Steep Rock

Although I was born in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay), my dad worked at Steep Rock Iron Mine – about 200 Km west. Steep Rock was a lake that had the misfortune to be situated over a large iron ore body. To get at the iron ore, miners dug a tunnel up underneath the lake, blasted out the last bit and drained all the water, exposing the ore and starting a huge open pit mine. Somewhere in my family pictures is a shot of the final explosion in the lake as it is being drained. I’ll have to find that someday.

As I neared Steep Rock I stopped in Atikokan for some groceries. After getting groceries, on a whim I went into what I thought was an art gallery. It turned out to be a mall – one of the mustiest smelling buildings I’ve ever been in. However, as I wandered this little mall, I did find an art gallery and went in. Luckily for me the woman who was running the gallery was able to tell me how to find Steep Rock, and in fact her father worked there and she was able to tell me a little bit about the mine.

Atikokan is very close to Steep Rock, so I may have actually lived there with my parents – the information is lost now, but I do remember my Mom mentioning the name. I’m sure they would at least have occasionally gone into Atikokan for entertainment. I do recall my Dad liking beer – after all he was Irish.


Anyway, with that help I was able to easily find Steep Rock Lake. The shot at right was inspired by the similarity of Morris' colour and the road and soil in the area. The ground is red because of iron oxide in the soil. There is definitely no iron oxide (rust) on Morris, after all the money I've spent on fixing him up!

There are remnants of the mine and the open pit. The “drain” has been plugged and the lake is slowly filling up, but you can still see the effects of the open pit mining. Although the area is slowly returning to nature (except for the areas that have been used for dumping refuse), there are still roads and concrete structures. It was strange to imagine my dad working in that space 65 years ago. The picture of the pit/lake below is a composite of 2 shots that I put together with Photoshop.