Steep Rock Iron Mine, Atikokan

This collection features high quality and increasingly difficult to acquire specimens from the Steep Rock Iron Mine and adjacent Caland Mine in Atikokan Ontario. Most specimens are from Ray Bernatchez’s (deceased) personal collection and were self-collected during his tenure as the mine geologist at Steep Rock Iron Mines. The mines are long closed (1972), but during the mining period of the 1950’s and 1960’s the mines produced world class specimens of manganite, hematite, geothite, quartz and siderite that can be found in museums throughout the world. The mine is best known for excellent specimens of crystallized manganite, arguably the finest in the world. The ore body was discovered in 1938 and over 110 million yards of silt, gravel and rock were removed to expose the ore body making the development of the mine an unparalleled engineering feat of its time. The mine is long closed and the huge pits are full of water as the dewatering pumps have been turned off for over 50 years and the water level continues to slowly rise. Specimens like those in this collection are unattainable except by chance from unique old collections. A recent visit (2024) to the Steep Rock Iron Mine reaffirmed that there will be no new collected specimens emerging from the flooded locale.