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GEORGE WALKER MACKAYGeorge Walker MacKay was born September 18, 1880. His father George Forrest MacKay was the founder (in New Glasgow) of the steel industry of Canada. He had been an original partner in the founding of Canada's first Salt Mine and his association dated from 1917, a span of 55 years.
It can be said of the Malagash ventures that A. R. Chambers had the ideas, the courage and the know how to begin the industry and George W. MacKay had the money. He had the money and was willing to gamble in a Nova Scotia industry. Few Nova Scotians have been so inclined preferring always to invest in areas remote from Eastern Canada. And a gamble it remained all his life; 41 years, but it never failed.
George W. MacKay said to John MacQuarrie in March, 1972, "We never made any money until we got into the highway salt business." MacKay died April 10, 1972, at the age of 92.
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An extract from an interview with Kenny Wilson1918
Malagash, Nova Scotia, Canada
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An extract from the interview with Kenny Wilson. Kenny tells us the story of how the salt mining began in 1918.So you know the story about how the mine got started don't you? Do you want to tell us that one as well?
Peter Murray was a farmer and the dug well that he had was not producing enough water for him to water his cattle. So he decided to hire a gentleman down the highway, I never knew his name, but was capable of boring a well. And the gentleman came, he just lived down the road about a mile, and he came up to Peter Murray's farm here where the mine was and he drilled, started drilling. Well after he struck water Peter Murray's hired hand, more or less, was Herb Wilson, a young fella. And the next day; this was in the winter time; and the next day when young Herb came up the road to go to work (he was about 14 years old Herb told me at the time), he noticed that the snow had melted all over he place away from the water where they had drilled, more than usual. Well he thought he'd just, that's a new well I must have a little drink of water, and he took a swig of this stuff and it was 100% brine, they had drilled right into the salt. He said he blew it all over the field too!
Melted some snow then I bet you!
And Peter Murray didn't do anything with it; he didn't know what to do. It was a dead well to him a terrible thing to happen really.
Yes.
He found out that his pork that he had, if he took water and put his pork in it in a barrel it was perfect, pickling. Right for pickling, right out of the ground. I remember one story he had taken a half a pig or something over to Tatamagouche to sell. A lot of the farmers did that, they raised so many pigs and they'd sell some to pay for the ones that they had, the ones they kept for themselves. And he offered it to I think it was Bill Langille, the fella who ran the meat market in Tatamagouche. And they asked Peter how did you get the pig so perfectly salted, so even. He said "Oh just the water out of my well". And the story got around after a while that he was telling the truth, you see. And MacKay and Chambers, two gentlemen from New Glasgow, one was an engineer and the other was an industrial type person. They heard about it and they came to Malagash to see what this was all about. And they were the founders of the salt mine. So they were the ones that sank the first shaft.
Yes.
So was that 1918 or 1919?
Er? 1918 they sunk the first shaft, from then it would be the next 1919, no wait a minute 1918 that's right. The first lump of salt came up on Labour Day, 1918.
So how deep did they go down, do you know how deep they went?
About 80 feet the first shaft.
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The shaft collar of the mine1918
Malagash, Nova Scotia, Canada
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FIRST SALT HOISTED LABOUR DAY, SEPT 2, 1918Diamond drilling was carried out in 1917.
Shaft sinking commenced Dominion Day, 1918. A crew of five men did the digging in the
almost impervious clay, which was loaded into a tub and hoisted to surface with block and tackle and gin pole and one horse.
On Labour Day, September 2nd, 1918, the first rock salt was mined in Canada.
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Agreement between the mine founders and the land owners29 June 1917
Malagash, Nova Scotia, Canada
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Agreement between the mine founders and the land owners29 June 1917
Malagash, Nova Scotia, Canada
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Agreement between the mine founders and the land owners29 June 1917
Malagash, Nova Scotia, Canada
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This three page agreement dated 29th, June 1917, between Peter Murray, Alan McKenzie (farmers), George MacKay and A. R. Chambers; said that MacKay and Chambers could carry out prospecting on their farm property to further investigate the salt deposits.17
Interview with Isabell (Murray) McNeil daughter of Peter MurrayJuly 2005
Malagash, Nova Scotia, Canada
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Transcription of an Interview with Isabel (Murray) McNeilGood morning. I'm interviewing Isabell McNeil of Malagash. Good morning Isabell.
