The Guédry-Labine Family and the World's First Atomic Bomb

by Marty Guidry

Born in 1890 near Pembroke, Ontario, Gilbert Adelard LaBine had mining in his blood. His forebears were hardy folks who came to Canada when the land was harsh and unforgiving. His maternal grandfather, an Irishman, was a clerk for the Hudson Bay Company at Bytown - later known at Ottawa. When Gilbert's father died at a young age, his youthful mother was left with a growing family to support.

With adventure stirring in their blood Gilbert and his older brother Charles Leo LaBine, born in 1888, left school and their home in 1905 and headed for the silver camps of Northern Ontario. Excitement was buzzing amidst the new silver rush and the two lads landed their first jobs at the Cobalt silver mines along the right-of-way of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway. Back-breaking work and no success in striking it rich caused them to strike out on their own and seek their fortune farther afield. With hard work they acquired a modest stake near the city of Timmins. An independent spirit, but also very smart, Gilbert realized he had cut his education short and needed to do something about it. He enrolled in classes at the Mining Institute in Haileybury and learned everything that he could about mineralogy and geology. Here is where he was first introduced to pitchblende and he learned the lesson well. Pitchblende is the ore that contains radium and, more importantly, uranium.

As the years passed, the LaBine brothers continued to seek their fortune at several mines that they prospected - finding only minor stakes. In the 1920's they opened the Eldorado Mine in central Manitoba and formed their Eldorado Gold Mines Company. Incorporated in 1926, the Eldorado Gold Mines Company had as its first president Charles LaBine, who also looked after the financing of the company's operations - which were not that promising. They did find gold at Eldorado, but the ore was poor and the mine was not as productive as hoped. It did, however, provide them with the finances that they needed to move further afield. This early strategy of Charles being the businessman of the company and Gilbert the rough-and-ready prospector continued throughout their careers.

Running very short of cash and being men of high integrity, the LaBine brothers told the truth to their shareholders who had invested in their prospecting activities. They asked the shareholders to pass a bylaw that would let the brothers use the available cash in the company to further their exploratory work. After much discussion, a wary group of stockholders passed the bylaw and, as they say, the rest is history.

With this authorization Gilbert LaBine returned to prospecting and conducted an aerial inspection of Great Bear Lake far north of Edmonton in the Northwest Territories - 1100 miles from the nearest railway in an empty land inhabited only by a few Indians. This forbidding place was gripped by ice for ten months a year. The area looked promising - at least from the air.

The year was 1930, the month May - Gilbert and his mining companion Charles St. Paul set out on foot from the nearest jumping-off point for Great Bear Lake. They dragged sleds heavy with equipment and supplies. The glare of the sunlight on the snow-covered fields was blinding; the ice underfoot made walking almost impossible. Yet they continued to trudge toward their dream. With St. Paul unable to continue, Gilbert set out alone from the eastern shore, crossed the frozen lake to a small island and discovered deposits of silver. Looking back to the snow-covered south shore, his eyes marveled at the flowering cobalt deposits which later yielded cobalt, bismuth and nickel. But the jewel of his discoveries this day - May 16, 1930 - just a few miles south of the Arctic Circle on Great Bear Lake lay just beyond the cobalt discovery. Here his eyes first saw pitchblende in the wilds of Canada - and he remembered well those lessons of 23 years before. A gleaming black ore that until this moment was known only from Czechoslovakia and from the Belgian Congo in Africa. Radium, newly-discovered by the Curie's in France, was the precious mineral in pitchblende; however, soon another rarer mineral would take its place.

Gilbert LaBine painfully recrossed the ice to the south shore and then chopped away the ice that partially covered his find. Indeed it was pitchblende. The new Eldorado Mine was born with cobalt being the No. 1 vein and pitchblende being the No. 2 and No. 3 veins.

Within two years there were 13 mining companies exploring the Great Bear Lake. But LaBine was first and he needed capital to exploit his discoveries. Using the readily available silver on the small island, he quickly obtained 600 bags of silver - worth a million dollars. This provided the much-needed cash to recover the cobalt and valuable pitchblende. Initially the LaBine brothers brought the ore to the refinery using their fleet of boats on the MacKenzie River. The only refinery in Canada was at Ottawa and Gilbert initially shipped 20 tons of pitchblende there, but Gilbert was determined to both mine and refine his ore. He and Charles built a radium refinery at Port Hope on Lake Ontario near Toronto. When first built, their Port Hope Refinery was the largest in the world and it was here that they produced their first gram of radium before 1941.

