Last Ore Car at Caland, April 30, 1980

From Caland Clippings, Vol. No. 20, No. 4.
April 30, 1980. Editor: M.H. Kelly

"The Broom is planted" / Marv Kelly

At 2:00 pm on April 30, 1980, the traditional broom was planted signifying the "clean sweep" wit the last car of pellets from the Caland Ore Company operation in Atikokan. The broom was planted by the grate attendant, Ed Fredrickson and Ernie St. Pierre, the loader carman.

This comes nearly 20 years to the day after the initial shipment of ore and the tree planting ceremony on May 3, 1960. Caland, of course, came into being in 1949,signed the Steep Rock Iron Mines lease in 1953 and started the mammoth pumping, dredging and development work in 1955 prior to shipping its first ore out in 1960. During the years of Caland's history, there have been a large number of technological changes which have had considerable impact on its operation. The changes have been many:

from the days of direct shipping ore,
the breakthrough with taconite on the range,
the development of Caland's ore processing and pelletizing plant which came into operation in 1965,
the closing of the underground facilities in 1971,
the changes in the coarse fraction,
environmental improvements,
the size and mobility of the equipment from the early days, etc.

On hand for the historic moment, with the employees, were a number of the press, union and company officials. Clean-up operations are continuing and a very small load-out crew will continue to finalize the shipments of the coarse and fines.

So ends another chapter in the mining industry and Atikokan's history.

However, as we all realize, the end of a mine starts when the first shovelful is taken out. As we all know in Caland's case, this life was extended a number of years from its original planned closure date.

We salute the many men and women who have played a part in making the Caland venture successful and wish them every success in their new endeavours.