New trail honours rock collector who loved Cobalt area
COLEMAN TOWNSHIP - A dramatic setting at the Little Silver Vein on the Heritage Silver Trail, punctuated with bird song, the gentle fall of rain, and the occasional interested mosquito, helped illustrate many of the reasons that John Calder loved the Cobalt area.
Another of those reasons was the two dozen people who turned out for the ribbon cutting for the new John Calder Memorial Trail.
Hikers and local history enthusiasts will enjoy the new 0.6 kilometre trail that has now been added to the Heritage Silver Trail.
The John Calder Memorial Trail has been made possible through a donation by the Calder Foundation to the Cobalt Historical Society. The Foundation has also made possible the repair of the relief statue on Silver Street in downtown Cobalt, carried out in 2023.
An enthusiastic rock and mineral collector, Calder (1932-2022) lived in Port Perry in his retirement years, and had a great love for the Cobalt area, and visited frequently with his friend Bob Beckett of Stouffville. His son Keith, who spearheaded the funding of the project, attended the Haileybury School of Mines, and Calder also visited the area on fishing trips with his son Chris.
Daughter Dulande Joaquin of Kingston and her husband Scott were in attendance at the ribbon-cutting ceremony June 29 along with Beckett and his wife Brenda and about two dozen other volunteers and supporters.
Cobalt Historical Society chair Maggie Wilson also thanked Reiner Mielke, who is the trail manager for the Cobalt Historical Society and who helped bring the project into being.
She also thanked Agnico Eagle who she explained first suggested such a project years ago, and allow access onto the mines which Agnico owns.
Coleman Township Mayor Dan Cleroux and Cobalt Deputy Mayor Pat Anderson (who is a local history enthusiast and a member of the Cobalt Historical Society) were also present for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Wilson explained that the Heritage Silver Trail is "a self-guided tour of the remains of the industrial mining structures that are still around in the area."
She said that during the study of the maps in the Coleman Township archives, it was discovered that the road which has been used as the base for the trail was the original road which "connected the Town of Cobalt to the McKinley Darrah mine and the mines further south in Coleman Township, including the Little Silver Vein, and those at Giroux Lake and Kerr Lake."
It is a switchback trail, called by neighbours "the corkscrew," constructed that way to enable horse-drawn wagonloads of material to more easily travel the hilly terrain. Along the way, hikers will also see a portion of the iron compressed air pipe which was installed in 1910.
Beckett told the gathering that he and Calder collected minerals together primarily in Ontario, but also travelled into Quebec and made longer trips to Nova Scotia.
"John loved this area. There's no question about it. He loved to walk the sites and remember the history and look at old photographs."
Calder was a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force for 20 years, and when he retired from the military he worked as an electronics technician and electrician, and upon his retirement from that he turned to rock and mineral collecting as his passion.
Darlene Wroe, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Temiskaming Speaker
