Cobalt is a town in
Timiskaming District,
Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
, Canada. It had a population of 989 at the 2021 Census.
In the early 1900s, the area was heavily mined for
silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...
; the silver
ore also contained
cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. ...
. By 1910, the community was the fourth highest producer of silver in the world. Mining declined significantly by the 1930s, together with the local population. In late 2017 one publication referred to Cobalt as a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
, but the high
demand
In economics, demand is the quantity of a goods, good that consumers are willing and able to purchase at various prices during a given time. In economics "demand" for a commodity is not the same thing as "desire" for it. It refers to both the desi ...
for cobalt, used in making batteries for mobile devices and electric vehicles, is leading to great interest in the area among mining companies.
History
W.E. Logan discovered
cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. ...
in 1884 at the future site of the Agaunico Mine, one mile south of
Haileybury.
Silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...
was discovered in the area during the construction of the
Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO) from
North Bay to the communities of
Haileybury and
New Liskeard, north of Cobalt. The discovery was made in 1903, near Long Lake (later called Cobalt Lake), by Ernest Darragh and James McKinley, who were supplying railway ties. Later that year, Tom Hébert found a rich vein on the east side of Cobalt Lake and began a business with hotel owner Arthur Ferland. The silver from both sites was consistently high-grade.
Boomtown
The subsequent
Cobalt silver rush led to the development of the McKinley Darragh, La Rose,
Nipissing, and
O'Brien silver mines. In 1904,
Willet Miller, on a visit to Mile 104 on the T&NO, along with brothers
Noah
Noah (; , also Noach) appears as the last of the Antediluvian Patriarchs (Bible), patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5–9), the Quran and Baháʼí literature, ...
and
Henry Timmins, named the future town Cobalt. The Timmins brothers bought the remaining claims from
Fred La Rose
Alfred "Fred" La Rose, also known as "Fred Rose" and "Frederick LaRose" (c. 1870 - September 1940), was a blacksmith from Quebec who discovered silver on September 15, 1903 at the future site of Cobalt, Ontario. He is often referred to as the "Fa ...
, and erected some cabins.
[
Speculation over mining stocks on ]Wall Street
Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...
in New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
required mounted police to control the crowds. The town was incorporated in 1906.[
By 1908, the camp was considered the world's largest producer of silver and of the ]cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. ...
which is a byproduct of the process.
In 1911, the 34 mines produced over 30 million ounces (937.5 tons) of silver. The town's population soared to 10,000 by 1909.
During 1914 the main mines in operation were the City of Cobalt Mining Company, Combat Comet Mine, Cobalt Lake (who owned the bed and edge of the lake), Cobalt Townsite, Colonial Silver Mine, Coniagas Mine, Crown Reserve Mine, the Drummon Fraction Could, Hargrave, Hudson Bay, Kerr Lake, La Rose Consolidated, Lumsden, McKinley-Darragh-Savage, Meteor, Nipissing, O'Brien, Penn-Canadian, Peterson Lake, Provincial, Seneca-Superior, Silver Bar, Temiskaming, Trethewey, and York-Ontario.
Mining continued until the 1930s, then slowed to a trickle. Activity renewed in the 1950s then slowly dropped off, and since the 1980s, there have been no operating mines in the area. By the 1960s, the area had produced over 420 million ounces of silver. One mill still operated in the area in 2017, and exploration
Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...
for diamonds and other minerals was ongoing.
The silver mines of Cobalt, and the prospectors and miners who discovered them and worked them, left an indelible mark on Canadian history, and the town is known as the birthplace of hard rock mining in Canada. The ore in Cobalt was close to surface, so men with limited experience could prospect, begin mining, and then hone their skills as the mines went deeper. Those who learned their trade in Cobalt moved north, discovering gold in Kirkland Lake
Kirkland Lake is a town and municipality in Timiskaming District, Ontario, Timiskaming District of Northeastern Ontario. The 2021 population, according to Statistics Canada, was 7,750.
