Faro Mine site

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In 1953 Al Kulan and 7 Kaska prospectors staked the claim that would eventually become the Faro mine. This discovery was initially made by Jack Sterriah and his son Jack Jr. while hunting in the VanGorder Creek area several years earlier. While in the Faro area, Kulan's guide was a First Nations trapper and resident by the name of Joe Ladue. Joe's son Jim is still a familiar face in Faro and the neighbouring community of Ross River. In 1960, Kulan and Aaro Aho formed the company Dynasty Explorations to work on the claims that Kulan had staked. When they started doing in depth exploration of the ore body around Faro, they realized they had hit upon a world class deposit of Lead/Zinc ore (galena). By 1965, there were over 100 men working in the area, and Dynasty had an airstrip built on the claim site. Later, Dynasty joined forces with Cypress Mining of Los Angeles California to form the Cyprus Anvil Mining Corporation. The mine opened officially in 1969, and Cyprus Anvil quickly became the largest private sector employer in the Territory. It also represented well over a third of the economy of Yukon, and by the mid 1970's was the largest lead/zinc mine in Canada. At one point, for a brief period, it was even the largest operating open-pit lead/zinc mine in the world!

For a variety of reasons, Cyprus Anvil was forced to cease operations in 1984. The mine changed hands twice following Cyprus Anvil's closure (Dome Petroleum was the owner briefly), but it wasn't until 1986 that Curragh Resources was formed and resumed operations on the site. Curragh continued mining until the mid 1990's but due to world metal prices, and the Westray disaster, Curragh was forced to declare bankruptcy. The mine again closed and Anvil Range Mining re-opened the mine in 1995, and ran the mine until 1997. The mine is closed permanently and reclamation is in progress.

Construction of the town site was started in 1968. Dubbed "Faro" for the gambling card game of the same name, by 1969, there were a number of houses built and ready for occupancy. Then disaster struck. On Friday June 13th, a forest fire swept through the newly built town destroying all the houses except a handful. Undaunted, Cyprus Anvil cleared the debris and rebuilt the town. For years afterward, Faro was not a very attractive community, nestled in the midst of all the burnout. However, lots of people and groups pitched in to gradually clear the burnout away, and deciduous growth started springing up. Now, the community is full of color in the fall. The population of Faro in 1970 was about 800 people, and slowly grew over the years as the mine expanded, until 1981 when the population was just under 2000. In 1979, and again in 1981, Cyprus Anvil was forced to build more housing to ease the shortage, and a second trailer court was established to be able to quickly add more housing if needed. Due to the fact that the mine itself was such a tenuous thing relying on world ore prices for profitability, the population went up and down depending on the mine situation. With a low point in 1985 with only 97 Faro residents remaining.

The mine has closed down for good and the reclamation planning is in progres. Today, Town of Faro has approximately 400 inhabitants. Tourism is the major economic growth factor nowadays and due to the fact that Faro has a lot to offer, the future looks bright.