Lake Jeannine (french: Lac Jeannine) is a small lake in the

Côte-Nord Côte-Nord (, ; ; land area ) is the second-largest administrative region by land area in Quebec, Canada, after Nord-du-Québec. It covers much of the northern shore of the Saint Lawrence River estuary and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence past Tadous ...

region of Quebec, Canada. It was the site of a major iron ore mining operation in the 1960s and 1970s.

Location

Lac Jeannine is in the unorganized territory of Rivière-Mouchalagane, Caniapiscau, Quebec. It is just east of

Quebec Route 389 Quebec's Route 389 connects Route 138 adjacent to Baie-Comeau with the Newfoundland and Labrador border, connecting with the Trans-Labrador Highway (Newfoundland and Labrador provincial route 500) to Wabush and Labrador City, and beyond to Goose ...

. Lac Jeannine is from

Gagnon Gagnon may refer to: * Gagnon (surname), people with the surname Gagnon * Gagnon, Quebec, a ghost town in East-Central Quebec, Canada * ''Gagnon v. Scarpelli'', a United States Supreme Court case See also * Gagné Gagne and Gagné are two distinc ...

, which was closed in 1985 and is now a ghost town. The lake is long and wide. A watercourse drains the lake through the mine dumps and a series of small lakes before running into the

Manicouagan Reservoir Manicouagan Reservoir (also Lake Manicouagan) is an annular lake in central Quebec, Canada, covering an area of . The lake island in its centre is known as René-Levasseur Island, and its highest point is Mount Babel. The structure was creat ...

. The lake's name seems to have been given by a prospector for the

Québec Cartier Mining Company Québec Cartier Mining Company was one of the leading producers of iron ore products in North America, now part of ArcelorMittal. The company was founded in the late 1950s by multiple Canadian and American investors, based in Quebec, Canada. The ...

who was part of the team that discovered the rich deposit of iron ore in 1957.

Mining operation

The mining operation has its origin on 26 January 1957 when the Québec Cartier Mining Company was created by

U.S. Steel United States Steel Corporation, more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an American integrated steel producer headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with production operations primarily in the United States of America and in several countries ...

to supply iron ore concentrate. The mine, the town to support 4,000 people, the Hart-Jaune power station and the railway linking the mine to

Port-Cartier Port-Cartier is a city in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. It is located on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River at the mouth of the Aux-Rochers River, exactly southwest of Sept-Îles, Quebec. Port-Cartier had a population of 6,6 ...

were built between 1958 and 1961. The cost was $325 million. The first load of iron ore concentrate was shipped in June 1961. From then until 1976 the mine employed more than 1,000 workers.The ore processing plant at Lac Jeannine had 12 identical processing lines. The first stage was autogenous grinding, and then the ore was separated using a gravimetric circuit with spiral classifiers. The ore from the circuit was filtered, and then shipped by rail to Port-Cartier. The deposit was long, wide and deep. It yielded over 266 million tons with an average concentration of 33%. The iron mine was in production from 1961 to 1976. The company made further investments in the 1970s at Mont-Wright,

Fermont Fermont () is a town in northeastern Quebec, Canada, near the Quebec-Labrador border about from Labrador City on Route 389, which connects to the Trans-Labrador Highway (Newfoundland and Labrador Route 500). It is the seat of the Regional Co ...

and

Fire Lake "Fire Lake" is a song written and recorded by the American musical artist Bob Seger. He had planned to record "Fire Lake" for his 1975 album ''Beautiful Loser'', but the track was not finished. The song had been partly written years before, in 19 ...

, but during a steel market crisis was forced to shut down Lac-Jeannine. The mill at Lac Jeannine continued to treat iron ore from Fire Lake until 1985. That year the mill and the town of Gagnon were closed. The accessible part of the tailings, about 127 million tons in a sub-aerial pile, cover about . They are just under 10% iron. Another 26 million tons were deposited in the open pit mine, which has since flooded. In February 2007 it was announced that Quinto Mining of British Columbia had acquired an option of the iron tailings at the former mine.

Notes

Sources

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