You may ask yourself what Flin Flon is?
It’s the name of a town in northern Manitoba on the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border about 600km northeast of Winniepeg.
I also haven’t heard of this town before until I saw Borealis a film made by Winnipeg director Sean Garrity. O.K. I know the scenes in the film representing Flin Flon were actually shot in Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg, but nevertheless I got interested in where that town is and how it got its funny name.
So to get from Winnipeg to Flin Flon you have to drive 800 km trough a landscape with lots and lots of lakes. At Grand Rapids you’ll also get a glimpse of huge lake Winnipeg.
So, how did Flin Flon get it’s funny name? J. E. Preston Muddock wrote 1905 the novel “The Sunless City” and in this book Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin is a character.
Mining prospector Tom Creighton who 1914 discovered together with David Collins a large mineral deposit near the future site of the town found a copy of the book nearby. So the copper mine was called Flin Flon’s mine, and the town that developed around the mine adopted the name.
Funny as Flin is piloting in the book a submarine through a bottomless lake and passing through a hole lined with gold in a strange underground world. „Flinty“ as he is called locally was also honored with a large statue designed by cartoonist Al Capp.
In 1930 Hudson Bays Mining and Smelting (HBMS) start the production in the mine with one of the largest smelters in Canada. At the time of construction, Flin Flon was one of the largest industrial development projects in the Western Hemisphere. In town especially the chimney of the copper smelter can be seen from everywhere.
This copper smelter was also responsible for mayor concerns about contaminating the soil and jeopardized public health. For years it was was Canada’s single largest air polluter of heavy metals (mercury, cadmium, lead, arsenic) and sulfur dioxide until it was closed in 2010 because it was uneconomical to meet new stricter Canadian pollution guidelines (Source: Rosemont Risk Report).
In the film „Flin Flon Flim Flam“ director John Dougherty turns an unflinching focus on Canadian miner Hudbay Minerals and their mining operations in Flin Flon, Rosemont (Tucson, USA) and Guatemala.
Today the ore of the underground copper, zinc, gold and silver mine (777 mine) is processed in Flin Flon in a concentrator plant into copper and zinc concentrate. While the copper concentrate is sold for further processing, the zinc concentrate it is further processed in a zinc plant on site into special high grade zinc (Details see “Flin Flon Processing”).
Oh yes, and its said that in the last decade, Flin Flon was home to Canada’s largest legal grow-op. Known as the “ganja mine” because it grew pot in an underground mine, it supplied Health Canada’s medical-marijuana needs. I suppose that’s where Sean Garrity got the Idea from to let Aurora (Joey King) travel to Flin Flon for Pot….