Until now the Belgian Congo had a world monopoly in the production of pitchblende and radium and they did not want to lose it. But Gilbert LaBine was determined to break it. Amid personal threats to his life, an explosion at the Port Hope Refinery and other obstacles, he persisted. And he triumphed. With the monopoly broken the price of radium dropped from $70,000 a gram to $25,000 a gram. (Note: There are slightly over 28 grams in one ounce.)

During the four long years it took the Eldorado to produce its first ounce of radium, there emerged a byproduct - uranium. Unwanted at first, it soon took center stage. Thinking someday that it may be useful, Gilbert LaBine stored the huge quantities of this byproduct. His intuition paid great dividends.

By 1940 there was a glut of radium in the marketplace and the LaBines were forced to shut down their mining operations. Unknown to them, however, two warring nations had begun a lethal race. Each of them was striving to develop the ultimate weapon - the atomic bomb. And the LaBines held the key ingredient in their 'trash'.

In 1942 amid complete secrecy Gilbert LaBine was requested by the Canadian government to reopen his mine and refinery and produce, not the dream product radium, but the byproduct uranium. His foresight paid high dividends as he had a ready stockpile of 'byproduct' to refine in the Port Hope Refinery while the Eldorado Mine restarted and began resupplying the refinery. For two years after restarting operations LaBine's mine and refinery were the only source of uranium in the western world. By 1944 the stakes were too high for a private company to engage in this business and the Government of Canada took over the Eldorado. Gilbert, however, became president of the Crown corporation Eldorado Mining and Refining Ltd. and continued running the operation. Gilbert continued to search for new uranium deposits and the need was so vital that the Canadian Navy released his son Joseph to help in the search. In a top secret hunt for the precious metal in the Lake Athabasca region, Joseph was successful - having learned his skills from his father during his teen years.

The uranium mined and refined by Gilbert and Charles LaBine through their Eldorado Mine on Great Bear Lake was provided to the United States and was used to produce the first atomic bombs - first detonated at Trinity Test Site in Nevada in July, 1945 and then dropped on Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 8, 1945). Although controversial even today, the prevailing opinion is that these two atomic bombs shortened the war by several months and saved untold thousands of Allied and Japanes lives by eliminating the intended invasion of the Japanese homeland.

Gilbert LaBine continued prospecting for additional deposits of uranium - finding his fourth and final deposit in 1952 on the north shore of Lake Athabasca. This deposit led to the Gunnar Mines - the first Canadian producer of uranium to return a profit to its shareholders. With the need for uranium dwindling Gilbert LaBine turned his sights on other metals as silver and iron ore. Under failing health, Gilbert LaBine retired as president of Gunnar in 1962 and was succeeded in this office by his son Joseph LaBine. Charles LaBine had retired in 1955 as vice-president of Gunnar.

In 1969 Charles Leo LaBine died at the age of 81 years.

In 1977 Gilbert Adelard LaBine died at the age of 87 - but not before receiving many honors. Known widely as Canada's Mr. Uranium, Gilbert LaBine has been inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame and was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire and a member of the Order of Canada. During his very eventful life, Gilbert was president of a half-dozen mining companies, was president of the Canadian Uranium Foundation and was a governor of the University of Toronto (although having never completed a formal education).

And now you know the critical role played in World War II by a couple of LaBine brothers prospecting in the forbidding Canadian northlands.

Genealogy of Gilbert Adelard LaBine and Charles Leo LaBine

Gilbert Adelard LaBine (1890 - 1977) m. Blanche Huard in 1920
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Charles Leo LaBine (1888 - 1969) m. Claire E. Kelly in 1926; Ida M. Madden in 1958
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Jean-Baptiste (John) Guilde dit LaBine (1849 -1896) m. Mary Jane Stout in 1874
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Joseph LaBine (1817 - 1904) m. Mary McCartly
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Joseph Guildry dit LaBine (1786 - 1832) m. Sc holastique Dugas in 1810
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Joseph Augustin Guildry dit LaBine (1759 - 1816) m. Marie C. Methot in 1778; Marie G. Martineau in 1783
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Jean Baptiste Guildry dit LaBine (1725 - 1802) m. Claire H. Benoit about 1747; Marie M. Picotte about 1755; Marie M. Maois in 1799
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Pierre Guidry dit LaBine (ca. 1697 - 1751) m. Marguerite Brasseau about 1720
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Claude Guedry (1648 - ) m. Marguerite Petitpas about 1681