The community name was based on a nearby lake which in turn ...
and Timmins
Timmins ( ) is a city in northeastern Ontario, Canada, located on the Mattagami River. The city is the fourth-largest city in the Northeastern Ontario region with a population of 41,145 at the 2021 Canadian census and an estimated population of ...
and further afield in Canada and around the world. Cobalt mining was done with the use of wheelbarrows, pickaxe
A pickaxe, pick-axe, or pick is a generally T-shaped hand tool used for Leverage (mechanics), prying. Its head is typically metal, attached perpendicularly to a longer handle, traditionally made of wood, occasionally metal, and increasingly ...
s, hand steel and dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...
.
Fires
Cobalt suffered two devastating fires in the 20th century. In 1909, a fire in a cafe spread quickly through debris and garbage-filled alleyways. Half the town was destroyed; 150 buildings were lost and 3,000 residents left homeless; by that time the water table had been contaminated and a typhoid outbreak earlier in the year had killed 111 people.
Fire protection at the time was inadequate and firefighters were forced to dynamite buildings to create a firebreak. On a hot and windy Victoria Day in 1977, a discarded cigarette started a fire that destroyed 140 buildings and left over 400 homeless.
Hockey
The Cobalt Silver Kings played in the inaugural 1910 NHA season.
Administration
Cobalt, Haileybury, and New Liskeard were formerly known as the Tri-Towns. When Haileybury and New Liskeard were amalgamated into the city of Temiskaming Shores in 2004, Cobalt decided to remain a separate town. However, the two municipalities continue to have a close relationship, including the operation of a shared public transit system.
In 2001 Cobalt was named "Ontario's Most Historic Town" by a in panel of judges on the TV Ontario program '' Studio 2'', and in 2002 the "Cobalt Mining District" was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.
Renewed interest in cobalt and silver mining
Cobalt is a byproduct of silver mining and was not of significant interest as a mineral until recently; in fact, many considered it to be a "nuisance". Today, however, it is a critical component in the types of rechargeable lithium battery
Lithium battery may refer to:
* Lithium metal battery, a non-rechargeable battery with lithium as an anode
** Lithium–air battery
** Lithium–iron disulfide battery
** Lithium–sulfur battery
** Nickel–lithium battery
** Rechargeable li ...
used in millions of mobile devices and in electric cars, and demand
In economics, demand is the quantity of a goods, good that consumers are willing and able to purchase at various prices during a given time. In economics "demand" for a commodity is not the same thing as "desire" for it. It refers to both the desi ...
is expected to increase. This application for the mineral was not yet possible in the mid-1980s when the last mining company, Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, ceased operations in the area. Cobalt is always mixed not only with silver but also with copper, nickel and other metals.
By 2017, several cobalt exploration companies were focusing on the area around Cobalt, as one alternative to cobalt mining in the politically-unstable Democratic Republic of Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...
. Roughly 60% of the world's cobalt is mined in the Congo, much of it using child labour in very poor working conditions. Major companies that require this mineral for their batteries were searching for ethically-sourced product. The shortage of such cobalt is a primary reason for the 300% increase in the price
A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation expected, required, or given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, especially when the product is a service rather than a ph ...
of this commodity
In economics, a commodity is an economic goods, good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the Market (economics), market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to w ...
since 2015.
Stock prices of First Cobalt Corp. and Cobalt 27 Capital Corp. had soared in 2017 based on this prospect. The CEO of First Cobalt made this comment after returning from a trip to the U.S., Europe, Australia and Asia: "We've got some of the biggest resource companies in the world interested". In October, the company was planning to prospect the Caswell, Ophir and Silver Banner areas, as well as mines around Kerr Lake and Maiden Lake, via the staff of Bjorkman Prospecting of Whiskey Jack, Ontario. At the time, First Cobalt was negotiating a merger with two other companies, Cobalt One and CobalTech. If the merger is completed, the group expected to control about 45% of the potential mining properties in the Cobalt area including 50 mines that previously produced cobalt and silver; a competitor, Agnico Eagle, controls approximately 21%. However the latter ceased production there in the 1980s.
