When Sir John Franklin’s party in 1821 visited Copper mountains they found only a few small pieces of native copper. Franklin says in his narrative (p. 340) “The annual visits which the Copper Indians were accustomed to make to these mountains when most of their weapons and utensils were made of copper, have been discontinued since they have been enabled to obtain a supply of ice chisels and other instruments of iron by the establishment of trading posts near their hunting grounds. That none of those who accompanied us had visited them for many years was evident from their ignorance of the spots most abundant in metal.”
Doctor G. M. Dawson, director of the Geological Survey of Canada, examined before the Senate committee of 1888, stated that as to the Barren Lands, it was a fact that an immense district—nearly half a million square miles of country—was at that date, except along its watercourses, as utterly unknown as the interior of Africa. Coppermine river runs through the Barren Lands and so does Back’s Great Fish river, on which there are mineral indications. There was every reason to believe that there is a repetition along Coppermine river, and in its vicinity of those rocks which contain copper, on Lake Superior and which have proved so rich there. At the time Doctor Dawson gave his evidence, he stated, it seemed to be beyond the reach of the prospector. The Hudson’s Bay Company sent Hearne up there in the latter part of the preceding century to discover where the copper found in the hands of the natives came from, but he could do nothing but report that he found copper there. The sea to the north was ice-bound, so he did not see his way to utilizing it. Hearne travelled the barren grounds more than any one else, but he was not a scientific explorer. He travelled with the Indians in winter under circumstances of great hardship, and Doctor Dawson said he believed we had not yet got sufficient information up to that date about these “Barren Grounds.” What mineral discoveries might be made there it was impossible to say.
Bishop Clut informed the same committee that copper was found on Coppermine river in great pieces. Witness had seen little crosses made of it by the savages themselves when they were not able to have other metal.
Similar to Lake Superior Deposits.
Mr. J. B. Tyrrell, in his paper read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science at its Toronto meeting in 1879, mentioned that the descriptions of Doctor Richardson, who visited the locality of Coppermine river in 1821 and again in 1826, show that some of the rocks which occur on the banks of the Coppermine are precisely similar to those on Dubawnt and Baker lakes, though they also indicate the occurrence of the underlying Animikie series, and they also show that the conditions under which the copper there occurs are very like those under which it occurs on the south side of Lake Superior.
The Keewenawan rocks (so called from the district so named on the shore of Lake Superior) would appear, according to Mr. Tyrrell, to have been first seen by Doctor Richardson on Red Rock lake, a short distance below Point lake, on Coppermine river, and thence they occupy the banks of the river through most of the distance down to its mouth.
Continuing to discuss Doctor Richardson’s report, Mr. Tyrrell proceeds in his paper to say:—“At ‘Rocky Defile,’ ‘the walls of the rapid’ are said to ‘consist of a very dark purplish red, compact felspar rock, alternating with a rock which is composed of a light reddish and greyish felspar and quartz, the former indistinctly crystallized,’ evidently referring to different varieties of quartz-porphyry or porphyrite. ‘This rock is everywhere exposed in the bed of the river for ten or twelve miles below the rapid.’
“In the beds of the torrents flowing into the main river he (Richardson) found many rock fragments, most of which were probably derived from rock in places in the vicinity, and the list might readily be duplicated from the copper-bearing rocks of Lake Superior; he mentions ‘fragments of reddish grey, granular, foliated limestone, of deep red sandstone, of gray sandstone, of red syenite. There also occur fragments of pale red sandstone, composed principally of quartz and a little felspar, with imbedded circular concretions of quartz, and of reddish quartzite sandstone. Fragments were also found of dark-greenish felpathose trap, of greenstone, of dark flesh-red felspar in granular concretions, with imbedded patches of hornblende, of red felspar partly coloured with hornblende, and containing amygdaloidal portions of prehnite.’
Copper Mountains.
“Copper mountains consist principally of trap rocks. The great mass of the rock in the mountains seems to consist of felspar in various conditions; sometimes in the form of felspar-rock or claystone, sometimes coloured by hornblende and approaching to greenstone, but most generally in the form of dark reddish brown amygdaloid. The amygdaloidal masses contained in the amygdaloid are either entirely pistacite (epidote), or pistacite enclosing calc-spar. Scales of native copper are very generally disseminated through this rock, through a species of trap tuff which nearly resembles it, and also through a reddish sandstone on which it appears to rest. The rough, and in general rounded and more elevated parts of the mountain are composed of the amygdaloid but between the eminences there occur many narrow and deep valleys, which are bounded by perpendicular mural precipices of greenstone. It is in these valleys, among the loose soil that the Indians search for copper; masses of epidote containing native copper; of trap rock with associated native copper, green malachite, copper glance or variegated copper ore, of greenish gray prehnite in trap with disseminated native copper; the copper in some specimens was crystallized in rhomboidal dodecahedrons. We also found some large tabular fragments, evidently portions of a vein consisting of prehnite, associated with calcareous spar and native copper. The Indians dig wherever they observe the prehnite lying on the soil, experience having taught them that the largest pieces of copper are found associated with it. The Indians report that they have found copper in every part of this range, which they have examined for thirty or forty miles to the northwest. We afterwards found some ice-chisels in possession of the Esquimaux, twelve or fourteen inches long and half an inch in diameter, formed of pure copper.”