saskatoon. At that location, is found a potash mine owned and operated by Agrium which was formerly owned by Cominco. It was 45 years ago (between the years 1965 to 1971) that I worked at the Vanscoy mine for Cominco where I held the title of "Assistant to Manager Operations".

The operators at Agrium were gracious in their reception and showed us anything we wanted to see on surface. I was curious to see my old office which is now occupied by the Assistant Manager. They were very interested in learning about the early history of the mine especially the story of the shaft sinking and mine flooding. I gave  them a copy of my book, "Why Mining?" as a parting gift after receiving a gift watch from them.

I was intrigued to see the new hoisting plant. The original plant had a tower mounted hoist lifting a skip loaded with 25 tons of raw potash ore, where as the present hoist is ground mounted hoisting a skip (shaft conveyance bucket) loaded with 50 tons of potash. All the underground conveyors now are remotely controlled from the control room on surface.  It is unfortunate that I failed to take a picture of the hoist, as it is very unique in Canada to have a six-rope ground mounted hoist.

I did take a photo of the Refinery  Plant. In 1965, the plant was designed to process and produce 1.2 million tons of potash fertilizer but now with the new Vault Expansion it is now expanded to produce 2.8 million tons. The plant sure does not look the same as the old one.

After our tour of the Agrium site, we drove our AVIS car all the way to Esterhazy, a five-hour drive on the Yellowhead Highway. Tuesday morning we had to get up very early as the people at Mosiac (who operate the former IMC Yarbo mine now called K-1 mine) wanted us on site at 6:30 am so that we could suit up to go underground.

When I phoned the Production Superintendent in charge of the K-1 mine to setup a visit to the operation, I told him that I was the mine superintendent at the then Yarbo mine 50 years ago. He questioned me and asked, "How old are you?" I told him I was 88 years old. He was a bit reluctant about taking a couple of old farts underground  but I assured him we were  both in good shape. The guys at the mine were pleasantly surprised to see the two of us, Lou being 90 years old and me being 88. Anyway we got our trip and didn't have to do any walking as we rode a jeep for a 38 kilometer tour underground of the mine. Incidentally there are anywhere from 200 to 250 miles of tunnels (a few more than when I worked there). All these tunnels are actually called headings and are bored with a very large tunnel borer (no blasting).

                                       

At the Face Showing the Four-Rotor Cuts

Lou & I in front of a 4-Rotor Borer

Fifty years ago, we had two rotor borers that cut a sixteen foot wide heading. The borer would cut and advance at a rate of 12 to 15 inches a minute, dropping the broken material to the ground (footwall) which was gathered up by a loader and

Picnic Table, Frig & Micro Oven

loaded into shuttle cars (electric trucks).  At the present time, technology has advanced where as the borer advances at a rate of 18 inches a minute cutting an 8 by 24 foot heading (room or tunnel) dropping the broken potash ore onto a trailing conveyor which the borer pulls behind it. This eliminates one man.  Also pulled behind the borer is a picnic table, microwave oven and a small frig as shown on the right. To say the least we didn't have microwave ovens underground at the borers when I ran the mine. In fact, I didn't see a micro wave oven until about 10 years later. How times have changed!

When we returned to surface, we were invited to sit in on a conference call between the supervisors on surface and those supervisors underground. The call lasted for about 20 minutes where they discussed plans for the next seven days. Afterward we were given a large box lunch composed of two large sausages, half a dozen porgies, two cabbage rolls and some fruit for dessert which I (being a big eater) could not finish. Prior to taking our leave we were presented with a Mosaic baseball cap and a company golf shirt. I reciprocated by giving them a copy my book. (Why Mining?)

I took this picture as we were leaving the site. It shows the office building to the left and  headframe on the right. The headframe in the photo was erected over the original headframe after I had left. The present production has been increased to between 6.5 to 7 million tons of ore which results in 2.7 million tons of refined potash fertilizer. When I was employed we mined 2.5 million tons of ore. Which shows how the operation has advanced in 50 years.
                                                                                                                 

Before leaving the area, we drove into the Town of Esterhazy to take a picture of my old house on 1127 Broadview Street.  The place still looks pretty good.

After leaving Esterhazy, we drove to Regina which is Lou's home town. Lou's father was the first commissioner for Saskatchewan Hydro and there is a plaque on the top floor of the Saskatchewan Hydro Building honouring  his accomplishments.

After checking into the Travelodge in Regina, Lou was able to contact his son Douglas who at the time is a consultant and had a contract there in Regina. We had dinner with Doug on both nights while we were in Regina.

On one of the days in Regina area, we drove out to Saskatchewan and Regina Beaches on Last Mountain Lake where we met  people that  were acquaintances  of Lou. At Saskatchewan Beach, we visited the folks that bought Lou's parents summer cottage. These folks have increased its size and winterized it and now use the place as the year-a-round  home.

Lou and his wife

 

The above two photos were taken at Saskatchewan Beach. Last Mountain Lake is in the background. Afterward we drove to Regina Beach on the other side of Last Mountain Lake and visited a friend of Lou who operates a poultry farm. The farm has 10,000 chickens which produce fertile eggs only. Apparently the hens and roosters are free ranged with a ratio of 20 hens to one rooster. The farmer utilizes temporary foreign workers to work on his farm and at the present time he has five of these people from Guatemala.

While passing through Regina Beach we just had to stop a the Blue Bird Cafe for a plate of its famous fish and chips. You can't beat that plate.
Our next journey was back to Saskatoon where we passed by the Town of Bethune where an European company by the name of K & S Potash is constructing a solution mine. The reason for going to a solution mining instead of an underground mining is that the potash ore zone is deep and the ground conditions make it uneconomic to mine by conventional means. At present there are three solution potash mines and ten underground potash mines in Saskatchewan.

Our last mine to visit was Allan Mine which is at present the largest potash operation, mining 10 million tons of ore producing 4 millions of refined potash fertilizer. Kidd Creek-Texasgulf in the 1980s owned a good chuck of this operation. At the time, I was vice-president and managing director and as besides my own duties in Timmins and Toronto, I had to travel out to Saskatoon and spend one week each month there where I would attend what was called a participants meeting. Kidd Creek-Texasgulf had 40% of the shares so we did have a large clout.

In the past few years, the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan  (PotashCorp), the

Allan Headframe 

present owners of Allan mine have increased the operation's production which required increasing the height of its headframe as seen in the photo at the left. The old headframe is below the new structure and has been incorporated into the new facility. The new headframe is the tallest headframe in Saskatchewan. The headframe's height  was increased to 95.7 meters because it was necessary to lengthen the skip (bucket that carries the ore to surface) so that it could dump into the existing ore bins on surface.

Allan Hoist 

To the left is the four-rope ground mounted friction hoist. The hoist is 234 inches in diameter and is powered with a 12,950 horse power synchronous electric motor. This hoist and that of the one installed at Agrium are probably the two largest hoists in Canada. These hoists and motors come from Sweden.
As an aside, all the mines (at all times) know exactly where each miner is located underground by a micro-chip on the miner's cap lamp which signals (when passing) the many monitor stations underground to a computer on surface. This is an excellent safety feature.

As all things come to an end, Lou and I turned in our AVIS car and flew back to Victoria where Richard (number 3 son) was waiting to drive us home.