"Just about every building up at the Argonaut had holes in the roof, from fall-out when blasting."

Bob Jordan is a quiet sort of fellow until you get to know him!  He moved to Campbell River with his wife in 1950 and began his mining career at the Argonaut Mine.  He had many tales to share with the Mosaic of Mining Memories team.

Bob’s Story

“The Argonaut was an open pit mine. Utah Construction owned the Argonaut; they were an American company.

It went from 1500 feet up to 1420 down but it was still open pit; there was no underground there. Each level in the side of the mountain was forty feet deep. They would drill forty feet down and blast it out, then drill the next level and keep coming down the mountainside. They had Joy Drills that drilled four-inch holes twenty feet deep and then added another steel to reach forty feet. They also had a Quarry Master drill that drilled six-inch holes with forty foot steels, so they could drill each hole with one steel. Shovels would come in after they blasted and load the ore onto the belly-dump trucks, which hauled it down to the mill and then down to the ocean side.

“One night, I managed to knock off a light plant and Angus Krug came to repair it. The high-lo came down and just took that light plant right out of there. I was oiling on the shovel for quite a long time.

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