By Rajitha Sivakumaran
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T
he town of Atikokan, now 117
years old, was founded as a stop
for the Canadian Northern Rail-
way, but fewknow that this small mining
town in Northwestern Ontario played a
pivotal role during the Second World
War. From 1940 to 1978, there was a
significant amount of iron ore mining
that took place within the boundaries of
Atikokan; two very large iron ore mines
were developed there, but the process
was anything but simple. The deposits
were located at the bottom of a lake
and could only be accessed if the lake
were drained.
The project took place at a time when
the Allied Forces needed the iron ore to
produce steel for the military, but the
undertaking was an expensive one. In
fact, it required an act of the U.S. Con-
gress to put in place the finances to de-
velop it. Through many dams, tunnels
and diversions, the lake was drained.
Until the Three Gorges Dam was
opened in China in 2003, Atikokan re-
mained the home of the largest inland
engineering project in the world. Fur-
thermore, the mines generated enough
iron ore to produce every steel part in
every automobile ever manufactured in
Canada.
“Historically, Atikokan has made a sig-
nificant contribution to the develop-
OCTOBER 2016
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