Located on the eastern slope of the Salmon River Valley, Premier Mine was started in 1910. By 1918, Premier had developed into one of the richest mineral deposits in B.C. An 11 mile (17 km) aerial tramline was constructed to carry ore from Premier to tide water and was one of the longest on the continent at that time. In 1921 the property shipped 6,000 tons of ore with the gold valued at $1,500,000 (1921 dollars). A large fire devastated the camp in 1928, resulting in the destruction of most of the buildings. Through heroic efforts, the mill machine shop, compressor plant and tramheads were saved. These were vital to the operation of the mine as loss of them could have resulted in the closure of the property. The camp was rebuilt and Premier Mine Camp once again became a thriving community. Many years of success and continuous operation were experienced until low base metal prices forced closure in 1953. Development resumed in 1955 and continued sporadically until 1967. The property sat idle from 1967-1988, other than some exploration in the early 80s. In 1988, Westmin Mines began construction on the property and undertook open pit mining from 1989-1992. In 1993, Westmin began underground operations continuing until 1996. The Premier Gold Mine, under several owners, produced steadily from 1918 until 1953, then sporadically for another few years. It was extremely profitable for most of its life, paying out about 22 million dollars in dividends. In 1975, the huge seven-storey main bunkhouse was still stable enough to wander through. In 1975, there were still documents of all kinds strewn around the Premier Gold Mine office, though the roof had been collapsed by heavy snow, with the steel beams bent like they were made of tin. The panorama below looks across the tailings-filled valley to the slope where the Premier Gold Mine used to be. September 14, 2002. Premier was a large gold mining camp in British Columbia, Canada some 18 miles from Stewart. It ran from the years 1918 to 1953 and was a large employer in the area. Huge bunkhouses, generators, concentrators, machine and cook houses sat on the hillside. A road provided access to the area, snowfall pending. Horses and cat tractors were used. Strangely Premier was closer to Hyder, Alaska, USA some 14 miles away, but the mine was in Canadian territory. The international aspects of the operation provided some interesting details on men's entertainment. Liquor was legal in Canada, while bawdy houses were not. Hyder did a lively business in providing entertainment. The mine was reopened as an open pit in 1987 by Westmin Resources. The Granduc copper mine is nearby; and there are other properties--BC Silver, Newmont, and Skyhawk. The Granduc Road continues along the river, passing the Riverside Mine site just before reaching the Canadian border. This small mine was active during the early 1900s, but now only rusting equipment and scattered timbers remain. Soon after crossing into British Columbia, the road climbs into a side valley and passes beneath the enormous Westmin Premier Mine, which produced gold and silver between 1919 and 1954. It now employs only a skeleton staff. You can get the best view of the enormous tailings heaps, produced by decades of hard-rock mining, from the far side of the leaching pond.

oil on canvas 40 ins x 50 ins; 100 cms x 125 cms Auction Estimate: $400,000-500,000 Price Realized: $1,056,000 (Joyner Spring Auction of Important Canadian Art - November 22nd, 1988) Painted circa 1923-1924. In 1935 Vincent Massey was appointed High Commissioner for Canada in London. The Massey’s collection of Canadian paintings, including Lake Superior III, accompanied them to the official residence in Hyde Park Gardens. Hubbard writes that in 1938 “Canadian art received an important showing at the Tate Gallery, London, the first occasion on which recognition was given to our earlier art. A number of the Massey pictures were included in the modern section of the exhibition.” Paul Duval, in an essay in the catalogue of the 1963 Harris retrospective, states: “Harris found a new and heady creative wine in the rockscapes of the north shore of Lake Superior. His mind and eye responded eagerly to the uninhabited spaces and the endless curtain of silver sky.” He continues: “Out of the seemingly unpromising material of Lake Superior’s barren rock and open sky and withered trees, Harris composed a number of masterpieces. In painting them, he cast aside colour almost completely and abolished surface textures from his canvases. He had found that shapes on the Superior shore stood our starkly in the crisp air and he drew their hard contours with an unrelenting respect.” Duval concludes that “remote and pristine are words that ideally describe the best of the Lake Superior canvases... (they) remain compositions of impressive power and startling originality... “ Dennis Reid, commenting on the works which Harris painted from his trips to the North Shore from 1921-24, points out that the artist “produced a long series of monumental canvases during these years. The North Shore seemed to trigger a rich and deep response in him... Some of his very finest canvases are the result of these later trips to Lake Superior.” Jeremy Adamson, in his chapter on the Lake Superior works, observes that the “canvases of stark, wilderness landscapes made from sketches along the North Shore between 1922 and 1924 are among Harris’ most powerful compositions.” The oil sketch for this canvas is in the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg. Today, very few large canvases from this period of Harris’ career remain in private collections. On June 1st, 1999, Joyner Canadian Fine Art sold Lake Superior III for $1,056,000, a new auction record for a work by Lawren Harris at auction. Additionally, the painting became the first Canadian work of art to fetch more than one million dollars at auction.