Africa and strawberry jam

I spent the summer of 1936 in Africa with Prof. Haultain, who taught mining engineering at the University of Toronto. It took 21 days to sail from New York City to Cape Town on a steamer.

I saw numerous mines. I stood in the sump of the Robinson Deep, in Johannesburg. At that time it was the deepest mine in the world — more than 8,500 ft. below surface. Eventually, Prof. Haultain and I parted ways; he went back to Toronto and I continued my tour of Africa.

I toured many of the mines in North and South Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe, respectively) and then flew from Broken Hill to Nairobi for a 3-day Safari with a white hunter known as Mombasa. From there, I flew to Marseilles, Paris and London and back to Montreal.

During my trip, my father received a phone call from C.D. Kaeling, a consulting engineer based in Toronto.

“I understand you have a son in mining. Whereabouts is he?” Kaeling asked.

“In Africa,” my father replied.

“When he graduates, tell him to come see me, will you?” said Kaeling.

My father agreed, and upon graduation in 1938, I paid Mr. Kaeling a visit.

Kaeling thought I should spend some time under the tutelage of a fellow named Eldon Brown, who worked for Sherritt Gordon at Lynn Lake in northern Mantitoba. Brown had been my father’s patient some years earlier, after he had slipped on some ice during a freeze-up and smashed his elbow to bits. He managed to walk to The Pas with his arm in a sling and eventually arrived in Toronto. My dad operated on his arm, and did such a good job that Brownie, as he was known to all his friends, would go on to beat me at badminton repeatedly.

I arrived in Sherridon in May 1938 and was greeted by Gordon MacKay, who took me to see Brownie.

“Put him with the engineers at $150 a month,” he said. I had hoped only for $100.

One Sunday afternoon, I was helping Brownie rake some leaves and clean his pool. We engaged in small talk when he stopped for a moment and leaned on his rake. He asked me to refrain from calling him “sir.”

“Everyone I know calls me Brownie,” he remarked. “I think it would be proper if you used ‘Brownie’ when talking with me. I know why you use ‘sir’ as you do. Names change when you cross the border from Ontario into the west. The ‘misters’ and ‘sirs’ disappear. First names become normal.”

I almost said “thank you, sir,” but caught myself.

Following some trenching and sampling, old Dollar Dick Madole staked a showing at Last Hope Lake. There was no way Brownie would ever do a deal with a huckster like Madole, but still, he had interest in the property.

Brownie convinced Peter Gordon to take an option on the property, and Brownie optioned it from him.

I flew in and sampled everything, then was sent back for a summer with Pat Wiley as my helper.

One night Wiley returned from the drillers camp with a pack full of groceries, most notably, a four-pound pail of strawberry jam.

I often worked late in the office tent, and when I got up to go to bed, I noticed Wiley had not bothered to unpack the groceries. I dug in and began to place items on the shelf.

I didn’t notice that the can of jam was upside down and when I picked it up, the lid fell off, sending the contents cleanly into one of Wiley’s tall, treasured, elk-leather mining boots.

I surveyed the damage, thought for a moment and then went to bed.

The following morning, I heard the rattle of the stove and then the noise of shuffling boots, then copious swearing.

I crept out of bed to have a look. Wiley’s left foot was covered in jam, as was most of the office. By this point, the poor lad was caught between laughing and crying.

Wiley and I had a great summer. We diamond-drilled more than 10,000 ft. but failed to find a mine.

— The author worked at the Lynn Lake base metals mines in northern Manitoba during the 1930s and ’40s. This is one in a series of stories that were regaled during a Lynn Lake reunion in 2004.