OBITUARY (August 09, 1999)

Georges Dumont

Georges Dumont, one of the country’s premier minefinders, has died in Val d’Or, Que. He was 87.

Born in St. Anselme, near Quebec City, in 1911, Dumont graduated with a degree in engineering from the University of Montreal in 1936. He made his first two discoveries, the Adelmont and Monique gold deposits in Quebec, in the two years following his graduation.

In 1942, Dumont discovered a lithium deposit that became the Quebec Lithium mine, which yielded a million tonnes of ore between 1952 and 1962. Just two years later, a deposit found by Dumont was the basis for the Louvicourt Goldfields mine. That operation was in production for three years.

Dumont also discovered, in 1945, one of the largest copper-zinc mines in Quebec’s Abitibi region. The East Sullivan deposit produced a million tonnes of ore per year over 17 years of operation. In 1960, he discovered a molybdenum-lithium deposit that produced 2 million tonnes of ore over five years beginning in 1965. Dumont made two discoveries in 1962, which were later brought into production as the Chesbar iron mine and the Quebec Explorer gold mine. Later in the 1960s, while searching for nickel, Dumont found more lithium in La Monte Twp.

In 1970, he discovered a huge, low-grade nickel deposit in Launay Twp. Dubbed the Dumont sill, the deposit weighed in at 800 million tonnes grading 0.4% nickel. He discovered two more deposits in the 1970s, both of which went into production: the Mid-Canada and Bras d’Or mines. Dumont’s final exploration success came in 1983 with the discovery of the Wrightbar gold mine in Bourlamaque Twp. He later founded a company to exploit the gold deposit.

For a lifetime of minefinding, Dumont was named Prospector of the Year by the Quebec Prospectors Association in 1980 and inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame in 1995. Dumont is survived by wife Simone, two daughters and one grandchild.