Ontario Trap Rock (Bruce Mines) Dry-Bulk Loading Terminal

Bruce Mines, ON · Private · R.W. Tomlinson Limited · North Channel, Lake Huron

Ontario Trap Rock operates a private dry-bulk loading terminal on the North Channel of Lake Huron at Bruce Mines, Ontario, shipping aggregate quarried at its adjacent 1,000-acre site (containing more than 80 million tons of diabase, also called trap rock). The hard, dense trap rock is used for railroad ballast, the top (friction) lift of asphalt, ready-mix concrete, mineral/rockwool insulation and slurry/micro-surfacing, and is loaded onto self-loading Great Lakes lake freighters at the company's purpose-built ship-loading facility (served by a dredged channel) for distribution across an 18-plus port Tomlinson network in Canada and the U.S. The terminal is owned and operated by R.W. Tomlinson Limited (Tomlinson Group), under which Ontario Trap Rock operates as a division; a Green Shipping Corridor-funded project is adding a ~2 km conveyor running under Highway 17 to move rock from the quarry to the dock, expected to raise volumes by about 25 percent. This commercial loading dock is distinct from the adjacent recreational town marina.