Nothing grows here after 50 years – Why? Spruce Rd, Ely, MN

On the south side of the road not far from Outward Bound’s Home place is a barren hilltop where nothing grows expect a short 10-12″ course uniform dusty gray plant and a few, very few, Jack Pine.  This is  the flat top remaining from a large exploratory hill top removal, in search of  marketable minerals, by Inco in the 1960’s.  What they found, in the way of mineralization, was of insufficient quality to justify mining at that time.  What they left was a flat hilltop where nothing grows and the runoff is a bright orange as seen toward the end of the video.

This video shows you where the hilltop is located in Google Earth.  To visit this site, go south of Ely on Hwy 1.  Turn left onto Spruce Rd. just beyond the Kawishiwi bridge.  Go a short distance beyond the entrance to Outward Bound and watch for a parking area on your right in front of a short rise to this hill top.  Or set your GPS to Latitude  47.832424°   and Longitude -91.678229°  You could also enter these coordinates into Google Earth and zoom into the image above left.