The Cobalt silver rush

In 1903 men working on the new railway through northern Ontario noticed metal in the rock cut. It turned out to be some of the richest silver ground ever found: veins of native silver you could cut with a knife, sheets of it, and by 1911 Cobalt was producing a large share of the world’s silver. The town made the fortunes and the mining expertise that then opened much of northern Canada. Headframes and open cuts still stand in and around the streets, there is a mining museum, and the whole town is essentially an exhibit.