Faro | |
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Town of Faro
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Coordinates: 62°13′59″N 133°19′59″W / 62.23306°N 133.33306°W | |
Country | Canada |
Territory | Yukon |
Area | |
• Land | 203.57 km2 (78.60 sq mi) |
Population (2011) | |
• Total | 344 |
• Density | 1.7/km2 (4/sq mi) |
• Change 2006-11 | 0.9% |
Time zone | Pacific (PST) (UTC-8) |
• Summer (DST) | PDT (UTC-7) |
Climate | Dfc |
Faro is a town in the central Yukon, Canada, formerly the home of the Faro Mine, the largest open pit lead–zinc mine in the world as well as a significant producer of silver and other natural resource ventures. The mine was built by the Ralph M. Parsons Construction Company of the USA with General Enterprises Ltd. of Whitehorse being the main subcontractor. Currently (June 2007) the population is 400, considerably lower than its peak of over 2,100 in February 1982. Faro was named after the card game.
As these industries have declined over the past decade, Faro is attempting to attract eco-tourists to the region to view such animals as Dall's Sheep and Stone's Sheep—a species of mountain sheep almost unique to the surrounding area. Several viewing platforms have been constructed in and around the town.
One unique feature of Faro is that it has a golf course running through the main part of town. Residents are also treated to frequent sightings of wildlife.
Lorne Greene, famous for his work in Bonanza, once narrated a film about Faro called A New World in the Yukon.
The area was prospected in the 1950s and 1960s by Al Kulan, credited with discovering several significant deposits of lead and zinc ore and playing a major role in the discovery of the Faro Mine, which became Canada's largest lead-zinc mine. The Cyprus Anvil Mining Corporation established the first operations to mine the deposits, and established the town of Faro. A new highway was built between Carmacks and Ross River to serve the Faro area - initially numbered Highway 9, it is today part of the Robert Campbell Highway, Yukon Highway 4. A forest fire in 1969 destroyed the newly built homes, which had to be re-built.
Al Kulan was murdered in 1977 by a person diagnosed by a psychiatrist called by his defense counsel at trial as having a "paranoid personality disorder compounded by alcohol abuse" and who had a list of people he wanted to kill including the Commissioner of the Yukon. The murderer had no mining connection with Kulan. The victim, who was living in Vernon, B.C. at the time, had come to Ross River to prospect an area nearby.
The mine was opened by the Cyprus Anvil Mining Corporation in 1969, which was formed to mine the deposit. From the late 1960's until 1982 the mine became one of the largest lead-zinc mines in the world. At one time it was the largest open-pit mine in the world. During its history, 320 million tonnes of waste rock was removed to access the ore. The mine remained in more-or-less constant production until 1982. Trucks carried the ore concentrate from the mill by highway to Whitehorse, where the buckets were lifted from the trucks and lowered onto cars of the White Pass and Yukon Route railway. The trains took the buckets another 106 miles to Skagway, Alaska, where the contents were poured out into the holds of ships.