Unloading Supplies Brought by Air to the Jackson-Manion Mines in Ontario; with a Vast Network of Frozen Lakes and Rivers on Which to Land in Winter, the Planes Can Go Anywhere in the North
value of those unknown mineral deposits, that they asked the Dominion government for exclusive exploration rights for three years in that district, in return for which they would map and photograph a large part of it from the air.
Why this sudden rush to the far north in search of precious gold? Why this adventurous use of the airplane in unexplored and lake-studded, rock-strewn wilderness?
After an impatient rail journey of 1,000 miles, a young man from Hamilton, Ont. stepped off the transcontinental train at Sioux Lookout in northern Ontario. He was in a hurry. He had never been to Sioux Lookout before, yet he seemed to know the way, as if by intuition. The airplane hangar was the goal of his quick search. Within a few minutes he had made arrangements for a plane to take him north that day.
He set out to buy some supplies, food, clothing and mining tools. At the hangar at the appointed time, the airplane was ready for him. He hopped in, the plane took off and set its course northward, over a rough, desolate and lake-covered country. For more than one hundred miles the journey continued, when a larger lake hove in sight. Another twenty miles and the seaplane began to descend, at last alighting at a mining camp.
Here the passenger stepped out, strapped his kit on his back and set off to an office to get directions. Then on the trail, which quickly led into the bush. Here and there men were busy examining the ground. Notes on the trees told him that others before him had made their stakes. But he continued. Then, after a few days, an airplane took him out again, this time to the recorder's office at Gold Pines.
"I want to stake these claims, and register them," he told the representative of the government. "My father came out here thirty years ago and staked these claims, but we have never worked them. Now I am staking them anew."
Thirty years ago this young chap's father had invaded the virgin bush of northern Ontario around Red Lake in search of gold. He had found what looked like possible locations, had recorded them
