Post by greig on Aug 23, 2016 11:18:45 GMT -5
I thought I would start a thread regarding location names - as indicators of interesting spots to explore.
Whenever I travel, I pay particular attention to road names. Any name containing "mine" is typically worthy of further investigation. Even something like "Blue Rock Road" peaks my interest. I used to have a gold claim in BC on historic Antler Creek and what drew me originally to this particular area was "Nugget Mountain" (should have been called fly-sh*t hill, because that was the only size gold I found. LOL). Nowadays, rather than detour too far, I will Google search or Google Earth on my phone to see if there is a published history and public access, which saves a ton of time.
Anyway, here is an interesting story about a name:
There is a town called Miners Bay in Southern Ontario. A great spot to go ice fishing for lake trout and walleye. I wondered about the name and discovered there were a couple of small iron mines and other mineral occurrences in the area, along with tremolite, plumbago, galena, lead, silver, molybdenum and phosphates. But as best I can figure out, iron mining is not how it got its name. Instead, what got things going in the mid 1800's was a comment to a Geologist by a the local Native Indians (AKA First Nations, Aboriginal Canadians), that there was a hidden gold mine in the area with large veins of visible lode and placer gold. Other reports said it was silver, not gold. Anyway, something got published and started a minor gold rush. Hundreds of prospectors immediately swarmed the area (and many have been looking ever since). Gold is diffused in small quantities throughout the district, but in no place has it (yet) been discovered in economic quantities. Before anybody gets too excited about a lost mine, everything now points to the original rumor being a large outcropping of radioactive molybdenum. hahaha.