Canada Is Sitting On The Most Valuable Lake On Earth - Bernic Lake

Under a small lake in southeastern Manitoba sits about two thirds of the world's known cesium — the metal that defines the second and holds open the deepest wells on Earth. In January 2019 the mine beneath it, and the business built on it, was sold for US$135 million. The new owner has since looked at draining the lake. What's beneath YOUR town? Personalized 15-page report — the rock, the name, the vanished places, your town's oldest map → https://hiddenprovinces.com This is the story of Bernic Lake and the Tanco mine: a 2.64-billion-year-old pegmatite in the Bird River greenstone belt, the tin workings of 1929, the tantalum that went into the phone boom, the lithium, and the cesium formate brine that leased its way into North Sea wells. The room-and-pillar mine under the lake, the 2013 engineering report, the end of pollucite mining in 2015, Cabot's sale to Sinomine, the 2021 lithium restart, the 2023 open-pit plan, the 2024 Environment Act licence and the four appeals dismissed by order in council in July 2025. Bernic Lake, Bird River, Lac du Bonnet, Pinawa Bay, Whiteshell, Nopiming, the Winnipeg River, Lake Winnipeg, Sagkeeng, Brokenhead, Hollow Water, Black River. Figures come from Cabot Corporation's Form 8-K of 30 January 2019, the US Geological Survey mineral commodity summaries for cesium, Manitoba Geological Survey Open File OF2024-3 on the Tanco pegmatite, the Manitoba Environmental Approvals registry, CBC News, The Globe and Mail and the Wilderness Committee. Where a figure exists only in a company statement or an industry estimate, the narration says so. Subscribe to The Hidden Provinces — beneath the map.