page_title: Red Lake, Ontario
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Red Lake, Ontario / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Aerial View of Red Lake, Ontario , Canada 1936
context_page_description: Red Lake is a municipality with town status in the Canadian province of Ontario, located 535 km northwest of Thunder Bay and less than 100 km from the Manitoba border. The municipality consists of six small communities—Balmertown, Cochenour, Madsen, McKenzie Island, Red Lake and Starratt-Olsen—and had a population of 4,107 people in the Canada 2016 Census.
  Red Lake is an enclave within Unorganized Kenora District. The municipality was formed on 1 July 1998, when the former incorporated townships of Golden and Red Lake were merged along with a small portion of Unorganized Kenora District.
  The name of the town comes from a local legend telling of two men from the Chippewa tribe who stumbled across a large moose. The men proceeded to kill the moose, the blood of which drained into a nearby lake. The blood turned the lake's waters red in colour, ultimately giving the area its name. The name appears on the Bouchette map of 1875, and was officially approved on December 7, 1909.
context_section_description: According to archeological surveys in the area, it is proposed that First Nations people have inhabited the Red Lake area for 2,000 years. The first people to live on the land were members of the Sioux and Cree tribes. Ojibwe people began to inhabit the area approximately 200-300 years ago, effectively becoming the predominant people at the time.
  In 1897, the R.J. Gilbert expedition discovered gold and staked eight claims.  These claims were surveyed by J.B. Tyrrell, brother of Joseph Tyrrell, as well as a rock sample from an 8-meter shaft assayed 0.6 ounces gold per ton.  However, the remoteness of the site precluded further exploration until 1922.  A report by Department of Mines geologist and former head of geology at Queen's University Dr. Everend Lester Bruce indicated gold-bearing quartz was to be found in the greenstone around the lake.  Fred Carroll then staked what would become the Cochenour-Willans Mine, and Herbert Tyrell staked what would become McMarmac Mine on McKenzie Island.  In 1925, Lorne and Ray Howey, along with brother-in-law George McNeely, plus W.F. Morgan staked claims which became the Howey and Hasaga Mines.  Marius Madsen staked claims which became the Madsen Mine.  The McDonough brothers staked the future Red Lake Gold Shore Mines.
  The town experienced a sudden surge of economic, industrial and population growth with the development of the gold mines. By 1936, Red Lake's Howey Bay airport was the busiest in the world, with more flights landing and taking off per hour than any other.
  By 1941, the Howey Mine had produced 421,592 ounces of gold.  Hasaga Gold Mines produced 218,213 ounces over 14 years.  McKenzie Red Lake Gold Mines produced 651,156 ounces by 1966, the Madsen Mine produced 2,416,609 ounces by 1976, and the Cochenour-Willans Mine produced 1,244,279 ounces by 1971.  Jack Hammell developed Uchi Lake which produced 114,467 ounces by 1943.  H. Dewitt Smith developed the Berens River, which produced 157,341 ounces by 1948.  George Campbell started the second Red Lake gold rush in 1949 with the development of Campbell Red Lake Mines.  It produced a peak of 300,472 ounces in 1993, the same year cumulative production reached 8,000,000 ounces.  The Dickenson Red Lake Gold Mine had produced 3,000,000 ounces of gold by 1993.
  In 1995 Goldcorp, owners of the Red Lake Mine, discovered that it contains the world's richest grade gold ore (two troy ounces of gold per metric ton). Shortly thereafter, the mine suffered through a four-year-long miners' strike. Since then, the mine has become one of the richest gold mines in the world.
caption: Aerial view of Red Lake 1936. Log boom full of saw logs at McDougall's Sawmill is visible at bottom right.
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