Good morning.
I wonder if you could please tell me your full name, and where you were born?
Well as far as I know I was born in Malagash. Isabell Murray McNeil or Isabell Christina Murray McNeil.
And what year were you born?
1911.
And what your parents names?
My father was Peter William Murray. My mother was Dorothy Jessie Sutherland.
And what did your parents do for a living?
My father was a farmer and my mother had been a school teacher.
Now when your dad was farming, I know there's a lot of salt in this area, did the salt ever affect the farming at all?
Oh mercy no! He discovered the salt mine, but he discovered that because he had hired a man to bore a well because in those days the only wells they had on the farm over there when he bought it were a dug well. There was a dug well out between the house and the road, where we got our drinking water; and there was a dug well, another dug well at the end of the barn, they watered the cattle. And on dry years when there wasn't a lot of water, the wells would go dry, especially the barn well, would go dry. So they hired a man to come to bore a well near the barn for the cattle. So he did and got a good of flow of water for the cattle and that's where they struck the salt, while he was boring the well there.
So what did he do about it when they struck salt?
Well they didn't do, he didn't do too much about it. He er.. in those days they didn't know anything about it except it was salt water. They didn't even why the water was so salt. But the man come and bored wells at different places on the farm, and they bored them in twenty some places and they got salt in most places. And there was one well right across the road from the farm that they put a pump on, and I remember they used to hang a little tin mug hanging on the pump so the people coming along, going along the road, would stop and try a drink and have a drink of the stuff and test it. Actually when it was tested it was 98% salt.
In what year did it finally become a salt mine in this area?
Well it was about 1917, 1918, that they got the people interested in New Glasgow, the Department of Mines, I suppose. Chambers and MacKay. Mr. MacKay people called it around here but he called it MacKay, the Scottish way of saying it I guess. He was a man of, I don't why, but he was a wealthy man and Chambers was a man was interested in it and had the education to know about the mine. And between the two of them they got the mine started about 1917, 1918.
So do you remember that when the mine first started?
Oh yes, I remember that.
And was it on your dad's land?
Just where the line fence where he and the next property, and the next property was owned by a Mrs. McKenzie, and there were no buildings on it. It was just a piece of land that she owned. And so the shaft, or the hole into the mine; my dad for some reason or other, didn't want it to go down on his property because it meant that the dump, of where they dumped all of the stuff that took out of the hole, he didn't want that on his property. It went the other way onto the other. So they bought a piece of property from the other lady, and that's where they made the shaft, joining the fence.
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The surface plant of the Malagash Salt CompanyCirca 1930
Malagash, Nova Scotia, Canada
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THE HISTORY OF THE SALT MINE IN MALAGASHIn 1924 when the partnership of Chambers and MacKay was dissolved as such, they formed Malagash Salt Products Ltd. In 1927 the firm was re-organized as the Malagash Salt Company Ltd., with an authorized capital of 10,000 no par value common shares. It was at this time that the Imperial Chemical Corporation of Great Britain invested $50,000 into the venture in an endeavour to find a workable deposit of potash, which was unfulfilled.
Malagash Salt affords a case history of success attained through perseverance. Deficit followed deficit, and 22 years were to pass before the directors had the gratification of issuing a statement to shareholders that showed a reasonable profit. At one stage of the company's operation, a majority of the directors wanted to cease operating and wind up the company. MacKay and Chambers held out to continue, and personally borrowed $50,000 from the Bank of Nova Scotia to purchase an equivalent sum to face value of Malagash Salt Bonds.
In the early thirty's the company was often without funds to meet its payroll of over 80 men plus office staff.
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The wharf warehouse and shipping pier under construction1930
Malagash, Nova Scotia, Canada
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