86-year-old Jack Kentish continues with nickel venture

Almost 56 years after he began prospecting in the Val d’Or, Que., region, John Kentish was recently awarded the 1991 PDAC Distinguished Service Award for his many accomplishments in the mining industry.

Now a sprightly 86, “Jack” is still active in the business via his interests in Dumont Nickel (ME), the company he helped to establish in 1954, and through Val d’Or land owner Consolidated Abitibi Resources (ME). Born in Ukraine and raised in Winnipeg, he became interested in mining after taking a trip to northern Quebec in the company of former big league baseball pitcher Bob Shawkey and renowned heavy weight boxing champion Jack Dempsey. Kentish and engineer-geologist Georges Dumont set up Dumont Nickel. Dumont still owns a 400 million-ton nickel deposit which Timmins Nickel (TSE) is now hoping to develop.

In the mid-1960s, he was also instrumental in bringing the Anglo-American molybdenite mine near Malartic, Que., into production. The operation later ran into financial difficulties due to the presence of talc in the orebody. Last summer, Kentish was severely injured in a car accident, that claimed the life of his wife, on his way back to Val d’Or from a summer cottage in northern Quebec. While maintaining an office in Val d’Or, he spends much of his time in Florida.