uranium-bearing land. It was a tribute to Joe’s financing skill that Rix Athabasca, as this company was called, became Canada’s first producing uranium mine operating on private risk capital. Not long afterward he hired Franc. Joubin to direct his Technical Mine Consultants – his key mine-exploring organization, which was overseeing more than a score of companies that Joe had acquired.
The scholarly Joubin was wrestling with a riddle: What was there beneath Ontario’s bush-shrouded Algoma Basin that gave so mysterious a kick to Geiger counters? It was a heavily explored area. A parade of prospectors and geologists had tramped its game-filled acres. Everyone had seen his Geiger kick excitedly from time to time. All had taken samples for assays from the surface, which was where uranium was supposed to lie, and every assay had shown only negligible amounts of uranium. Everyone had settled for one explanation: The Geiger readings must have come mostly from thorium, for which there was no market. This theory largely satisfied Joubin, but he began reading about the leaching of uranium-bearing land where sulfur is present, and this gave him an idea. One day he decided to test an old Algoma ore sample for thorium itself – and found there was hardly any. He was sure then that he knew the answer: Rain and snow and sulfur in the earth had leached away the radioactivity in surface outcroppings in the basin, and the Geigers had chattered the truth of big uranium-ore bodies
beneath
the surface. He tried to persuade a dozen different mining companies and promoters to make a definitive diamond-drill test. All refused the gamble as senseless waste. So Joubin went to Joe.
When, early in 1952, Hirshhorn listened to Joubin expound his theory, Joe was a man with some knowledge of geology. But, as he says: “I bought on my faith in the man talking to me. That’s what counts with me. I don’t ask my grandmother or a fortune-teller.”
Diamond drilling began on April 6, 1953. Joe put up $30,000. Joubin enjoyed an arrangement that was standard in his dealings with Joe (an option to buy a 10% share of the deal). In this instance Joubin’s 10% was to make him a multimillionaire. The core samples were sent to Vancouver for assaying. One Saturday morning in May a bulky legal-size envelope came back to Joubin’s desk. The report was that out of 56 samples, 50 contained uranium. Grinning, Joubin exclaimed to a friend, “That lucky Joe!”
Beyond this point, however, luck would not suffice. A fast-moving organization was needed to stake more claims, and Joe turned for money and manpower to his success of the Thirties, Preston East Dome, in which his 10% of stock still made him biggest shareholder. Joe sat down with Preston’s president, William Bouck, over a map of the Algoma area. Bouck flashed a pencil line across the map and proposed that everything below that line belong to a newly formed Hirshhorn company, Peach Uranium; the costs and profits of everything above that line would be split 50-50 between Hirshhorn personally and Preston East Dome. Most of the trained men to stake the northern area would be supplied by Preston.
The speculator now began to operate like a general directing a massive secret maneuver. The area to be staked was filled with hunters and vacationers and lay close to both a major highway and a Canadian Pacific rail line, and the risk of the operation’s becoming known was enormous. Geigers, tents, sleeping bags and tons of food had to be quietly assembled. To escape attention, Hirshhorn and his colleagues purchased mining licenses in scattered spots all over Ontario. Bases were set up at scattered points, one even at South Porcupine, 200 miles above Blind River. Lawyers were lined up to draft claim papers as fast as the staking parties made their way through the bush.
When the expedition’s pontoon planes took off from South Porcupine, they headed north, then swung southwest to Algoma and there deposited in
The scholarly Joubin was wrestling with a riddle: What was there beneath Ontario’s bush-shrouded Algoma Basin that gave so mysterious a kick to Geiger counters? It was a heavily explored area. A parade of prospectors and geologists had tramped its game-filled acres. Everyone had seen his Geiger kick excitedly from time to time. All had taken samples for assays from the surface, which was where uranium was supposed to lie, and every assay had shown only negligible amounts of uranium. Everyone had settled for one explanation: The Geiger readings must have come mostly from thorium, for which there was no market. This theory largely satisfied Joubin, but he began reading about the leaching of uranium-bearing land where sulfur is present, and this gave him an idea. One day he decided to test an old Algoma ore sample for thorium itself – and found there was hardly any. He was sure then that he knew the answer: Rain and snow and sulfur in the earth had leached away the radioactivity in surface outcroppings in the basin, and the Geigers had chattered the truth of big uranium-ore bodies
beneath
the surface. He tried to persuade a dozen different mining companies and promoters to make a definitive diamond-drill test. All refused the gamble as senseless waste. So Joubin went to Joe.
When, early in 1952, Hirshhorn listened to Joubin expound his theory, Joe was a man with some knowledge of geology. But, as he says: “I bought on my faith in the man talking to me. That’s what counts with me. I don’t ask my grandmother or a fortune-teller.”
Diamond drilling began on April 6, 1953. Joe put up $30,000. Joubin enjoyed an arrangement that was standard in his dealings with Joe (an option to buy a 10% share of the deal). In this instance Joubin’s 10% was to make him a multimillionaire. The core samples were sent to Vancouver for assaying. One Saturday morning in May a bulky legal-size envelope came back to Joubin’s desk. The report was that out of 56 samples, 50 contained uranium. Grinning, Joubin exclaimed to a friend, “That lucky Joe!”
Beyond this point, however, luck would not suffice. A fast-moving organization was needed to stake more claims, and Joe turned for money and manpower to his success of the Thirties, Preston East Dome, in which his 10% of stock still made him biggest shareholder. Joe sat down with Preston’s president, William Bouck, over a map of the Algoma area. Bouck flashed a pencil line across the map and proposed that everything below that line belong to a newly formed Hirshhorn company, Peach Uranium; the costs and profits of everything above that line would be split 50-50 between Hirshhorn personally and Preston East Dome. Most of the trained men to stake the northern area would be supplied by Preston.
The speculator now began to operate like a general directing a massive secret maneuver. The area to be staked was filled with hunters and vacationers and lay close to both a major highway and a Canadian Pacific rail line, and the risk of the operation’s becoming known was enormous. Geigers, tents, sleeping bags and tons of food had to be quietly assembled. To escape attention, Hirshhorn and his colleagues purchased mining licenses in scattered spots all over Ontario. Bases were set up at scattered points, one even at South Porcupine, 200 miles above Blind River. Lawyers were lined up to draft claim papers as fast as the staking parties made their way through the bush.
When the expedition’s pontoon planes took off from South Porcupine, they headed north, then swung southwest to Algoma and there deposited in
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