These Gears, Lignite Coal, Hugh Sutherland Expedition
N 49° 05.029 W 102° 46.453
13U E 662520 N 5439158
Located along Hwy 39 , South of Bienfait.
Waymark Code: WMTP2E
Location: Saskatchewan, Canada
Date Posted: 12/20/2016
Views: 5
Three plaques a fixed to a gear.
These Gears. . .
These gears once formed part of a machine that operated in the district, now dwarfed by the machines of today, center of the activity was the town of Taylorton, now abandoned but still visible due north of here. Souris lignite coal is burned either raw or as briquets. The Boundary Dam electric generating plant, visible on the horizon to the west, is a user of lignite coal. These deposits make Saskatchewan the largest producer of lignite coal in Canada.
Lignite Coal. . .
Lignite Coal deposits in the Souris Valley were first noted by American Railroad surveyors in 1853 and by the Palliser Expedition in 1857. The North West Mounted Police burned coal in their 1874 camp at Short Creek. In 1880, George and Sydney Pocock, English immigrants cruising for homesteads, selected two fine lumps of coal from visible seams and took them to Winnipeg by buckboard.
Hugh Sutherland Expedition. . .
There they stimulated such interest that an expedition organized by Hugh Sutherland mined the first coal in the district and barged it to Winnipeg via the Souris and Assiniboine Rivers. The first of the underground mining companies was organized in the nineties. Strip mining with the use of draglines was firmly established by 1930.
Marker type: Plaques on a Gear
Marker placement date: Not listed
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