Reuben Bennett "Sourdough" D'Aigle (1874–1959) was a Canadian

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who made numerous discoveries in the Klondike,

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 ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

and

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. Although successful with several of these ventures, he remains best known for missing the

Porcupine Gold Rush The Porcupine Gold Rush was a gold rush that took place in Northern Ontario starting in 1909 and developing fully by 1911. A combination of the hard rock of the Canadian Shield and the rapid capitalization of mining meant that smaller companies a ...

by only a few feet, a huge deposit being discovered directly beside one of his abandoned test digs. His last major discovery was a major iron deposit in Labrador, although he was unable to personally develop the site due to the Wall Street crash of 1929, which dried up development funds. He was so well known that his death was mentioned in

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, who quoted his easygoing take on his losses in Labrador; "I was just there a darn sight too soon, but I have certainly enjoyed myself."Time Magazine Monday, Aug. 17, 1959
/ref> D'Aigle was born in

Chipman, New Brunswick Chipman is a community in Queens County, New Brunswick, Canada. It held village status prior to 2023 and is now part of the village of Grand Lake. The community of Chipman is located on the banks of the Salmon River at the head of the Gran ...

. In 1898 he decided to join the Klondike Gold Rush, at this point in full swing and unlikely to make any newcomers wealthy. Taking the slow route, he travelled via ship from New Brunswick around

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. Travelling up the

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he went past the major goldfields and prospected on the

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, a tributary in

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. At Cleary Creek he found a small gold camp getting set up, and eventually staked thirty claims in the area, one of which proved to be the richest in the area. When he sold out his claims seven years later he had to wheel his gold to a waiting steamer in a wheelbarrow. He deposited his winnings in Seattle, and started looking for new fields, but nothing seemed to be worth investigating. He returned east when he heard of the

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, but when he arrived all the good sites were already staked. Instead of looking for new sites in the area, as he had in the Klondike, he returned south and enrolled in a new geology course at Queen's University. While better learning his trade he pored over survey reports in the library. He eventually found one that seemed enticing, a report of gold in the Porcupine Lake area. As soon as the course ended he collected a set of gear and headed north. Picking up a

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guide, Billy Moore, they canoed up the

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to the Porcupine area and started surveying the entire area. Although they noticed much gold, it was in the form of small flakes embedded in

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, as opposed to the easily mined nuggets he was used to from the Klondike. This was far less impressive, but he nevertheless decided to return the next year, in 1907, with a larger team to make a more thorough sweep, this time digging into the quartz mounds that dotted the area. Although they were again successful in finding gold, no one in the party considered it worthwhile mining. Eventually they simply gave up, dumped their tools in one of their test pits, and headed south. It is one of the great ironies of mining history that the pit was only feet from another quartz mound that was described as "dripping" gold. The team that found it later stated that a heelprint from one of D'Aigle's team was clearly visible, impressed into the gold they never noticed. Stories of gold in the Lower Quebec area had interested Noah A. Timmins and Reuben D'Aigle had been grubstaked by Timmins heard these stories. In 1910 he showed up in Sept Iles and questioned a Montagnais Native, Pierre Rich, about these stories. Using his own capital he hired other Montagnais and prospected for a few years until his money was exhausted. In 1919 he was employed by the Ungava Exploration Company and was the first prospector to identify the huge deposits of iron ore around the Wabush Lake Zone in Labrador, Newfoundland.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daigle, Reuben People from Queens County, New Brunswick Canadian miners 1874 births 1959 deaths