Mount Wright - Overburden Piles

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Click on Photos for larger view.

When you drive west from Fermont, the first sign of the iron ore mine is a large mountain of rocks. From a distance it looks like a very huge ant pile. To gain an idea of the immensity of these piles, the trees in the foreground are black spruce and average 25 to 30 feet tall.

A network of roads criss-cross the Mount Wright mine site. Haulage trucks use this network to deliver ore from the mine pits to the crusher, or waste from the mine pits to the overburden pile. These roads have very gentle inclines so the big trucks are less apt to slide on the icy and snow-covered road during the seven months of winter where the normal annual snowfall is 14 feet.

Another photo of the overburden pile. For a height comparison, the haulage truck (about 2/3 of the way across the photo) is 22 feet tall. The truck really kicks up the dust.

The back side of the overburden pile taken about a 20 minute drive on Quebec Highway 389 looking easterly.