Exploring the MacDonald Mine, north of Bancroft
A traditional mine in the modern era.
By: Michal Adamowicz, rockhound

The MacDonald mine is one of those places in the Bancroft area that is a classical area to visit. The mine was the largest working mine in the area for feldspar and it is easy to get to…. for once.

So here is how to get to it. The mine is on the MacDonald Mine road, naturally 200 meters of the road by trail. To get to the mine you would drive north on 62 for 7.6km till you reach the Musclow-Greenview road, where you would turn right onto this road. You would follow the road for 10.9 km until you meet the Macdonald Mine road and you will turn left onto this road. From here you will drive for 3.6 km until you go up on a slight hill, and you will see a parking area on the hill top with a trail leading into the woods, this is the trail to the Macdonald Mine, it is about 200 meters long. The parking are is unmarked and on the left of the road.

A strong word of warning before we go any further. If you plan on taking a shortcut throught Kuno road to Macdonald Mine Road, i would strongly suggest AGAINST it. Kuno road deterorates very quickly and is littered by large & small boulders not to mention holes in the road. I unfortunetly took this road, & i was worried for my car every second of the ride. Unless you have a truck, Jeep, or any tough high clerance vehicle, i would not recomend risking your car. The safest way is to take the route sugested above, not the `Kuno shortcut of vehicle destruction`.

Now back to the Macdonald Mine trail.

When you take this trail the first thing you will see is the main open cut in the distance. Once you get closer you will notice a few adits on the left of the cut. The mine dump is in front of the main cut and can be limited mainly to large & small pieces of clear and smoky quartz, feldspar, and other minor amounts of minerals. Quartz & feldspar being the main minerals to find. You can try chiselling the mine walls for samples but that is a tough war. If you have a Geiger counter, use it, the mine wall has radioactive minerals that can be detected with it. If you attack the wall with your chisel I ask that you take extreme caution, do not hit the main support pillar in the chamber, it has been weakened by collectors to the point that the Bancroft Chamber of Commerce has removed Macdonald Mine as a site from their guidebook, for safety concerns. So all new guidebooks do not have this as a site, all older books are now historic in their information. You can of course visit the mine just be especially careful.

Here is the entrance to the main chamber. Don’t mind my lifeless expression, I was totally drained from to whole day of driving, rock smashing, rock carrying, & insect swatting.


The MacDonald Mine, is one of the few mines in the Bancroft area that looks like a traditional mine. The mine is basically one large cave with the floor sloping down to another exit from the large main exit. In the main chamber there is another adit going into the rock. This mine is not a pit, it is a mine made of a large main open cut, with a large main chamber and an exit some feet down a slope in the main chamber. The main cut is 168 meters long, 21 meters wide, and 37 meters deep. There are also multiple adits in the area, the main one being 53 meters into the hill.


Here is the two lower entrances in the main chamber seen from just in the main entrance.


Here is the 2 main entrance passages, seen from the inside of the chamber.


Here is one adit just outside of the main chamber, it is partially flooded.


Here is an adit inside the main chamber.


This is the main chamber with the chamber entrance.


Here is a close up of a rock wall in the chamber. You can see the Feldspar/Quartz contact point.


Here is the 2 bottom exits seen from the outside.


Here is the old ore cart.


Here is the mine dump.


Here is the parking area. There is a sign there indicating that this is the mine.


Now here are a few vids for you:

(1) The Mine entrance:


(2)The mine interior:


This mine has a large listing of minerals that can be found there, but most except feldspar & quartz occur in minor amounts. Some notable minor amounts that were found there are zircons, calcite, & pyrite .Here is a list of occurring minerals:
• Albite
• Allanite
• Andradite
• Apatite
• Betafite
• Biotite
• Calcite
• Chalcopyrite
• Chlorite Group
• Feldspar Group
• Fluorite
• Galena
• Garnet Group
• Goethite
• Gypsum
• Hornblende
• Ilmenite
• Magnetite
• Marialite-Meionite Series
• Microcline var: Amazonite
• Molybdenite
• Perthite
• Pyrite
• Pyroxene Group
• Pyrrhotite
• Quartz
var: Smoky Quartz
• Thorite var: Uranothorite
• Thorogummite
• Titanite
• Uranpyrochlore
• Zircon

Here are some samples from the mine.

Here is some quartz & smoky quartz from the mine.


Zircons, Cyrtolite variety on quartz. (9.1 x 6.9 x 2.8 cm)Under normal & SW UV light.


Garnet with calcite, & zoom in to a garnet sphere.. (11.2 x 5.1 x 4.3 cm)


Like I said, you will most likely find quartz, & feldspar. To increase your chances of finding more samples dig in the dumps, use an ultraviolet light in the chamber to look for fluorescent minerals, & use a Geiger counter. When i was scanning around with my geiger counter, the mine gave off about 0.8-1 microsviert an hour of radiation. Don’t dismiss the walls as a bad area for collecting, I hear of people who had great success at the wall. Just don’t touch the main pillar. Did I mention not to touch the main pillar? Well I am just making sure.

The MacDonald Mine is a very good site to go to for historical purposes, and since it is close & free to go to it is a good site to begin your hobby as a rockhound. Also there are a number of other mines very close to MacDonald Mine, so you have other collecting oprions nearby. My first memories from Bancroft are from the CN dump, and the MacDonald Mine so you can imagine it holds a special place for me. It also has good potential for interesting samples but collecting can be spotty. Don’t forget to check out the old ore cart in the main chamber entrance. The thing is half buried in the rubble. The mine also is an excellent survival cave in case of getting lost. But that won’t happen now will it.

Thanks for Reading, Rockhound Safe & with Determination.

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