Photo © Bob Baillargeon
Taken in 1975, and from the Bob Baillargeon collection, many thanks to Bob for sharing photos with us. This photo is taken under the earth inside the Windsor Salt Mine.
Anyone out there ever been in the mines? Sounds like it would make a great Doors Open location too, although it today’s day and age of liability, it’s very hard to get places like this open…
I hear stories that once upon a time there used to be Salt Mine tours, open to the public and for school children, etc… Someone must have some stories to share.
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Joe - This is a website that has nothing to do with the salt mine. You won't find your answer here.
I've been led to believe that some of the tunnels are as far reaching as Sarnia.
The salt deposits are huge around the great lakes(1st link)as well as other locations in North America.
http://www.saltinstitute.org/content/download/561/3308
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Salt_Mine
Too bad the picture was taken down :(
I'm fascinated by the mines. I've heard it stretches as far east to St. Clair Beach (where I live, currently). I would love to take a tour!
When I was in Chicago last year, I heard a talk radio broadcast about the Morton Salt company. They were saying that the area that they were mining salt was literally sitting on pillars of salt. I assumed that's what it was like here. That is kind of the vision I created in my own head when I learned about it in school a long time ago. But from the descriptions here, that's not true at all, or is it? I'll admit, that with the "seemingly" increasing occurrences of major sink holes, or their reporting, in the US, I've been a little worried about something happening here. But like I said, the literal pillars of salt has been on my mind for a long time. Hopefully, it's all just irrational fears of mine, like the robot apocalypse ;) Only time will tell.
A little background on the salt mines. Years ago this area from Hudson Bay to Tennessee was a salt water ocean. When the last glacier came through, the lateral moraines left a salt deposit from Manitoulin to Ohio, along with the vast suppy of oil and gas. In 1890, Sir William Van Horne who was the head of the CPR drilled for salt between Caron and Crawford. It was one of the top things that put Windsor on the map along with the Great Western RR in 1854, the auto industry and the Scottish clothiers who brought Detroiters over for their wools.
I lived in Windsor from 2001 to 2003 in a high rise apartment building at the corner of Riverside & Mackay. Occasionally I would feel the building 'shift' or move. I didn't keep track of any particular time but I always assumed that this was connected to salt mining activity. Now, after recent sink hole news coverage in other parts of North America, I wonder if the Windsor area is vulnerable to a similar fate.
Don't worry, Windsor sits firmly upon it's pillars of salt.
To go on a Salt Mine Tour go to Poland. In the city of Krakow there are two salt mines within an hours drive or take a regular shuttle bus. One of the bigger mines is called WIELICZKA and the second smaller one is called BOCHNIA. They both go back in history more than 100 years and are now only open for tours. Google the names and see for yourself. We were there Summer 2014.
Just returned from a visit to Salzburg Austria. While there we went on a saltmine tour to one of the mines that put Salzburg on the map historically. It was an amazing experience to go into a mine that began it's history approx. 2500 years ago by the Kelts. The trip got me thinking about home, and the saltmines in Sarnia, and got me searching for information about them, and if tours are available. It would be such a great opportunity if possible to open one of them to public tours.