Gerry Hart and Bobby Clarke
mural at the hockey arena
getaway
Falling for Flin Flon
Manitoba mining town or Canada’s capital of quirk?
Many things set Flin Flon ,
Manitoba,
apart from other northern towns:
Jagged rocky outcroppings; a world-
class choir; flies the size of birds. And,
as many a Flin Flonner likes to brag,
it’s the only city named after a
character from a dime-store
science-fiction novel.
It’s also become the
unofficial supplier of
hockey greats: At
least 17 NHL play-
ers have come out of
the town (population
5,500), including Ken
Baumgartner, Reggie
Flinty
Leach, Gerry Hart
welcomes
and the “Toothless
visitors
to town
Wonder” him-
self, Bobby
Clarke.
50
suMMer 2017
Located just over the provincial
border near Creighton, Sask., Flin
Flon rests on the edge of the Canadian
Shield, surrounded by cliffs and with
a lake smack dab in its centre. It’s
a city of incredible but challenging
landscapes. On a recent hiking
trip with Prairie Pathfinders, I
discovered so much more about
this quirky mining outpost that
I returned home firmly believing
it’s the coolest small town in
Canada.
My hiking group arrives one
early afternoon, just as the
sun is washing over Flin Flon’s
craggy greenstone ledges. Such
natural beauty is in stark con-
trast to the 251-metre-high
smokestack that defines
Flin Flon’s skyline. But that
decidedly unglamorous landmark is a
reminder of the importance of mining
here—and one that’s revered by locals,
who lovingly refer to it as “The Stack.”
The town’s mining legacy began in
1914 with Flin Flon’s first prospector,
Tom Creighton. According to legend,
Creighton stumbled upon a tattered
copy of a sci-fi novel while walking
in a nearby forest. The Sunless City
by J.E. Preston Muddock told the
fantastic story of Josiah Flintabbatey
Flonatin, who steered a submarine into
a gold-coated tunnel and discovered a
hidden civilization.
At the edge of that same forest,
Creighton spotted residual thick veins
of zinc, copper, silver and gold. In 1915,
he claimed the mine and named it
Flin Flon, after the hero of his found
novel. Today, a seven-metre statue of
By Karen Burshtein