The Golden Triangle

The Golden Triangle is a geographic area located in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Historically, this region has contained some of the richest deposits of gold, silver, uranium, nickel, copper and zinc. A significant number of mines have closed. However, the region remains home to some of the world’s largest underground hard rock mines. Sitting atop the mines shaft stands an architectural structure known as a headframe. The headframe is just one piece of complex infrastructure of underground mining. A tower built above the shaft, like the upper casing of a large elevator. Everything about the design is governed by basic principles of physics-leverage and resistance. For some in these communities, the mine headframe has the same eerie hold as a historic battlefield. Since the late 1990’s almost all of the headframes in this body of work were demolished as part of government legislation after there deposits were depleted.

Louie Palu