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'''Viola MacMillan''' (1903-1993) was one of Canada's most successful [[prospector]]s, finding major gold deposits in the Kirkland Lake area, northern [[Quebec]] and [[British Columbia]]. She also staked major uranium claims in |
'''Viola MacMillan''' (1903-1993) was one of Canada's most successful [[prospector]]s, finding major gold deposits in the Kirkland Lake area, northern [[Quebec]] and [[British Columbia]]. She also staked major uranium claims in northern [[Saskatchewan]] during her 40-year career. In the 1950s, she was a feminist hero in her own country, as there were very few women prospectors and none who had made huge finds like MacMillan's Kirkland Lake gold claims. |
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==Early life== |
==Early life== |
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Revision as of 16:05, 2 August 2009
Viola MacMillan (1903-1993) was one of Canada's most successful prospectors, finding major gold deposits in the Kirkland Lake area, northern Quebec and British Columbia. She also staked major uranium claims in northern Saskatchewan during her 40-year career. In the 1950s, she was a feminist hero in her own country, as there were very few women prospectors and none who had made huge finds like MacMillan's Kirkland Lake gold claims.
Early life
MacMillan was one of fifteen children born to an impoverished family in Windermere, central Ontario, Canada. She married her husband George at the age of 20. MacMillan started out as a part-time prospector, working as a stenographer in winter, until she made her first major find in the Kirland Lake area. When prospecting in Quebec, MacMillan had to ask her husband to file mining claims, as women were prohibited by law from doing so.
Prospectors and Developers Association
MacMillan is credited with building the Canadian Prospectors and Developers Association into an important voice of Canada's mining financing community.
Conviction
In 1968, MacMillan was jailed for eight months for manipulating the price of gold mining stocks on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Earlier, she was at the center of the Windfall gold mining stock scam that effectively killed off, at least temporarily, the Toronto Stock Exchange as a major mine financing source. Viola and George MacMillan had staked off the Windfall claim in northeastern Ontario in the summer of 1964. Stock was issued on the claims, and rumors circulated in Toronto that the MacMillans had made a major gold find. When assays showed the claims contained very little gold, the stocks collapsed, wiping out many investors and sparking a massive Ontario Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of mine financing in Toronto. The MacMillans were not charged in the Windfall scandal, but the investigation turned up other instances of wash trading. After her release, MacMillan quietly returned to prospecting and mining ventures.
Pardon and later philanthropy
In 1978, MacMillan received a full pardon from the Canadian government. She spent the last decades of her life engaged in philanthropy, donating $1.3 million to the Canadian Museum of Nature to finance a mineral gallery named in her honor. She was given the Order of Canada the year before her death at the age of 90.
References
- The Order of Canada, By Christopher McCreery, 2005.
- Flim Flam, by Mark Bourrie, 2002.
- From the Ground Up, By Viola MacMillan, 1992.
- Article on Mining Hall of Fame page: http://www.halloffame.mining.ca/halloffame/english/bios/macmillan.html