For the athletes, whose Olympic dreams are cast in silver and gold, it could be taken as a good omen that the Canadian Shield is full of the stuff. The torch relay veered north yesterday and over the Precambrian rock that is the foundation of the huge mining industry in Ontario and Quebec. The flame began the day in a cratered town whose mining days have come and gone, and went to bed in the Valley of Gold.

THE SILVER LINING

Rich veins of silver were found snaking through rock in Cobalt, Ont., in 1903. Prospectors streamed in, building a town of 10,000 and triggering a silver boom.

These were the dangerous old mining days, when “helmets” were no harder than a fedora; their only use was to prop up a candleholder to light the way.

Because silver was so close to the surface, these were shallow holes by mining standards, no more than 500 metres deep and often much less. When miners were done with a pit, they would cover it with logs and dirt, said Pat Anderson, the vice-chair of the Cobalt Mining Museum. But because those spots were never marked, years later when the logs started to rot, it created a problem.

Mining was so comprehensive over the years that swaths of land in Cobalt are simply unsafe to walk on.

“When you hit ground that feels springy, like the nicest carpet in the world, you back up!” Ms. Anderson said. “We’ve had some surprises.”

One such “surprise” was on the highway into town. In 1987, it fell in, and the hole went 25 metres down. “The crown pillar, the main piece of rock you leave to hold things up, they took it out here,” Ms. Anderson said, pointing to the highway, and then swinging her arm to point into town. “They took it out there, they took it out there.”

The road was reinforced with concrete and rebuilt – luckily for the torch caravan that passed over it yesterday.

These days, all that’s left of the mining industry in Cobalt are a few rickety headframes, the buildings that held the elevators going into the ground. Just by the highway is the Glory Hole, a pit that’s still open. The headframe stands beside it like a rusty, stunted silo, leaning to one side as it decays.

David Brydges grew up across the street from the Glory Hole and remembers climbing through the tunnels as a boy. His father and grandfather were miners here. He works in the oil sands and spends summers and part of the winter in Cobalt. “The land shapes you,” he said. “You get this adventuresome spirit. We’d get to these places in the tunnels where you could barely climb through. We’d go exploring – crazy kids!”

The silver – and the money – is now gone. Many young people move away because there aren’t enough jobs to keep them there, Ms. Anderson said. Cobalt’s future depends on attracting tourism to the area.

As cities expand, cottage country bleeds outward. “The north gets closer to the south all the time,” she said. “It’s coming our way.”

THE GOLD STANDARD

If Cobalt is Canada’s mining past, Val-d’Or, Que., is part of its future. The money made from silver pushed prospectors north to see what other treasures lay within the Canadian Shield. They went to Kirkland Lake, they went to Timmins, and in Quebec they came to the Valley of Gold.

This area was a mini Klondike in the 1930s, its towns built by the gold rush, and the industry continues today.

On the road into town – the same road the torchbearers began their Val-d’Or run – sits the Goldex mine owned by Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. If Cobalt’s wobbly headframes are the Wright Brothers’ plane, the 792-metre-high mining building at Goldex is a jumbo jet – big, new and bustling with activity. The company estimates production at 165,000 ounces of gold in 2009, with the same level of productivity expected this year.

It’s this kind of business that feeds Val-d’Or. Just down the road a classic fixture of small-town Quebec life, a casse-croûte, welcomes miners every day. It’s no accident: The Restaurant Chez Kosta’s business plan was built on serving the hungry mining workers coming back into town.

“It’s a big part of my business,” said the owner of the little restaurant, Kostantinos Kostavaggelis. “It’s a big part of the town.”

One of Mr. Kostavaggelis’s regulars is Marcel Belisle, who sat at the counter sipping a coffee at the end of his workday yesterday afternoon.

Mr. Belisle arrives every morning at 6 before driving almost 30 kilometres to Malartic, where he drives a truck at the mine owned by Osisko Mining Corp.

“It’s one of the biggest,” he said.

Mr. Belisle was born in Val-d’Or and his father worked in the mines as well. At 65, after 40 years on the job, he has seen the operations grow. Now close to retirement, he admits it may be time for a rest, but he’s in no hurry.

“My health is good, I’ve got a year to go,” he said, pausing for a sip of black coffee.

“I’ve been a miner all my life.”