But in June 1954 the first ore cars were indeed hauled down the railway to Sept-Îles, carrying ore excavated from Ruth Lake mine near Shefferville, to be ceremoniously loaded onto the SS Hawaiian on July 31. And so began the 50 years of eventful history that culminate in today's operations at Labrador City, with IOC marking its achievement of "50 years and beyond" with a seemingly never ending clutch of production records.

Beside the road from Wabush airport gleam the headlights of a locomotive waiting for the go signal to haul its train of 210 wagons of pellets and concentrates down to Sept-Îles. Around the IOC production plant, the ground sparkles in October sunlight, not with frost but with glittering specular haematite.

IOC's Labrador City production complex, which started up in 1962, clings to the side of Lake Wabush, and is a huddle of massive ochre red, steel plated buildings linked by a web of conveyors and pierced by stacks and ventilators. Around them snake railway tracks, roadways and electrical powerlines. Conveyors stockpile black concentrate and iron ore pellets in conical heaps, to be nibbled by earthmovers.

Nearby the community of Labrador City is holding its breath before the onset of eight months of winter. By Halloween, says safety superintendent Rick Blundon, the terrain will be snow covered, and the miners and operators in Humphrey and Luce Pits will be anticipating more snow and temperatures which could reach as low as minus 50°C in the depth of winter. Although summer fishing and golfing are superb, residents consider winter the best time of year - cross country and alpine skiing as well as snowmobiling are major family activities.

Rick drives around his home town with some sense of pride, pointing out the features of a community that has established itself to the point where it has everything that 10,000 or so people might need. There are several hotels and inns, shopping malls, modern housing, schools, hospitals, civic centres and churches, a McDonald's, filling stations and clusters of small businesses.