Rencontre East, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada
Isolated and Loving It

Molybdenum

A group of molybdenum deposits in Fortune Bay supported the only other south coast mine worked during (as well as after) the copper boom years. The mine lay in Rencontre East and was of interest primarily for the spectrum of individuals involved in its 60-year history.

A mining engineer named Brockton first found molybdenum in 1882 while prospecting around Rencontre East for John Steer of St. John's, but because the metal had few known uses his discovery went unnoticed. Near the turn of the century the increased demand for the metal prompted a St. John's watchmaker, N. Ohman, to procure samples of the ore. These lured English entrepreneurs to Rencontre East for four months in 1900 or 1901, during which time a small amount of ore was removed for testing.(23)

Next to visit the district were Jabez, James and Esau Butler. The three brothers had in 1892 staked the claims that gave rise to the Bell Island iron mines and since then had been prospecting about Newfoundland in the hopes of repeating their success elsewhere. There investigations of the molybdenum deposits in 1908 and 1910 failed to attract native enterprise, but intrigued an American mining engineer, William Elmer, who may have learned of the property through the Butlers' Bostonian relatives. Elmer excavated 20 tons of ore from Rencontre East in 1915 to send to the United States; the ore, however, remained in Newfoundland as the Island's government forbade the exportation of 'strategic minerals' to neutral countries during World War I.

The mine's most active period were the years just before World War II. Employees of the Newfoundland Molybdenum Company Limited from New York explored the deposits in the late 1930s and lived for a time on the shores of Rencontre Lake in a cabin called "Ackley City" after a company director, John W. Ackley. Largely through the efforts of geologist Dr. Warren Smith,(24) the company located sizeable ore reserves and initiated plans for a small wartime mining operation. (25) Political complications caused the plan to falter before coming to fruition. Nonetheless, one permanent legacy of the mine remains: "Ackley" has become the official geological name of the granite in which the molybdenum ore occurs.

— from page 35 of the book
Once Upon A Mine: Story of Pre-Confederation Mines on the Island of Newfoundland
by Wendy Martin
©1983 by the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy