As negotiations continued into early 1942, Joseph Errington died of a heart attack on the way to a presentation in New York. Donald Hogarth then stepped into the presidential role at Steep Rock Iron Mines. The Seine River Diversion In March 1941, negotiations with the Ontario Government for the rights to dam off Steep Rock Lake were underway. The negotiations involved Steep Rock Iron Mines Limited, Ontario Hydro and Ontario-Minnesota Pulp and Paper Company. A special act of legislation was passed on July 27, 1942 called "An Act Respecting the Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario, Steep Rock Iron Mines Limited and the Ontario-Minnesota Pulp and Paper Company Limited." This allowed Steep Rock Iron Mines to dam up the area surrounding the lake. By March 1943, financial arrangements were completed for the diversion plan and the project is started. Charlie Pitts and his construction company (C.A. Pitts Construction Co.) was hired to build the roadways to Finlayson Lake. Patrick Harrison and his crew were hired to dig the tunnel that would lower the water level of Finlayson Lake. On July 23, 1943, a plug is blown at the bottom of Finlayson Lake which leads into a tunnel connecting to the Seine River to lower the water level in Finlayson. Through the fall of 1943, three dams were constructed and the first pumps were put into action in the middle arm of Steep Rock Lake to dewater that section. By May the water level had dropped 75 ft. Raft Lake (situated between Finlayson and Marmion Lake) was also lowered to connect the two larger lakes together to complete the diversion plan. All through the summer and winter of 1943, millions of tons of rock, gravel and earth were moved. More than a million cubic yards of rock had to be removed to create the canal between Raft Lake and Finlayson. When completed, it was six hundred yards long, a hundred feet wide, and as much as ninety feet deep in places. By the new year, Both Raft and Finlayson Lakes had been drained to the required levels, dams were built-including the dam between Marmion Lake and Raft Lake known as the Raft Lake Dam- and the cuts and canals had been completed. On January 28, 1944 the Raft Lake and Finlayson Diversion cuts were blown, which rerouted the water flow away from Steep Rock Lake. The lake was finally an isolated