Uranium City

Uranium City is located 50 km south of the provincial boundary with the NWT and 75 km E of the Saskatchewan Alberta border. When a person thinks about Uranium City the first thought would be it was there because of uranium. Well you would be partly correct. Actually the fur trade was the dominant economic activity until the 1930s when gold was discovered in the Beaverlodge Lake area. From 1938 until the mid 1940's gold was mined in the area. It wasn't until 1946 uranium exploration was initiated and Eldorado Mining & Refining Ltd. began production in 1953. Uranium City boomed in the 1950's when the American Government offered to buy all the uranium that the mines could produce. The majority of the uranium used for power generation and for building nuclear weapons from 1950 till 1980 was produced here.

In 1952, the provincial government of Saskatchewan decided to establish a town to service the mines in the Beaverlodge uranium area by Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited. (Eldorado Nuclear). In 1954 the local newspaper The Uranium Times noted that 52 mines were operating and 12 open pit mines were next to Beaverlodge Lake. Initially, most of the residences in Uranium City were just shacks and tents. With this new mining boom, Uranium City soon became a thriving town and in 1982 its population that was close to the 5,000 threshold required to achieve city status in the province. But the closure of the mines in 1983 led to economic collapse, with most residents of the town leaving.

The town actually started to die in 1964. That was the year that the U.S. government stopped adding Canadian uranium to its strategic stockpile of nuclear material. The Eldorado sold it's uranium to a government stockpile just to keep the town going.

It was later designated as a northern settlement with about 300 people remaining. After the closure of the local hospital in the spring of 2003, the population fell further to about 70 people. Currently a few southerners and some natives live in and around the city. Its current population is less than 100 people.

Today with uranium price up again and the world looking for new way to produce energy, uranium exploration is back in the spot light. Junior miners from all over the world are once again prospecting and drilling the the great Athabasca Basin around Uranium City. Junior miners like Uranium City Resources and Pure Point are two companies aggressively seeking deposits worth mining again.