Macdonald Mine

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IMG_0723, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

This is a cool old mine that should appeal to mineral collectors. It is just north of Bancroft and is open and accessible to the public. Thousands of tons of feldspar were removed from here through the 1920’s and now it sits abandoned in a deep gash on a forested hillside. In the afternoon sun the MacDonald Mine is especially picturesque. The cliff above glows a warm salmon colour and the trees are a vibrant green.

There is a steep, rubble slope within that leads down into a huge cathedral like amphitheatre. On my visit last summer there was this strange hum coming from the mine it was really eerie. It turned out to be a choir “testing the sound” in the tunnels. I could see them far down below lined up in the dim glow of their torches, chanting. Who would think to come across this way out here? Just like Gregorian Monks, ommmm…

One of the chanters, a gent in a straw hat, told me that in the early morning the whole inner chamber is filled with mist and as the sun rises, it flows out from passages lower down on the hillside.

The tunnels burrow into a good example of a zoned granitic pegmatite. Some cut through a solid wall of smoky quartz, its normally milky colour tainted a glassy brown by the radioactive minerals in the rock.

Explorers can usually judge their position in the dyke by the type of rock in which they find themselves. At the core of the pegmatite dyke there is massive quartz but as you proceed towards its edges it changes to various feldspars and on its outer most rim, graphic granite.

This site is especially famous as it was the first place that ellsworthite was found. The mineral is a variety of pyrochlore. You might not recognize the crystal if it were not for the rusty halo that surrounds it.