The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame (CMHF) will welcome five new members in 2021, including a champion of mineral literacy to a First World War pilot and more.

Every year since its inception in 1988, the CMHF reviews a pool of nominations from industry members and provincial mining associations and selects inductees who demonstrate the excellence of the Canadian mining industry through their achievements and leadership. This year the CMHF Board of Directors has selected Patricia Dillon, William G. Jewitt, Steven D. Scott, David Elliott and Mary Edith Tyrrell as its 2021 inductees.

“Canadian mining leaders set the standard for the global industry, and these five inductees reflect the very best of mining excellence, determination and contribution to [the] community,” Canadian Mining Hall of Fame chair and president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) Pierre Gratton said. “As exceptional leaders and champions of our industry, each of the inductees [was] instrumental in growing our sector.”

Patricia Dillon was born in Toronto and earned both a BSc in geology and a Bachelor of Education at the University of Toronto. She got her start in the mining industry at Teck Resources, where she has spent 32 years as a geologist, director of employee communication and engagement and many more leadership positions. Outside of her career at Teck, she has been involved in a number of industry associations, serving as president of both CIM and PDAC, and was a chair of the two associations’ joint Mining Millennium 2000 conference. Dillon also helped organize PDAC’s Mining Matters organization, where she serves as president and CEO, and has also held leadership roles with MAC’s Towards Sustainable Mining initiative, the Mining Industry Human Resources Sector Council and the Ontario Mining Association’s “Mining New Opportunities” video project for Ontario First Nations. “I am most proud of the many collaborations I was able to be involved with that advanced the knowledge and understanding of the complexity, value and importance of the minerals industry to society, now called mineral literacy,” said Dillon.

The late William Gladstone Jewitt was an experienced pilot and mining engineer. He joined the First World War effort as a flight instructor and test pilot for the Royal Air Force in Europe and studied mining engineering at the University of Alberta upon his return to Canada after the war. In 1927 he joined Cominco as an assayer at its Trail smelter in British Columbia, and two years later he took on the role of exploration engineer and pilot and began training company engineers and geologists to fly as part of their exploration work. He later worked as manager of mines and vice-president of mines for Cominco and was also president of Pine Point Mines, Coast Copper Mines and Western Mines. Jewitt is credited with making significant strides in mapping Canada’s north, pioneering new methods of aerial prospecting and directly contributing to the development of mines such as Cominco’s Box, Echo Bay and Sullivan mines. He was inducted into the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame in 1978.

The late Steven D. Scott was born in Fort Frances, Ontario, and earned his BSc and MSc degrees in geology at the University of Western Ontario, before completing his PhD at Pennsylvania State University. In 1961, he joined the University of Toronto as a professor and began studying volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits and developed a tool to help predict the mineral content of VMS deposits. Scott believed that seafloor deposits could be potential economic resources and participated in 31 oceanographic expeditions, and his research helped guide exploration efforts for high-value VMS deposits in Canada and abroad. Over his 40-year career at the University of Toronto, Scott guided dozens of graduate students through their thesis research, published 187 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings and received dozens of national and international honours.

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David Elliott has funded more than 400 exploration and development companies over his career, including Alamos Gold, Midas Gold, Reservoir Minerals. Elliott was born in Kingston, Ontario, and spent his early career in mining finance and trading in Montreal and spent some summers prospecting in the Yukon. In 1986 he co-founded Haywood Securities and grew it to a top Canadian mining merchant bank managing firm with $10 billion in assets. As a partner and director at Haywood, Elliott focused on building relationships with companies that had strong technical teams, working with a predecessor of Glamis Gold and on the formation of Pioneer Metals. Elliott’s philanthropic work has included environmental and social causes such as the Pacific Salmon Foundation, BC Children’s Hospital, Women in Mining and more.

Mary Edith Tyrrell (née Carey) grew up in the late 19th century studying subjects such as geology in her family library. In 1894 she married Joseph Burr Tyrrell, a mapmaking explorer and geologist, and they spent the next 11 years travelling across Canada and raising their three children. In 1905 the family settled in Toronto for Joseph’s work, where she witnessed the growing need for support among the wives of miners. In 1921, she and 19 other women launched the Women’s Association of the Mining Industry of Canada (WAMIC) in order to promote friendship among mining women, provide services to the industry and contribute to community well-being. Tyrrell served as the association’s president for its first three years. Since its inception, WAMIC has donated more than $1.8 million to charities, universities and scholarships and bursaries. Tyrrell joins her husband in the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame, who was inducted in 1997.

The CMHF will induct the five new members at a gala dinner and induction ceremony in July 2021.