This week’s trip back in time to the early days of Timmins brings us the story of one of the more colourful characters in the early days of the Porcupine mining camp.
Prospector Johnny Jones came to the area in 1910. He never did find a big mine, but he sure added colour to those early days.
Timmins Museum director-curator Karen Bachmann says he was known for things like taking a dogsled load of coal to the mayor of Toronto during a coal shortage… and rescuing stranded members of the U.S. air force when their balloon went down near Moosonee.
“And everybody was standing around and wondering ‘oh my god, what are we going to do, what are we going to do?,’” Bachmann recounts, “and he said ‘Oh, the heck with you people,’ took his dog train and actually went and found them and brought them back, so was very highly praised by the American government for his bravery and all of those good things.”
“People will recognize him by the photograph of him with his great big beaver coat and his big beaver hat and his huge beard. But he had a really super thick Welsh accent. Nobody could really understand him most of the time.