The 411 - Flin Flon

Flin Flon was founded in 1927 by the firm Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting which exploited the large copper and zinc ore supplies in the region. A rail line reached the mine in 1928, and HBM&S invested in railway, mine, smelter, and a 101 megawatt hydroelectric power plant at Island Falls, Saskatchewan in the 1920s. The town grew considerably during the 1930s as farmers, left impoverished by the Great Depression, abandoned their farms and came to work at the mines. The municipality was incorporated January 1, 1933 and since 1970 the community has been a city. The city has continued to be a mining centre, with the development of several mines adding to its industrial base. With a scenic setting and a number of nearby lakes, Flin Flon has also become a moderately popular tourist destination.

Like Lloydminster, the city in both Alberta and Saskatchewan, Flin Flon also straddles a provincial border, in this case, that of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, although only a small section of the city is located in the latter province. The 2001 census reported exactly 6,000 persons residing in the Manitoba portion and only 267 persons in the Saskatchewan part. The Saskatchewan portion of Flin Flon declined in population according to the 2006 census and was recorded at 242 residents. This was a 9.4% decrease

Although zinc production usually emits large amounts of sulfur dioxide, the HBM&S plant uses a zinc pressure leaching process which greatly reduces emissions.

Flin Flon is the birthplace of hockey legend Bobby Clarke, and is home to the Flin Flon Bombers ice hockey team.

The town's name is taken from the lead character in a paperback novel, The Sunless City by J.E. Preston Muddock. A prospector named Tom Creighton found the book in the wilderness. The story is about a man named Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin, who piloted a submarine through a bottomless lake. Upon passing through a hole lined with gold, he found a strange underground world.

When Tom Creighton discovered a rich vein of almost pure copper, he thought of the book and called it Flin Flon's mine, mercifully shortening the name. The town that sprung up around the mine adopted the name. Flin Flon shares with Tarzana, California the distinction of being named after a character in a science fiction novel.


The character of "Flinty" is of such importance to the identity of the city that the local Chamber of Commerce commissioned the minting of a $3.00 coin, which was considered legal tender within the city during the year following its issue. A statue representing Flinty was designed by cartoonist Al Capp and is one of the points of interest of the city.


Flin Flon gained international notoriety in 2002 when the Government of Canada awarded a four-year contract to a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based company for the production of medicinal marijuana. Medicinal marijuana is only available in Canada with a doctor's prescription. Canadian users of medicinal marijuana must agree to provide information to Health Canada for research purposes.

Prairie Plant Systems, based in Saskatoon, has used an inactive underground copper/zinc drift owned by the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company to produce approximately 400 kilograms of medicinal marijuana annually. The entire operation is several hundred metres under Flin Flon for security and climate control reasons.

Since the original stock of marijuana seeds were obtained from Royal Canadian Mounted Police drug raids, there was some lack of consistency in the early crops of medicinal marijuana. After selective use of seeds from the first crop, subsequent generations have shown to have a more consistent quality.

*From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia