Beneath the Pines: 1937 and the Souls of Kilmar

The Birth of a Subterranean World

In 1937, Canadian Refractories Ltd. transitioned from open-pit operations to underground mining, sinking a shaft nearly 700 feet deep into the rugged Grenville terrain gq.mines.gouv.qc.ca+3mindat.org+3Wikipédia+3emrlibrary.gov.yk.ca+7emrlibrary.gov.yk.ca+7gq.mines.gouv.qc.ca+7. The transition coincided with technical innovation—by that time, the National Research Council had already enabled the production of “Magnifrit” and Magnecon bricks, vital for high-temperature kilns and industrial furnaces gq.mines.gouv.qc.ca. The mine's workforce, drawn largely from nearby communities like Grenville and Lachute, found both livelihood and peril in Romanesque tunnels of heat and rock.

Lives Underground: Risk, Skill, Community

Belowground, the men—miners like Charbonneau and Gray—worked amid crushing pressures, drilling with machinery known as “bug drills” to clear new raises. Tragedy struck in 1954 when a piece of rock collapsed, taking Charbonneau’s life and trapping Gray under tons of shale—rescued by the crews with screw jacks and unwavering resolve churcher.crcml.org+1. These names, drawn from obituaries and coroner reports, anchor the tale in personal sacrifice and community memory.

On surface, the Scotch Road threaded its way from Grenville to Kilmar, serving as the lifeline between home and work—a dusty ribbon carved through the Laurentian foothills, walked daily by miners and their families

Legacy Etched in Granite and Memory

Today, the mines are silent, the engineered shafts reclaimed by earth and time. Yet through this map and stories of those who lived there, the legacy endures. You walk its imagined corridors, feeling the echo of picks striking stone, of laughter and loss, of community bound by deep labour and shared landscapes.