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Gilbert A. LaBine, He studied at the Haileybury Provincial School of Mines.

Career

Discovery

LaBine made his first prospecting strike "in some silver claims near Cobalt" in Northeastern Ontario. He incorporated his own company in 1926 under the name "Eldorado Gold Mines, Limited". Eldorado's pitchblende (the outcrop of rock containing uranium, cobalt, radium, silver etc.) was refined initially for radium because it traded at a high value and was used for treating cancer. Uranium was a by-product of the refining process, and the company had little use for it. The government had the mine immediately "drained and cemented&nbsp;... and employed prospectors to search for additional uranium deposits". The miners hired to reopen Eldorado were screened by the RCMP and sworn to secrecy. Given this notion it seems secrecy was conducted the same way uranium contracts had been allocated; efficiency and development of an atomic weapon took precedence over political concerns like communist attitude amongst the workforce or homage to Britain.

According to historian Robert Bothwell, Howe concluded that the issue over Canadian uranium was "of extreme, and permanent, importance. If Eldorado were seized using the government's emergency powers, the company would revert to its original ownership and control when the war emergency lapsed." He was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame in 1989.

The Northern Transportation Company named the tugboat Radium Gilbert after Labine.

  • Canadian Mining Hall of Fame biography
  • Gilbert LaBine at The Canadian Encyclopedia