Fred M. Wells--
Mine-Maker

[X THE MINING INDUSTRY of Canada personalities must ever be of outstanding
interest and importance, for it is upon the work of far-seeing pioneers that great and
profitable enterprises have been founded.

Almost without exception the major mining projects in Canada have grown
from the vision and courage inherent in the character of a single individual. And in
the history of nearly every mining company is an opening chapter dominated by the per-
sonality of one strong man whose leadership was being established quietly and with-
out ostentation often far from civilization in the first trials and vicissitudes out of which
later success emerged.

In the annals of Canadian mining the story of Fred M. Wells is of gripping
interest.

Something of that story a good judge of character may read in the face and
manner of this lean, intelligent, weather-tanned man in whom years of contest with
Nature and life have produced a physical hardness to endure sustained gruelling effort
that would wear out younger men and a certain independence of mental outlook which
has brought him at times into conflict in behalf of his conceptions of the ‘‘square deal’’.
Combined with these qualities is a rare generosity extended countless times to less for-
tunate friends and even to comparative strangers.

Fred Wells is the product of no stereotyped pattern. He is a practical mining
man who has come up year by year through the grades of that excellent university
whose classrooms are as wide as the continent and whose lessons are never forgotten
because they are so painfully learned.

Wells prospected for some years in Ontario, then came west to British Colum-
bia just prior to the Rossland boom of 1897 and made the Kootenays the scene of his
operations. The physical stamina that won him the snow-shoeing marathon champion-
ship three years in succession at Rossland—a feat never duplicated—has not deserted
him and the fast tireless pace he can set with a heavy pack and rifle while on a long
prospecting trip afoot is a by-word in the Cariboo today where the standards of endur-
ance are anything but easy.

In his time Wells has examined, with the meticulous care of an experienced
prospector and mine operator, large areas of country in British Columbia from the
Kootenays to the Omineca to say nothing of a generous section of the British Columbia
coast-line.

He staked and did the preliminary development work at Surf Inlet where a
great mining activity developed. From the ground which he picked as a potential
mine an industry grew which won $10,000,000 in gold before it closed down. It is be-
ing revived today with the prospect of enjoying another and perhaps longer lease on
profitable life.

At one time Wells examined and secured options on the ground today com-
prising the highly successful Pioneer and Bralorne mines in the Bridge River district.

It would be incorrect to say that his prospecting instinet attracted him to these
subsequently sensational properties, for Wells was guided by nothing but the shrewd
perceptions of a man whose judgment on geology and ore was formed out of experience
and study. He tried to procure financial backing to go into this venture, but at that time
money was not plentiful and the transportation problem of the Bridge River district
was difficult, making operations costly. His options expired and after a lapse of some
time the task of opening the wealth of these two mines passed to other hands,