Iron Ore Company of Canada

Iron Ore Company of Canada

Iron Ore Company of Canada, incorporated 1949 by Labrador Mining and Exploration and Hanna Mining interests to exploit the some 400 million t of open-pit iron ore reserves proved in central Québec and Labrador in the late 1940s. In order to bring the ore to the port of Sept-Îles on the St Lawrence R, the company undertook construction of the Quebec North Shore & Labrador Railway (573 km long, completed 1954), 2 hydroelectric power stations, a huge shipping terminal at Sept-mine sites, and the townsites of Sept-Îles and Schefferville. Construction required a huge airlift, 13 landing strips and some 6900 workers. The first shipment of ore left Schefferville 15 July 1954. The company opened mining facilities, a crushing plant, a pellet plant and offices in Labrador City in the early 1960s. In 1954-55 IOC built facilities at Contrecoeur, on the S shore of the St Lawrence between Québec and Montréal, to transfer ore to lake carriers. The transfer was no longer necessary after the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway, but the docks are still used. In 1983 the company shut down its Schefferville operations.