This week, Bill takes us to some different-sized holes in the Canadian Shield near Wawa
According to the dictionary, a hole in the wall is often a small and often unpretentious out-of-the-way kind of place.
The big hole #1 Wawa’s contemporary history centres around iron ore mining. From its beginning in 1898 until its final year in 1998, Wawa held a unique position in Canadian mining history. It was once the richest iron ore deposit in the country and significantly contributed to the insatiable appetite of the steel industry.
Johanna Rowe has written several local heritage books, and I am looking forward to the next, on the Group of Seven artist, A.Y. Jackson who summered on the shores of Lake Superior. An earlier one highlighting the iron ore history is entitled, ‘Heart of a Mountain –Soul of a Town.’ She said, “As Wawa, in this 21st century, we look back on 100 proud years of iron mining heritage.
Why the massive die-off? White-nose syndrome is an emergent disease of hibernating bats that has spread through eastern North America at an alarming rate . The fungus grows in humid cold environments, such as the caves and mines where little brown bats hibernate. WNS affects bats by disrupting their hibernation cycle so that they use up body fat supplies before the spring when they can once again find food sources.
There was a program in development to grate abandoned mining adits and air vents. This allowed bats to come and go, in and out, but restricted you to entering adits. There are just too many abandoned mines as referenced in this October 2023 story on the Renabie Gold Mine. This is most likely the cause of the formation of the Medicine Cave. Intrusions are typical of the rock formations in Northern Ontario. The cave may have had a very narrow crack into which the waves of millions of years ago penetrated and exerted a tremendous force, cracking the rock from within. Sand and rock carried by waves produce additional erosive power on the cave's walls.
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