Why Mining?

About the Book

"Why Mining?" Professor Leslie Crouch asked the Author when being interviewed at the beginning of Third Year Engineering at the University of British Columbia in 1948. Giving an answer saying something like "...having always lived in or near mining towns, I enjoyed the people." It was a pretty lame answer but it was the best that could be given at the time. The Author's bibliography covers employment in Sheep Creek Gold Mines, Malartic Goldfields, Steep Rock Iron Mines, Rockiron, IMC, Cominco and Texasgulf Kidd Creek of a period of 35 years and then consulting on his own for 17 years. In his career, mining activities took him to many of the states in the US as well as all provinces and territories in Canada and to foreign assignments in Scandinavia, China and Kazakhstan.

The question of "Why Mining?" is finally resolved or concluded in the Epilogue... "What other endevour could provide more fun than Mining? Mining had everything one would ever want in a career. There was travel, there was money to spend, there was money to be made, but most of all, there were people." Perhaps the answer given in 1948 was not too far off-the-mark because the Author did mention he enjoyed the people. This biography of a mining engineer's career (spanning the years of 1948 to 2000, a period of over 50 years) is about the "Mining People" met in the pursuit of his profession.

About the Author

Dave McKay was born and raised in British Columbia. After obtaining a degree in Mining Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 1950, he travelled east to Quebec and then to Ontario. After twelve years, he moved to Saskatchewan where he worked for the next eight years. Again in Ontario, this time to Timmins and finally to Toronto (working for Texasgulf), he then started his own consulting business at Kingston in 1985. Consulting took him to many parts of Canada, USA, Scandinavia, Central Asia and China.

The author and his wife Irene now make their home on Vancouver Island.