“It was Nick Babee that told Farley he had a rich vein of gold cutting through the ore body down on the 10^th level where it ran into a vein of galena; silver so rich and heavy the miners were avoiding shoveling it into their ore car because it didn’t look like the copper that they were used to seeing underground. Copper ore was green stuff that smelled after you blasted into it. Babee told Farley, there was another vein of copper running under the power line toward Cold Lake in the opposite direction this mine was dipping. Farley checked his theory of what he thought had really happened. The ore body broke off at the power line and rolled over like a big iceberg plunging the ore to the northeast under Cree Lake, Found Lake, and Jona Lake to peter out in Bob Lake and to the East, to Jungle Lake.  It all sits inside a mighty circle to be mined some day with the shaft sunk between Jona and Bob Lake.”

From Dick Madole “King of the North”  by Walter Shmon, 2005.

About the author: Walter Shmon was born in 1914 in Gilbert Plains, Manitoba.  At eighteen, he went north trapping, branched out into mink ranching, and then in 1954 bought the Hotel Cambrian in Sherridon.  His family moved into the hotel which they ran in conjunction with the mink ranch.  In 1968, he was elected mayor of Sherridon, a position he held for 14 years as well as several positions with the Northern Association of Community Councils.

Ordering information: Additional copies of this self-published book are available by contacting:

J. Reinke at (204) 261-5443 or by email (foreinke@shaw.ca)

Northern Manitoba is host to some of the most productive volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits in the world. The Trans-Hudson Orogen is renowned for its large VMS deposits in the Flin Flon, Lynn Lake and Rusty Lake greenstone belts. The Superior Boundary Zone is best known for its Thompson Nickel Belt and its contained world-class nickel deposits. The host rocks straddle the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border.

The ground that Halo Resources holds today was first staked in part by a prospector named Carl Sherritt and his partner, Dick Madole. Sherritt was only 23 and a WW1 Veteran when he started working in construction for the Hudson Bay Railway in northern Manitoba. He soon became a trapper and a prospector and in 1923, he staked a copper-zinc showing near Kississing Lake, 125 miles north of The Pas, Manitoba. He found a venture partner in John Gordon, an engineer who also worked for the railway and who represented family interests. Gordon had the first option on the property. Over the next few years, several parties explored the prospect but each in turn let it drop. However, in1926, Eldon Brown, working for the Victoria Syndicate, a division of the Mond Nickel Company based in England, recommended they option the property. The Mond Nickel Company decided to drop the option. Brown approached another famous Canadian prospector who had keenly followed the developments and who had expressed an earlier interest in the property, R. J. Jowsey. Jowsey outlined the situation to Thayer Lindsley, the founder of the Ventures Ltd, a holding company for various properties. Jowsey and Brown negotiated a deal between the John Gordon and Thayer Lindsley interests and 1926, a new company “Sherritt Gordon Mines” was formed. Brown was hired as General Superintendent to develop the mine. Under his leadership, the town of Sherridon grew to 1,500 people. The Sherritt Gordon mine produced 7.7 million tonnes of ore grading 2.46% copper and 0.8% zinc. Full scale production commenced in 1931, but due to low copper prices the mine closed for 5 years. It was re-opened in 1937 and produced over $59 million in metal until 1951 when it was closed.

Both the company “ Sherritt Gordon Mines” and the town of Sherridon were named after Carl Sherritt and John Gordon.

During the latter part of the operation at Sherridon, the company retained prospectors to search for more ore. It was during this time that the large Lynn Lake nickel deposit was discovered and the company concentrated its effort on getting it up and running. kilometres where it was opening the nickel mine. From 1946 to 1953, Sherritt Gordon Mines moved more than 200 buildings via tractor train over a winter road to Lynn Lake.

The Sherritt Gordon Mine and the surrounding ground were covered by a lease owned by Sherritt Gordon Mines until 1977. Once the Lynn Lake nickel deposit was discovered, Sherritt Gordon focused their exploration and development efforts on it and did little exploration on the Sherridon property. They did however discover the Bob Lake deposit with historical resource estimates of 2,159,098 tonnes grading 1.33% Cu, 1.18% Zn, 0.34 g/tonne Au and 11.0 g/t Ag in 1941. Only limited exploration work by Sherritt Gordon Mines continued in the Sherridon area after 1945.

The ground was staked by Hudson Bay Exploration and Development Company (HBED) in 1977 and held until 1999. HBED discovered 3 more deposits and/or zones of mineralization on the property. The Jungle Lake deposit, discovered in 1958 has historical reserves of 3,356,000 tonnes grading 1.42% Cu and 1.1% Zn.  In 1971, HBED discovered the AKE Zone in the nearby Meat Lake structure. These deposits have received only relatively shallow drilling. From 1999 to 2002, the area near the deposit was held by W. Bruce Dunlop (NPL) Limited.

In 2005, Halo Resources became aware of open ground in the Sherridon area and started staking. Agreements were struck with HBED and another landowner, W. Bruce Dunlop, on ground that was already staked. Fortuitously, the government of Manitoba released a large number of previously private assessment records of exploration work conducted in the province. Many of these reports contain important geological and geophysical information on the Sherridon VMS Property. In addition, the provincial government granted to Halo an acknowledgement that Halo is not statutorily liable for historic environmental contamination. This further enhanced an already positive situation. Further, an agreement was reached with HBED in which Halo is to be provided access to all of their results from geological mapping, geophysical surveying, geochemical surveying and drilling records in the area.

Halo now has a large land position of 20,876 hectares covering a 200 square kilometers area. It hosts the past- producing Sherritt Gordon copper-zinc mine and six other known deposits and mineral occurrences on which only limited and antiquated exploration has been conducted. The deposits discovered occur for the most part at surface and appear to be open at depth and possibly along strike. At surface or near-surface deposits may be amenable to open pit mining. Existing infrastructure at Sherridon includes a railway line, an all-weather road, a power line, and a communication tower. Moreover, the property is only 70 km from smelter operations at Flin Flon. The company is pleased to be partnered with HBED, one of the major explorers in the province.