TYRRELL, JOSEPH BURR

(b. Weston, Ontario, Canada, 1 November 1858; d. Toronto, Canada, 26 August 1957)

geology, exploration, mining.

Tyrrell was the son of William Tyrrell, a building contractor (later reeve of York Township and of Weston) and Elizabeth Burr, the daughter of Rowland Burr, a mill architect. He was educated at the Old Grammar School, Weston, and at Upper Canada College, Toronto; it is significant that he became an expert shot with the pistol at an early age.

At the University of Toronto he had a distinguished undergraduate career, gaining first-class honors in chemistry, biology, mineralogy, and geology, and winning the only natural sciences scholarship awarded in his year. After graduation he began studies leading to a career in the legal profession, but a threat of tuberculosis caused him to change to the outdoor life of a geologist.

His first appointment was with the Geological Survey of Canada, already a well-established organization, directed by A. C. Selwyn. Tyrrell was assigned as field assistant to the assistant director, Dr. George Dawson, who had already made a considerable reputation for his exploration and geological reconnaissance work in the more remote parts of Canada. Together they made traverses through the Crows Nest, Kootenay, and Kicking Horse passes in the Rocky Mountains. Tyrrell also made geological surveys of the Cretaceous coal measures of the foothills between Calgary and Edmonton, discovering in the course of this work the first remains of giant carnivorous dinosaurs found in Canada. In old age he was to describe this as“one of the most pleasurable thrills”of his life.

In the 1890’s Tyrrell’s attention turned to the Pre-Cambrian shield area of northern and arctic Canada, and he made a series of arduous journeys there by wagon and canoe. These trips were important for the geological surveys achieved, for apart from the sparse indigenous population of Indians and Eskimos, the only previous visitors had been white trappers. The territory included what are now parts of northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The two most noteworthy expeditions (1893 and 1894) were his crossings of the Barren Lands, the treeless arctic wastes lying to the west of Hudson Bay. In each case the starting point was the Lake Athabasca Post of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The goal was the company station at Fort Churchill. The first expedition reached Hudson Bay at Chesterfield Inlet at latitude 63° 58’. The journey had proved dangerous. Had they not come upon herds of caribou, they would have starved. Winter overtook them early during the 500-mile journey along Hudson Bay to Fort Churchill. Tyrrell noted a great river discharging into Hudson Bay and resolved to return to investigate it the folowing year. He did so and named the river after R. Munro Ferguson, a member of the group. Maps were prepared by Tyrrell during these expeditions, and the scientific results were embodied in very full reports, parts of which remain the only authoritative accounts of this area.

Tyrrell was also a keen naturalist and his writings include a catalogue of the mammals of Canada, descriptions of the winter home of the caribou, and an account of the distribution of conifers. Scientifically, however, he is remembered for his contributions to glacial geology at this stage, notably the recognition that three major Pleistocene ice sheets–which he called the Labradorean, the Patrician, and the Keewatin–had covered northern and eastern Canada.

Still more significant were his later contributions to economic geology. He had already noted seepages of oil in the foothills zone north of Edmonton before 1893 and had urged investigation by drilling. This petroleum field was not adequately explored until the 1950’s, however. He had also discovered amber deposits at Cedar Lake.

In 1898, after writing up his northern expeditions, he was assigned to the Yukon, where the Klondike gold rush, the most spectacular in Canadian history, was at its height. Tyrrell reported on the geological situation for the government, but upon his return to Ottawa at the end of the year he had come to the conclusion that he wished to take a more active part in the mining industry. Accordingly he left the Geological Survey to return in a private capacity to the Yukon. He became a geological and mining consultant and quickly won the confidence of the gold miners. He then spent seven years in the Yukon.

In 1894 Tyrrell married Mary Edith Carey, daughter of the Reverend Dr. G. M. W. Carey, of New Brunswick. After he became established in Dawson City his wife and small daughter Mary joined him.

Tyrrell’s career in the Yukon spanned the changeover from streaming to large-scale hydraulic mining, and he learned and contributed much to the geology of alluvial gold. In 1895 he returned to the east, however, and after a short period as mining adviser to Sir William Mackenzie, the railroad developer, he set up as a consultant in Toronto. He was retained by the Anglo-French Mining Company of London, to which he began to make regular visits.

Tyrrell’s influence on the development of metalliferous mining in Canada was considerable; he took a great interest in the famous silver mining district of Cobalt, Ontario, but his greatest achievement was the discovery of the Kirkland Lake gold deposit, which he predicted from structural reasoning. The sinking of a 600-meter shaft proved the orebody and led to the founding of the highly successful Kirkland Lake Gold Mining Company. Tyrrell was president of the company until a few years before he died.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Tyrrell’s works include a series of accounts of his expeditions in Report. Geological Survey of Canada. See especially Assiniboine and Saskatchewan, 2 (1887), EI–152; northwestern Manitoba, 5 (1892), EI–235; country between Athabasca Lake and Churchill, 6 (1893), DI–120; Doobaunt, Kazam, and Ferguson rivers, 9 (1896), FI–218.

Among his numberous publihsed papers the following deserve mention:“The Glaciation of North Central Canada,” in Journal of Geology, 6 (1898), 147–160;“Natural Resources of the Barren Lands of Canada,” in Scots. Geogr. Mag., 15 (1900), 126–138;“The Gold Bearing Alluvial Deposits of the Klondike District,” in Transactions of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy8 (1900), 217–229;“Concentration of Gold of the Klondike,” in Economic Geology, 2 (1907), 393–399;“The Law of the Pay Streak in Placer Deposits,” in Transactions of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, 21 (1912), 593–605. He was responsible for the descriptions of the geology and mineral resources of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories in A. Shortt and A. G. Doughty, ed., Canada and Its Provinces, XXII (Ottawa, 1914), 583–660.

II. Seconary Literature. For a biography up to year 1930, see W. J. Loudon. A Canadian Geologist (Toronto, 1930), with photograph. See also“Award of the Murchison Medal,” in Proceedings of the Geological Society, 54 (1918), xlii–xliv;“Award of the Wollaston Medal,”ibid., 103 (1947), xxxvi–xxxviii; and obituary by D. R. D(erry), ibid., no, 1563 (1958), 130–133.

K. C. Dunham