The Northern Ontario mining community lost an esteemed colleague and long-time contributor on April 3.
Merv Lavigne, a resident of Haileybury who dedicated his life to the pursuit of mining and the preservation of mining heritage, died following a brief illness at the age of 86.
Born in Ottawa, Lavigne discovered his passion in 1948 while working at Timmins’ Paymaster gold mine, mucking, hand-tramming, chute-pulling and blast-hole drilling. He would later graduate from what is now the Haileybury School of Mines. His field work was conducted at Cobalt’s silver mines.
Lavigne had a prominent career, building mine plants as a survey and layout engineer with Temiskaming Construction Ltd., doing exploration and development work at the Elliot Lake uranium camp with Pioneer Consultants Ltd., and working as a field troubleshooter for diamond-set mining and oil field products with Wheel Truing Tool Company, where he rose to the level of vice-president of the mining division.
In December 1952, Lavigne married Kathleen Fleming, daughter of P.M. Fleming, whose company was a distributor for several mining equipment manufacturers and the Shell Oil Company. The couple had three children together.
Intent on achieving his professional degree status, Lavigne enrolled at the Michigan College of Mining and Technology. As the first transfer student from Haileybury, Lavigne set a precedent for future transfers between the schools, which allowed hundreds of successive students to earn their engineering degrees.
By 1973, Lavigne found his self-described “lifelong obsession” as an instructor at the Haileybury School of Mines, a role he held until his 1993 retirement.
Lavigne pursued his leisurely interests with the same passion that built his career, volunteering with the Cobalt Mining Museum and the Cobalt Historical Society, of which he was founding president.
He developed the society’s newsletter, the Cobalt Lode; created the historical society’s motto, “Our history shines”; and wrote the first Heritage Silver Trail guidebook.
Lavigne spent hours driving the route, replacing signs and preserving the town’s storied mining history. But he never missed a morning at the “Cobalt roundtable,” the local coffee klatch that met daily at the Silver Café.
He recently purchased shelving and donated his extensive personal collection of mining books to create a dedicated mining section at the Cobalt Public Library.
“He’s been just a force here in Cobalt with his involvement,” said Reg Holdsworth, a friend and chair of the museum’s board of directors. “The town will definitely feel his loss.”
For his long-time dedication, Lavigne was nominated by the Town of Cobalt for an Ontario Heritage Trust Award, and was inducted into the museum’s Founders and Mining Partners Hall of Fame in the summer of 2014.
Lavigne is survived by his wife, Kathleen, two sons (daughter predeceased), siblings, and several grandchildren. His life was celebrated at a funeral mass on April 13 in New Liskeard.
