The Curator of Engagement and Dialogue at the Huron County Museum explained to county council recently that the Sifto Salt Mine in Goderich is actually a fairly recent player in the salt industry in the county.
Sinead Cox says salt was actually discovered when when they were drilling for oil in the 1860’s.
“First you had the discovery of salt when they were drilling for oil in the 1860’s, just north of Goderich and once, through experimentation, they were able to get that salt well going and prove that it was viable, then you had continued drilling and more salt wells popping up all over the county.”
In fact, Cox says there were eventually salt wells from Exeter to Wingham and by today’s standards it wasn’t a very sophisticated process.
“They were using a brine evaporation method. So there were salt wells where they’re pumping a solution up with the salt and so then they’re using, it was quite resource heavy in a way, that they’re using puddles to then evaporate the water and then you’re left with the salt.”
Cox says they didn’t actually start mining salt until 1959 and the Sifto Mine in Goderich is, in fact, the largest salt mine in the world. She adds, Lake Huron is actually above the mine, but the distance between the mine and the lake is equal to the height of the CN Tower.
Additionally, Cox says the museum has a very good partnership with the owners of the mine, Compass Minerals, that helps them cover things like the costs of busing, so they can run programs that bring students to the museum to learn more about the history of salt in Huron County or go on field trips and they also run virtual programs for students from kindergarten to high school and those programs are also supported by Compass Minerals.
