Location: Ministry Home > Mines and Mineral Division > Mineral Development and Mine Rehabilitation > Ontario Dimension Stone Producers and Processors Directory > Introduction

  Tuesday, May 13, 2008

MINES AND MINERALS DIVISION

Introduction

The building stone industry has existed in Ontario since the early 1800s. Great impetus was given to the quarrying industry by the construction of fortresses during the War of 1812 and later by the construction of the Rideau and Welland canals between 1824 and 1831. These projects employed many European stone masons to quarry stone and build dams, locks and retaining walls. Many of these masons subsequently settled in Ontario.

By the mid-1830s, ample skilled labour was available to quarry and lay stone. Many of the stone buildings and homes in Ottawa, Perth, Kingston, Napanee, Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Fergus and St. Mary's are fine examples from this period.

Attractive building stone has long been available in most parts of southern Ontario and the extensive use of stone has given a distinctive character to the local architecture of many areas. Perth and Kingston are typical. In Kingston, medium-bedded limestones occurring in free beds 15 to 37 centimetres thick were easily quarried and used in so many early buildings that Kingston became known as the "Limestone City". In Perth, the Potsdam sandstone was locally available in grey and mottled purple. Much of the downtown and houses on many residential streets are an enduring testament to this attractive stone.

In 1889, the Portland cement industry was introduced into Canada and concrete began to displace stone as a material for building foundations and engineering structures. At the turn of the century, there was an architectural departure involving a change from massive stone construction to steel forming the structural framework of the building. Heavy stone blocks, which had formed the load-bearing wall, were replaced by thin slabs of stone from 5 to 15 centimetres thick, sawn from large mill blocks. The trend away from massive blocks to cut stone made a radical change. Only highly mechanized dimension stone quarries were able to compete in most areas and many small quarries ceased operations. Later, the reinforced concrete building frame became popular as a competitor for the steel-framed building and a thin curtain wall of dimension stone or brick was all that was required.

Today, over 60 quarries in Ontario supply a wide selection of stone, with operations concentrated around Kenora and Sudbury in the north, Parry Sound in central Ontario and in the Bruce Peninsula and Kingston areas of southern Ontario.

The Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, through its Northern Ontario Development Agreement with the Government of Canada and its regular programs, continues to support the Ontario dimension stone industry by providing information about areas with high dimension stone potential in the province and by providing technical, program and marketing assistance to Ontario producers and developers.

There has been an increased level of exploration for dimension stone and subsequent new quarry development in Ontario over the past decade.

In recent years, there has been greater interest in the use of natural stone in commercial and residential construction. Although most of the stone currently used in architectural applications in North America is imported - both as a rough stone and as finished products - there is an active interest in developing Ontario's excellent stone resources to cater to the growing demand. For example, the new Imax theatre in Sudbury, opened in June 1994, has a lobby floor of granite quarried from a local source. There remain many new opportunities to exploit deposits of excellent quality stone in Ontario. This directory features the companies which quarry and/or process dimension stone in Ontario.

Ontario Dimension Stone Reference Map

The listings are presented in the following order:

• Stone Producers (alphabetical listing)

An alphabetical listing of producers which provides company name, address, a contact person, the stone type and principal products.

• Stone Producers (by stone type)

A listing by stone type which provides company name and the commercial name of the stone. The designated stone types are granite, marble/limestone, sandstone, and flagstone and other masonry products.

• Stone Processors (alphabetical listing)

An alphabetical listing of companies providing company name, address, a contact person and the primary products.

GRANITE

In the building stone industry, the term "granite" is used to denote any igneous rock, such as granite, gabbro, anorthosite or syenite, which can be cut and finished.

The granite quarry industry is currently centred around the Kenora area in northwestern Ontario, the Sudbury area in northeastern Ontario and the Kingston area in southeastern Ontario. In the past, a number of small quarries have also operated from time to time throughout northern Ontario, from North Bay to Thunder Bay.

In southern Ontario, around the turn of the century, most of the initial granite quarrying was done on the islands in the St. Lawrence River near Gananoque. The rock, a variable fine-to coarse-grained, light-to dark-red granite, was used for monumental and paving stone. Later quarry work centred on the mainland north of Gananoque and in the Escott and Lyndhurst areas, where paving stone and small amounts of monumental and building stone were obtained. After the late 1920s, very little granite quarrying was done in this region. Today, the southeastern Ontario area is active with commercial quarries extracting rough blocks of attractive deep red and pink, medium- to coarse-grained granite for monumental and architectural stone.

The earliest granite quarrying in northern Ontario was done for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which needed fill, ballast and especially, large stone blocks for bridge piers and building foundations. Some of these quarries were later worked to produce paving blocks and small amounts of monumental stone.

Quarrying at Vermilion Bay, near Kenora in northwestern Ontario started in 1948 and has continued up to the present day. The Vermilion Bay granite is a handsome, medium-grained pink granite which takes a high polish and is widely used for monuments and for architectural stone. Recently, a new quarry capable of supplying coarse grained green and yellow granite has opened just north of Kenora. Northwestern Ontario is the largest granite producing area in Ontario. The potential for developing other granite quarries in this area is excellent.

