HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Lucknow Sentinel, 1982-10-13, Page 11m LI
Schoolteacher makes it rich...
•front page q 10
building of the railway, he placed his
sett with his relatives and moved to
Winnipeg,
astern Pipers .
He invested every dollar he had in •
land and lost everything when. the land
boom suddenly collapsed, He did not
'have enough money to return east so
he, took ' a 'job .as. a newspaper
oorrespondent and began writing the
first of thousands, of mews items and
art#cies that he would sellover the
years to eastern papers,
In • 1887, stores began • retching
Winnipeg of the great gold strike in a
remote part, of Northern Ontario,
Though McChatles had been studying
geology, he had no practical exper-
ience in mining, Hut he packed his •
bags and joined the wave of firospect- .
ors pouting into the new camp sites
around Sudbury, Hut nothing hod
prepared hint for the filo of a prospect= •
or,
There was no easy Way to explore
the land north of the Great bakes,
Canoe routes were few and far apart,
The land was ra°cky and treacherous
for pock 'horses, In the valleys, the
undergrowth was so thick it was often
impossib a for any prospector to tell
whether he was stepping onto rocks or
into water, .
. Every matt had to carry his supplies
into the . bush .on his back, and. the
season for expldting was short, barely
four months, not counting the black fly
season when it was tornitent to stay
outdoors, .•
It also proved to be a dangerous
place to live alone', McCharles, who:
had known the, friendliness of the
settlers out west, believed he could
trust his *fellow prospectors its the
nearby camps, Hut when he returned,
to his cabin one night he found
everything had been stolen, not only
fris', stone but even the hinges onthe
doorsand windows,
During the next 10 years he lined
liked a hermit, surviving on the money
. he received.• for the news stories he
sent tothe newspapers4
In 1898, his luck changed, While
prosepeeiing 10 miles north of Sud-
bury
bury he discovered an area of unbe-
lievably rich nickel .deposits, but a
nickel strike could not be worked by a
lone prospector with little money,
Nick YI mines require enormous carpis-
Alf that he could do was to•sell his
find to a developer and in 1902, he •
sold it to the Mond .Nickel Company,
Skilled 'Writer
He Was. now Sh years old. and had
become 111 from living so many years
• itr : the 'bash, There was. nothing • he
wanted to do with his new wealth
except make himself comfortable and.
look after his son who was still living
with relaitiveszs Its 1905, he build a huge
15 -room house overlooking a: lake near
Sudbury and began writing the story
of his life,
ookS had: been one of the few
permanent joys of his life and his auto-
biography
uto-biogra by became more than the
reminiscences of a prospector, He had
become a skilled writer and he quoted
liberally from -Cervantes and Swift and
all the writer he admired to explain his
philosophy;
In particular, he quoted Carlyle,
who had once told his Edinburgh
students that a life devoted to the
making of money was "a poor devisive
thing... There is a nobler ambition
than ;the gaining of all California,"
When McCharles knew he was
dying, he drew up a final will and
asked to be buried beside his wife in.
Toronto, He left most of his money to
his remaining son and .to his relatives
and, after donating funds for a new
park to be built its Sudbury, he asked
his layovers to publish his aufobio-
graphy after his death.*
A•copy was to besent to .his son and!
a copy sent to each :ofmajor libraries
in Ontario and ' Nova Scotia, This was
to be done, not because he believed
that his personal reminiscences were
important but the facts of his life
could be a record of a part of
Canada's history that might otherwise
never be told. .
—The Toronto Star
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