Silver was selling for US$17 per ounce in late November 2017, down significantly from its peak of US$50 in 2012, but cobalt was at about US$31 per pound at that time, up significantly from the US$10 price in late 2015. The prices will increase according to Gino Chitaroni, the president of the Northern Prospectors' Association. He also predicted that the area around Cobalt would be a primary source of both minerals. "It's spectacular ... We have the infrastructure. We have a historic mining area. It puts us a step up on anywhere lsein the world."
In March 2017, the town's mayor estimated that mining production could start in about three to five years.
Demographics
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada
Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...
, Cobalt had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
Environmental issues
The mining activities in Cobalt have left a significant environmental legacy. Millions of tons of mine waste rock and mill tailings were dumped on the land and in local lakes. In cobalt ores, silver was associated with arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...
minerals
In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): M ...
. Some of it ended up in the tailings and waste rock. Today this arsenic contaminates surface water
Surface water is water located on top of land, forming terrestrial (surrounding by land on all sides) waterbodies, and may also be referred to as ''blue water'', opposed to the seawater and waterbodies like the ocean.
The vast majority of surfac ...
in the area and is believed to pose risks to the environment. Sediment samples from surrounding lakes showed elevated concentration levels of nickel, copper and arsenic while water samples exceeded the provincial water quality guideline for cobalt and arsenic. Fish from five of the lakes around Cobalt had mercury concentration which exceeded the consumption limit as well as elevated concentration for arsenic.
The Cobalt area is also laced with many miles of underground mine workings, surface trenches, pits and shaft openings. As a result, there are risks of collapse, or subsidence
Subsidence is a general term for downward vertical movement of the Earth's surface, which can be caused by both natural processes and human activities. Subsidence involves little or no horizontal movement, which distinguishes it from slope mov ...
of underground mine workings, and many areas have been fenced off to prevent entry.
Tourism and attractions
Visitors to Cobalt can visit the Cobalt Mining Museum, which boasts the world's largest display of locally mined silver, as well as "The Bunker" military museum and the Northern Ontario Firefighters Museum. The Heritage Silver Trail is a self-guided driving tour of several mine and mill sites in the area. The trail is well marked, guiding visitors around the backroads of Cobalt. At each site, signs are posted, identifying the site, and providing a brief description of the site. The trail guides visitors to many of the remaining mine headframes in the Cobalt area, some of which are quite picturesque, and stand as an important reminder of Cobalt's past.
Visitors can also take a tour of an old underground mine. Tours start at the Mining Museum, and are guided by museum staff. The narrow damp tunnels of the mine give a real appreciation for the conditions under which miners worked, and tour guides sprinkle the tour with many stories to help bring the past to life.
On February 14, 2008, plans were announced to convert the vacant Fraser Hotel building into a complex which will include The Bunker museum, housing units, tourist accommodations, and a proposed culinary school.
Passenger rail service continued to be provided from the Cobalt railway station on the Ontario Northland Railway's Northlander train (it was during the building of this line that silver had been discovered in Cobalt) until it was discontinued on September 28, 2012.
A notable tourist attraction in the area in the 20th century was the Highway Book Shop, which closed in 2011.
Notable people
* Charlie Angus, former federal Member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay
* Mike Bolan, former provincial MPP
* Kent Douglas, hockey player, winner of the Calder Memorial Trophy
The Calder Memorial Trophy is an annual award given "to the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition in the National Hockey League (NHL)." It is named after Frank Calder, the first president of the NHL. Serving ...
in 1963.
* Edward Holland, awarded the Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious decoration of the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British decorations system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British ...
for service in the Boer War
The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic an ...
died in Cobalt in 1948.
* Walter Frederick Light, President of Northern Telecom 1974-1979, CEO and chairman of Northern Telecom 1979-1984.
* Bruce Lonsdale, former mayor of Cobalt and federal Member of Parliament for Timiskaming
* Elmer Sopha, former provincial MPP
See also
* List of francophone communities in Ontario
* '' Cobalt: Cradle of the Demon Metals, Birth of a Mining Superpower'' (2022 book by Charlie Angus)
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Mining communities in Ontario
Single-tier municipalities in Ontario
Towns in Ontario
Municipalities in Timiskaming District