Long before the Brenda mine was developed into a world-class copper producer, the low-grade Okanagan area deposit was scoffed at by many in the industry. Bernard Brynelsen, however, was not among the sceptics. Quite the opposite. Known as Noranda\u2019s man in the west, Brynelsen was a true believer in the project. In fact, at one point and in utter desperation to keep the project alive, Brynelsen mortgaged his home. Such was Brynelsen\u2019s \u201cunquenchable optimism and irrepressible enthusiasm,\u201d in the words of Noranda\u2019s Alf Powis. All this is part of British Columbia\u2019s rich mining lore now, how Brynelsen\u2019s unyielding faith, his vision and persistence brought the Brenda mine into being. And the story of Brenda\u2019s against-the-odds development is typical of the man himself.<\/p>\n
Bernard Brynelsen was born in 1911 in Vancouver, B.C. In 1935, he graduated as a mining engineer from the University of British Columbia. But even before. graduation he had experienced mining first-hand in the placer fields of the Yukon.<\/p>\n
In 1948, his association with Noranda began when the major acquired Quebec Gold Mining Corp. Quebec Gold held a fistful of British Columbia properties acquired by Brynelsen. It was in 1955 that he first tried to persuade Noranda that the Brenda deposit could be a profitable venture. It took some doing \u2013 the 0.33% grade was a major stumbling block \u2013 but in the end Noranda had to listen to their western agent.<\/p>\n
Other Brynelsen successes include the Kennedy Lake mine, Yreka, the Bell copper mine at Babine Lake and the Boss Mountain molybdenum mine in the Cariboo district.
\nAfter he \u201cretired,\u201d he and long-time friend and Noranda associate, Dr. Archie Bell, became involved developing the Viceroy mine in California. Even today at the age of 82, Brynelsen remains active in the industry.<\/p>\n
For all his accomplishments, Brynelsen has received numerous awards \u2013 all of them richly deserved. Among the honors include the Order of British Columbia, the Edgar A. Scholz Medal and the H.H. \u201cSpud\u201d Huestis Award for Excellence in Prospecting and Mineral Exploration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Long before the Brenda mine was developed into a world-class copper producer, the low-grade Okanagan area deposit was scoffed at by many in the industry. Bernard Brynelsen, however, was not among the sceptics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":1057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[327,40,73,25],"tags":[135,328,138,34,54,11,41,31,134],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-327","category-b","category-exploration","category-inductees","tag-bc","tag-bernard-brynelsen","tag-british-columbia","tag-canadian-miners","tag-exploration","tag-inductees","tag-non-ferrous-metals","tag-precious-metals","tag-western-canada"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mininghalloffame.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mininghalloffame.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mininghalloffame.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mininghalloffame.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mininghalloffame.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mininghalloffame.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mininghalloffame.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mininghalloffame.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mininghalloffame.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mininghalloffame.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}