Port Radium

Located just north of Echo Bay
on the Mctavish Arm of
Great Bear Lake

Gilbert A. Labine (1890 - 1977

Gilbert Labine helped shape the course of world history when in 1930 he discovered pitchblende at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories.

With his discovery there of the ore that yields radium and uranium, LaBine pushed Canada into the atomic age. He was probably one of the few Canadian prospectors of that time who could have identified the pitchblende mineral.

A largely self-taught man, LaBine well before his historic find of the famous Eldorado uranium mine at Great Bear Lake had already tried to make his mark on Canadian mining, though his earlier efforts at discovery and development of silver and gold had not borne much fruit.

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