Flin Flon

We all spent the day catching up on domestic chores. Mike and Al worked on the RVs and Symphony and I went to the laundromat and did laundry. After lunch Mike and I drove into town to find a car wash and then did some shopping at Canadian Tire.

We also stopped in at the Flin Flon Chamber of Commerce to pick up some visitor information. We had a pleasant visit with the young lady working there and learned that she and her family had moved to Flin Flon from South Africa. Her husband was working at the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co.'s #777 mine here in Flin Flon where they mine zinc, copper and gold.

We bought a Delissio frozen pizza at the Extra Foods grocery store to have for dinner tonight. Delissio is the Canadian Kraft brand version of Digiorno pizzas. Generally when I'm grocery shopping in Canada, I look for food labels that are similar to the ones in the US for food that we eat. The names may be somewhat different than the US brands, but are made by the same companies - Kraft, Pillsbury, etc.

While we were running our errands, Al and Symphony went to the Flin Flon Station Museum here a the campground. When we got back to the campground, they told us how nice the museum was and how much they enjoyed it. We'll be going there in the morning to the museum before we all go sightseeing in Flin Flon.

Al and Symphony went for a bike ride after dinner and I took a photo of them with their bikes on top of a large outcrop near our RV. While they were out bike riding, Mike and I read through the brochures we picked up at the Chamber of Commerce to see where we can go sightseeing.

From Flin Flon, Manitoba

Flin Flon is a unique city built on top of the Precambrian Shield which is part of the Amisk Volcanic Belt that was formed 1.9 billion years ago by underwater volcanic eruptions. This volcanic belt is the source of the minerals found here - zinc, copper, silver and gold. Flin Flon has a population of about 6200 people and is Manitoba's 9th largest community. The Hudson Bay Mining Co. is the largest employer here and tourism is second.

Because the city is built on top of rock, they found a unique way to install sewer lines - above ground! They even built sidewalks on top of some the sewer lines. Some of these sewer lines are still in use today and tomorrow when we go sightseeing, we'll be hoping to get a photo of them.

We also learned about how Flin Flon got its name. One of the prospectors who discovered the body of ore here had come across a dime store novel called "The Sunless City". The hero of the story was Josiah Flintabbety Flonatin who invented a submarine and went through a hole in a bottomless lake where he found everything laden with gold. However, the last pages of the book were missing, so the prospectors never found out the end of the story.

When ore was found in 1914 where the present mine is located, Creighton, the prospector who found the novel, said this must be the hole that Flinty came out of. What do you say we call the strike "Flin Flon"? As you can see, the name stuck.

There is even a large statue of Josiah Flintabbety Flonatin at the entrance here. The statue was designed by cartoonist Al Capp.

From Flin Flon, Manitoba