Quarrying for stone in the Sudbury area has been intermittent over the last 40 years, but with a renewed surge in the demand for architectural stone, a number of companies have begun new operations here. Several deposits of anorthosite and granite are being evaluated for their commercial potential in the Sudbury area.

MARBLE

The building stone trade uses the term "marble" to describe any limestone, dolostone or other carbonate rich rock that takes a polish, as well as true marble (limestone or dolostone recrystallized by heat and pressure).

On the Bruce Peninsula, quarrying has been conducted since the early 1900s. Blue-grey dolostone and brown, thinly-bedded dolostone from the Amabel Formation are two types of stone extracted in this area. Large blocks of quarried blue-grey dolostone are shipped to Cambridge for finishing into architectural products. This stone has been used on many projects, the most notable being the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. The brown dolostone from the Bruce Peninsula continues to be a major source of patio stone, drywall and rough facing stone. This stone has also been polished to produce a marble with a distinctive fleuri pattern.

Other marbles in Ontario include the new and unique stones of the Sudbury area. The Espanola Formation in this area is the source of various coloured marbles in tones of soft grey/green and pink/beige/green. In the Kirkland Lake area, an attractive green marble with tremendous potential is being quarried.

Marble has been quarried in southern Ontario in past decades and one company has recently started up several new quarries. There are several companies in this region that produce crushed marble for terrazzo tile, landscaping and other commercial uses.

SANDSTONE

Sandstones have been widely used as building stones due to the ready availability of Potsdam and Whirlpool (also known as Credit Valley, Inglewood, Georgetown or Medina) sandstones in the vicinity of Toronto, Kingston and Ottawa. Numerous distinctive sandstone buildings may be seen in cities and towns throughout Ontario, one example being the Legislative Building at Queens Park in Toronto, where all but the west wing is composed of red Whirlpool sandstone. Grey Whirlpool sandstone from Georgetown has been used in the buildings of the University of Western Ontario, Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum and in some University of Toronto buildings, such as Hart House, Knox College and Trinity College. Quarrying of the Potsdam sandstone around Kingston has led to the use of orange or salmon mottled "Kingston Hue" facing stone in many churches in southern Ontario. The principal sandstone quarrying areas in Ontario are in the Limehouse-Georgetown-Inglewood area, northwest of Toronto, where Whirlpool sandstone is extracted, and in the Kingston area where Potsdam sandstone is quarried. Small amounts of sandstone are also extracted in the Sault Ste. Marie area (Root River, Lake Superior, or Jacobsville sandstone). This red and buff mottled sandstone was used in many local buildings, including the Algoma Central Railway station in Sault Ste. Marie. These same areas today support small active quarries which produce dressed stone for the southern Ontario market.

FLAGSTONE

An important component of the stone industry in Ontario is the flagstone quarrying sector. It is composed of many producers, small and large, throughout the province. Flagstone is a slab, usually two to five centimetres thick, of limestone, dolostone, sandstone, slate or gneiss (metamorphosed granite). Thicker quarried stone, seven to fifteen centimetres, is commonly called veneer stone. Suitable stone is characterized by closely spaced horizontal bedding planes or lines of weakness which allow slabs to be pried loose.

Flagstone is often used to create patios or walkways but can also be utilized for driveways and wall veneer.

Notable regions of flagstone quarrying include the Bruce Peninsula (dolostone), the Georgetown area (sandstone), the Peterborough area (limestone) and the Parry Sound-Muskoka area (gneiss). Other important areas are North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Kingston.

STONE PROCESSING IN ONTARIO

Stone cutting technology and finishing techniques have seen a quiet but significant revolution over the last three decades; first in marble and increasingly in the working of granites. The spread of these technological advances from Western Europe, principally from Italy, as well as an associated influx of skilled professionals in stone fabrication, is evident in the increasing sophistication of stone working operations in Ontario today. Customers now have an array of stone finishing, which range from sawn to polished. Textured finishes are produced by bush-hammering, machine-chiseling, sandblasting or thermal-flaming (burning of granite surfaces).

Processors in the province offer customized products; these may be derived from small enterprises relying on the skilled manual arts of boasters, fencers and polishers to large businesses equipped with modern automated machinery for calibrated line production of tiles, veneers and for sculptured shapes.

A few Ontario producers have vertically integrated operations, processing blocks from their own quarries. This category may increase significantly in the near future with the development of granite and marble properties in northern Ontario. A new marble tile and slab plant was recently commissioned in the Sudbury area. It is one of the most modern installations of its kind in North America. A new granite processing plant opened near Iroquois Falls in 1994. The plant produces granite monuments, furniture and other specialty products. The great majority of the processors listed in this directory handle two to four centimetres thick slabs imported from world-wide sources, from which they prepare stone tile, custom work and veneer for installation.