Eagle Head

Some of Nova Scotia’s most beautiful parks and protected areas contain former mines and quarries – including the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Park!

A copper deposit was discovered at Eagle Head, on Gabarus Bay, likely in the mid 1870s.

The first documented work on the site was in 1879 and 1880 when a shaft was sunk to a depth of 75 feet, about 200-300 feet from the shore. A horizontal tunnel was also dug from the shaft. According to the Nova Scotia Department of Mines annual report for 1880, “A considerable quantity of ore was taken out, which the proprietors purposed sending to England.” However, the site appears to have gone idle after this work.

R. R. Lynk, who lived several kilometres to the east at Canoe Lake, said in 1943 that work was started again in the early 1900s by the company then-operating Cape Breton’s Coxheath copper mine. The Eagle Head shaft was 6 feet by 6 ½ feet and 74 feet deep. It had a 25-foot tunnel about 25 feet down the shaft, according to Lynk’s comments in the 1943 annual report.

Lynk was the last operator to do a blast at the mine. He said it revealed 10 inches of copper-bearing ore that was taken to Coxheath for analysis. No extraction has been done at the Eagle Head mine since then.

The Department of Mines investigated Eagle Head in 1943 not for copper, but for its potential for molybdenum. The Geological Survey of Canada reported finding molybdenum in quartz veins in the area between Gabarus and Louisbourg in 1875. In 1885, a small amount was shipped – the customer was not identified in the Department of Mines report for that year – “but no demand arose to warrant attempts at its regular extraction.”

According to the 1943 annual report, a Ronald Mackay had more recently found two veins containing molybdenum by a nearby brook.

While Eagle Head was explored intermittently in subsequent decades, it was eventually protected when the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Park was established, so its potential to produce copper and molybdenum was lost.

Copper and molybdenum are both considered critical minerals today, essential to achieving climate goals.

Copper is arguably the most important metal for clean energy because it is used in most electrical wiring. An electric vehicle can use as much as 176 pounds of copper, four times the amount used in a typical combustion engine vehicle. Onshore wind turbines require about 11 tons of critical minerals per megawatt of capacity, including three tons of copper. Solar panels contain 5.5 tons of copper per megawatt.

Molybdenum is usually alloyed (combined) with steel to make it stronger. It is used in things like wind turbines and electric vehicles to make them strong and safe.

Section of an 1879 Geological Survey of Canada map showing Eagle Head and the copper mine just right of centre.