LaRonde: The deep mine that built Agnico Eagle

[Redator]

In the shadow of Quebec’s Abitibi Greenstone Belt, just west of Val-d’Or, lies a mine that built an empire, LaRonde.

To the casual observer, it looks like any other shaft: headframes, processing plants, and tailings ponds. But in Canadian mining, LaRonde is more than infrastructure. It’s where persistence, risk, and geology combined to shape a company.

The humble beginnings: Dumagami days

Before it became LaRonde, the site was known as Dumagami, a modest underground operation that few believed could be a major producer. The mineralization was promising, but the complexity kept larger players away.

By the late 1980s, under General Manager Ebe Scherkus, Dumagami poured its first gold. Agnico Eagle, then a small company with limited resources, moved to secure full ownership. Among those pushing the decision was Sean Boyd, then a young CFO, who saw value others missed. Boldness, not caution, shaped Agnico. Dumagami was its trial by fire.

Trusting the rock and each other

The early years were, quite literally, rocky. Development at depth brought ventilation challenges, rising rock temperatures, and unpredictable ground conditions.

Boyd doesn’t recount those days with regret, but with respect for what they demanded of the team.

“Early on, LaRonde was a challenging asset,” Boyd would later recall. “But great people and a strong culture carried us through. We took calculated risks, trusted each other, and stayed focused on our strengths.”
— Sean Boyd, 2025 Hall of Fame Interview

That trust, both in the ore body and in the people extracting it, became Agnico’s trademark.

Sean Boyd on stage at the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame. (Credit: Colin McClelland.)

Going deep: The Penna shaft gamble

By the mid-1990s, with promising geology and a willingness to think big, Agnico committed to building the Penna Shaft.

At over three kilometers straight down, it would become the deepest single-lift shaft in the Western Hemisphere. Sinking it through Quebec’s hard Archean rock, with no guarantee of payoff, was an audacious move for a company of Agnico’s size at the time. 

But this was Boyd’s philosophy in practice: if you believe in the geology, you commit.

The gamble paid off.

By the early 2000s, LaRonde was delivering more than gold. Silver, zinc, and copper by-products helped drive down cash costs, making LaRonde one of the lowest-cost gold mines in Canada at the time.

Those by-product credits, often overlooked in other operations gave Agnico financial breathing room and the capital to think beyond Quebec.

The LaRonde Complex’s Penna Shaft is the deepest single-lift shaft in the Western Hemisphere. (Image courtesy of Agnico Eagle | X Feed.)

The mid-depth struggle

Even LaRonde’s best years came with their share of headaches. As mining went deeper, rock stress increased and infrastructure upgrades became critical. In the early 2010s, ore flow bottlenecks slowed progress. Boyd addressed the setbacks directly, with characteristic candor:

“We did have some issues around one of our mining blocks … which caused us to just slow down the development of Level 215,” he told investors in 2012.

“But we are getting the grade… Our grade profile is likely going to go up roughly 3.5 g/t in ’14 … and in ’15, we expect to be a little over 4 g/t.”
— Sean Boyd, Q4 2012 earnings call

For Agnico, these weren’t failures, they were part of the process. The ore was still there. The grades were improving. The mission was to adjust, optimize, and keep moving.

From flagship to complex

LaRonde didn’t stay a single-mine operation for long. In 2003, Agnico acquired a nearby deposit what would later be known as LaRonde Zone 5.

At first, it was a modest satellite. But by 2018, it was feeding ore into LaRonde’s mill, extending the complex’s life and boosting production.

Team standing at LaRonde Zone 5. (Image courtesy of Agnico Eagle.)

Meanwhile, Agnico invested heavily in cooling systems to manage extreme underground temperatures sometimes exceeding 30°C at depth and automation technology to improve safety and productivity.

The transformation was complete: LaRonde had evolved from a challenging underground project into one of the most sophisticated underground mining complexes in the Western Hemisphere.

Impact beyond Quebec

The financial impact of LaRonde cannot be overstated. For decades, it generated the cash flow that fuelled Agnico’s expansion, including mines in Nunavut, Finland and Mexico. It also paved the way for the company’s merger with Kirkland Lake Gold.

Every new project had LaRonde’s fingerprints on it funded, in part, by the steady stream of gold and by-products pulled from its deep veins.

Meadowbank gold mine. (Image courtesy of Agnico Eagle | Flickr.)

To date, the LaRonde complex had produced more than 8 million ounces of gold and remains a cornerstone of Agnico’s production profile, its workforce and identity.

The technical edge

Part of LaRonde’s legacy lies in its technical accomplishments. Few mines operate at such depth with the level of efficiency Agnico has achieved.

The Penna Shaft’s design allows for rapid hoisting of ore, waste, and personnel from extreme depths. A network of underground conveyors, crushers, and ventilation systems keeps the operation moving.

Its success also proved that deep mining in the Abitibi could be economically viable, reshaping exploration strategies for the entire belt.

Gold, grit, and the making of a giant

To most, LaRonde is just another dot on the mining map. To Sean Boyd, it’s something more as he recently told me:

“Although challenging it really is an incredible deposit and world class mine. But what makes LaRonde truly special is the quality and resiliency of the workforce and the fact that it has developed so many exceptional leaders for Agnico Eagle.”

That ethos, the willingness to tackle hard projects, trust the team, and stay the course, did more than build one of the deepest gold mines on Earth.

It built a company.

It built Agnico Eagle.

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Alex Deluce is the founder of Gold Telegraph, an online news site covering gold, mining, and global economic trends. He has spent over a decade analyzing precious metals and interviewing key figures in finance and mining.