body of water and the job of pumping and mining the lake bottom could begin. The Mines of Steep Rock Lake "B" Ore Zone (Errington Mine) The spring and summer of 1944 saw the pumping of Steep Rock Lake to expose the lake bottom. To dredge the silt from the lake bottom to expose the ore body, a pumping barge was modified with a suction dredge on it so that the dredging could begin. The ore zone was later renamed to the Errington Mine, in honor of the first president and one of the founders of Steep Rock Iron Mines. In September 1944, enough silt and water had been removed to expose the ore body and mining began. The first load of iron ore to leave the mine was October 3, 1944. It went out of Errington via Canadian National Railway to Fort Frances. It was loaded onto ships at Fort Frances and travelled to Duluth, Minnesota as the ore docks at Port Arthur were not completed by this point. This shipment represented the first time that iron ore mined in Northwestern Ontario crossed the international boarder creating a new trade economy. Mining continued up until December 1953, when the open pit mine was shut down. It had reached the economic depth of an open pit mine. Surveys showed that the orebody extended down below the practical depths for open pit mining and the engineers began to look at the feasibility of underground mining. December 1953 saw the collaring of the Errington Underground mine. The underground mine continued operations until 1973 when it was shut down due to low productivity, high ore costs and grade control problems. During the operation of the Errington Mine, there were upgrades to the mining equipment that was used. When the mine started, drilling was done using the same Keystone churn drills that were used in the diversion project, the 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 cubic yard diesel and electric shovels were used and the haulage of ore was done with a fleet of 15-ton capacity Euclid's. Out of necessity, Steep Rock, gradually acquired new equipment, including more shovels and trucks, until they had the production capacity to meet the tonnage requirements. In 1948, Steep Rock Iron Mines obtained a fleet of 20-ton Euclid trucks to replace the 15-ton trucks. Upgrades continued until 10-cubic-yard shovels and 100-ton capacity trucks were used. "A" Ore Zone (Hogarth