MABC celebrates centenary

The Mining Association of British Columbia (MABC) is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, making it one of the oldest industry associations in the province. MABC President Gary Livingstone says the organization has grown with the industry, which today contributes about $4 billion annually to the provincial economy.

In a recent speech to mark the centennial, Livingstone said MABC’s roots go back to the days when Vancouver was a small settlement called Granville. The wilderness village began to boom in the early 1850s, with the discovery of gold on Moresby Island, part of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Gold-seekers, lured from California and elsewhere, then discovered gold on the Fraser River and the upper Columbia River, north of present-day Revelstoke. Discoveries were also made in the Cariboo gold fields, near the boom-time city of Barkerville. Many of the gold-seekers then moved northward to take part in the Klondike rush, the most famous gold stampede in history.

Vancouver owes much to the gold boom, Livingstone said, as it then led to a burgeoning forest and wood products industry, as well as commercial fishing. “But it was the abundance of talented mining expertise, originally drawn to Vancouver in the mid to late 1800s, that would, over the next 100 years, transform not only the city but the entire province,” he explained. “Geologists, mineral engineers, prospectors, money-lenders, equipment providers and suppliers, and plain, old fortune hunters came to B.C., because it was the ‘hot spot’ for gold. Together, these ambitious and imaginative individuals represented a pool of mining expertise that rivaled San Francisco, the acknowledged mining centre of the day.”

Livingstone said this “talent pool” launched an entire industry, which, over the years, made Vancouver the new world centre for mining and mineral expertise. Numerous other deposits were found, including the Sullivan mine, which is also celebrating its centennial this year.

The mine has produced more than $20 billion in lead and zinc concentrates over the past century for owner Cominco, which also operates a smelting and refining complex at Trail, B.C.

Livingstone closed his remarks by reminding his audience that access to land and resources is the key to success in mining. That means “access to power, access to transportation infrastructure, access to markets, and access to capital.”