Guest Column by GeoT
Dateline: 10/10/00
The Canadian Shield is an igneous and metamorphic rock complex surrounding Hudson Bay in Canada like a giant horseshoe. It is the foundation of the North American continent. It lies under our part of eastern Illinois too, but here, it is buried below some 15,000 feet of sedimentary rock. Only a few wells in Illinois have ever encountered it. We see examples of the shield in the glacial erratic boulders scattered across the Wisconsinan Age drift surface in the northeastern quarter of the state. Many are beautiful examples of granites and gneisses and also intermediate and basic igneous rocks. One of the more interesting examples is called the Gowganda Tillite, a lithified till from a much earlier glaciation in Canada. It is a gray-green rock with embedded granite pebbles and boulders; some of them exhibiting flattened sides from that ancient glacial abrasion.
The Canadian Shield was heavily scoured by ice during the Pleistocene and the surface today consists of lakes, swamps, and forests. The rock contains immense wealth in metallic ore minerals. Diamonds are a relatively new discovery. Huge lake basins were scoured out along the margins of the shield where the glaciers encountered less resistant sedimentary rock. Great Bear Lake, Great Slave Lake, Lake Athabasca, Lake Winnipeg, to name just a few. Yellowknife, on Great Slave Lake, capital of the Northwest Territories, is located near the western edge of the Canadian Shield. Yellowknife, is said to have been named for the First Nation people there that carried knives made of copper. It owes its existence to the discovery of gold back in the 1930's and 40's. The original location of Yellowknife was on a peninsula that projects into Yellowknife Bay. This is called "Old Town" - and it is here that Sam Otto once lived.
Sam lived in a small rustic house heralded by a pole adorned with antlers and a birdhouse, and a simple sign that read: "Sam Otto". It suited Sam well. Inside were glass display cases (like the old ones found in antique shops today) filled with rock and mineral specimens. Sam must have been something of a taxidermist because stuffed birds and small animals decorated the wooden walls. All of this perhaps tells more about Sam than he described about himself in a photo essay.
But Sam did have a story to tell, and I truly appreciate Matt allowing me to repeat it here. For Sam.
Sam told how he came to the territory in 1929, when few others were there, prospecting for silver and uranium "up on Bear Lake in '35". He, "never made a pile, I can't retire". And then, he tells about the rock near Yellowknife. "This is gold country," Sam says.
Sam believed that Yellowknife would become a "big city"; not a "small city", and that at some time, Yellowknife would become the "jumpin' off place for all around the top of the world".
The Giant Mine at Yellowknife operates today extracting a gold/quartz ore from deep below the surface. We'll just have to wonder if Sam helped find that gold - he didn't tell us.
I'm certain that Sam has passed on by now, the photo essay was done back in the 70's, and he was rather elderly then. I hope that there is a simple, fitting, memorial to Sam somewhere. Maybe in Yellowknife.
Well, Sam, Yellowknife hasn't become that "jumpin' off place" you anticipated quite yet.
But, they're working on it!
I wonder if Sam would find it difficult to believe that his story would be told once more on the World Wide Web in the year 2000? Somehow, I doubt it. Sam was a man with vision.
I never had the privilege or pleasure of meeting Sam - our paths crossed only through that photo essay. I have often imagined though of spending time listening and learning from him, and what an enormous experience that would have been!
Thanks Sam! We'll be thinking of you now, each time we 'visit' northern Canada.
GeoT is a long-time high school geography teacher from Illinois. In addition to geography, he enjoys railroads and model railroads, old Oldsmobiles, and gardening.
