ODDS ‘N’ SODS — The emerald explorer

By the time he came to live in Red Lake, Ont., in April 1945, Peter Rainer had already discovered more emeralds than any other man in the world.

As the new consulting engineer for a New York City-based mining company, Rainer purchased nine claims in Balmer Twp. for Virginia Red Lake Mines (as well as nine more nearby for his own Rainer Red Lake Mines).

Near the end of June, however, Rainer received an offer to return to Bogota, Colombia, to reopen the famous Gevor emerald mine, which he had discovered and developed in the 1930s. That mine became one of the world’s best sources of gem emeralds, and led him to develop several other highly productive operations nearby.

Born in Swaziland, near South Africa, in 1882, Rainer was a veteran of both the South African war and the First World War, during which he saw action as part of a cavalry regiment. In the years between the First and Second World Wars, he graduated as a mining engineer and became a successful emerald explorer.

After a brief stay in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1939 (during which time he wrote three books, one of which, Greenfire, was about his emerald mining operations in South America), Rainer returned to the military.

Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, he became a second lieutenant with the British Royal Engineers, which was stationed in Egypt. Rainer was put in charge of supplying the British Eighth Army with water, and, to that end, built a 100-Mile-long waterway through the desert. He was decorated with the Order of the British Empire for that work, and wrote a book about the experience, entitled Pipeline to Victory.

He became interested in Red Lake, then the hottest mining camp in North America, during a 1944 trip to help sell war bonds in Canada. He soon decided to return to South America, however, and stayed at the Red Lake Hotel while waiting to leave town. But sometime after midnight on July 1, 1945, a fire started in a stairwell and swept up to the upper levels, badly burning those guests who did not escape, including Rainer.

He was treated at the hospital at the Madsen mine, and was later flown to Winnipeg, where his wife soon arrived by train. He seemed to be improving, but died six days later.

— The author, a frequent contributor and retired operating engineer, resides in Thunder Bay, Ont.