The Sunless City

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The Sunless City
The Sunless City.jpg
First edition
Author J. E. Preston Muddock
GenreScience-fiction
PublisherF. V. White & Co. Ltd.
Publication date
1905
Media typePaperback
Pages264
ISBN 1-4099-7205-4

The Sunless City: From the Papers and Diaries of the Late Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin (or simply The Sunless City) is a dime novel written by J. E. Preston Muddock in 1905. The novel is about a prospector named Josiah Flintabbaty Flonatin who explores a bottomless lake in a submarine, and discovers a land where the norms of society are backwards. The title character is the namesake for the city of Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada.

Contents

Plot

The story centres on the lead character, a prospector named Professor Josiah Flintabbaty Flonatin. [1] Flonatin travels by submarine through a bottomless lake in the Rocky Mountains. While exploring the depths of the lake he discovers a strange city. [2] Within the city the local currency is tin, the streets are paved with gold, and the city is ruled by women. Flonatin, who is a bachelor, decides to escape the city, and does so by climbing out of a crater, which is actually an extinct volcano. [2] [3]

Flin Flon, Manitoba

The statue of Josiah Flintabbaty Flonatin in Flin Flon, Manitoba. Designed by Al Capp. Flinty Statue 2.jpg
The statue of Josiah Flintabbaty Flonatin in Flin Flon, Manitoba. Designed by Al Capp.

The Sunless City had been read by Thomas Creighton, a prospector who had been exploring in the area of what would become the town of Flin Flon. In 1915 Creighton and some fellow prospectors discovered mineralization, and Creighton named the discovery "Flin Flon". There are various accounts as to how the discovery (which would become the namesake of the city) was named. In one account an associate of Creighton had brought some gold out of a hole from one of their claims, according to this account Creighton said: [4]

That must be the hole where old Flin Flon came up and shook his whiskers, so what do you say we call the discovery Flin Flon?

A second account of the naming of the discovery suggests that the back pages of the book were missing (stopping at the point in the novel where Flonatin is climbing out of the crater), following Creighton's reading of the book, he approaches a deep hole, approximately 10 feet (3.0 m) wide, and said to his associates: [3]

Boys, I guess we've found old Flin Flon's mine.

In 1962 a statue designed by Al Capp of Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin was built in Flin Flon. [4] In 1978, the National Film Board of Canada produced the short documentary Canada Vignettes: Flin Flon about the origin of the city's name. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flin Flon</span> City in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada

Flin Flon is a mining city, located on a correction line on the border of the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with the majority of the city located within Manitoba. Residents thus travel southwest into Saskatchewan, and northeast into Manitoba. The city is incorporated in and is jointly administered by both provinces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chilkoot Trail</span> Long-distance hiking trail in Canada and the United States

The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile (53 km) trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, in the United States, to Bennett, British Columbia, in Canada. It was a major access route from the coast to Yukon goldfields in the late 1890s. The trail became obsolete in 1899 when a railway was built from Dyea's neighbor port Skagway along the parallel White Pass trail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flin Flon Bombers</span> Manitoba junior ice hockey team founded 1927

The Flin Flon Bombers are a Canadian junior ice hockey team in Flin Flon, a city located on the Manitoba–Saskatchewan provincial border. The Bombers are members of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL), which is a member of the Canadian Junior Hockey League, and they play home games at the Whitney Forum on the Manitoba side of the city. The team's history dates back to 1927 and includes a decade-long run in the major junior Western Hockey League in the late 1960s and 1970s. The team has won two national championships, including the 1957 Memorial Cup and the 1969 James Piggott National Championship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Pas (electoral district)</span> Defunct provincial electoral district in Manitoba, Canada

The Pas was a provincial electoral division in north-central Manitoba, Canada. It was created in 1912 following the expansion of the province's northern border, and existed until its dissolution in 2018. It was named for the rural town of The Pas.

Creighton is a northern town in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, named after Thomas Creighton. It had a 2016 census population of 1,402 inhabitants, down 0.3% from 1,498 inhabitants in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bakers Narrows</span> Unincorporated Community in Manitoba, Canada

Bakers Narrows, Manitoba, is a small residential community approximately 20 km (12 mi) southeast of Flin Flon on Lake Athapapuskow. There are five subdivisions located near the lakeshore with a total of approximately 150 cottages, many of which are permanent residences.

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The Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League is a Junior 'A' ice hockey league operating in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and one of nine member leagues of the Canadian Junior Hockey League.

James Edward Preston Muddock also known as "Joyce Emmerson Preston Muddock" and "Dick Donovan", was a prolific British journalist and author of mystery and horror fiction. For a time his detective stories were as popular as those of Arthur Conan Doyle. Between 1889 and 1922 he published nearly 300 detective and mystery stories.

Hudbay Minerals Inc. is a diversified Canadian mining company primarily producing copper concentrate and zinc metal. Much of its history has centered on Flin Flon, Manitoba, where it has mined for over 90 years. Hudbay currently has operations in Manitoba and Peru, and is working towards building a copper mine in southern Arizona. The company also has exploration properties in Canada, Peru, Chile and the United States.

Thomas Creighton was a prospector who found mineral deposits in Saskatchewan.

Kississing Lake is a lake in western Manitoba, Canada, approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) northeast of Flin Flon. The Kississing River drains it northeast into Flatrock Lake on the Churchill River. The community of Sherridon is on its eastern shores, and the Kississing Lake Indian Reserve is on the western side.

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<i>The Reminder</i> (Flin Flon)

The Reminder is a weekly newspaper published every Wednesday in Flin Flon, Canada, a city located on the border of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. It is the only locally published newspaper in the area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Athapapuskow</span> Glacial lake in Western Canada

Lake Athapapuskow is a glacial lake in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada, located 15 km (9.3 mi) southeast of Flin Flon, Manitoba. The lake is in the Hudson Bay drainage basin and is the source of the Goose River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Rice</span> Canadian prospector

Kate Rice was a Canadian prospector, adventurer, and writer from Ontario who homesteaded, prospected and mined in northern Manitoba. She garnered widespread attention for her adventurous life, brilliant mind, statuesque beauty, and for succeeding in the mineral industry, which very few women were engaged with at the time.

Hanson Lake is a lake in the east-central part of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan in the boreal forest ecozone of Canada. The lake is irregularly shaped with many bays, islands, and channels as it was formed by glaciers during the last ice age. It is fed by multiple rivers and creeks from surrounding hills, smaller lakes, and muskeg. Hanson Lake's outflow is through a short river at the eastern end of the lake as it flows into the Sturgeon-Weir River, a tributary of the Saskatchewan River.

Sherritt-Gordon Mine is a defunct zinc and copper mine in Sherridon, Manitoba, Canada.

References

  1. Room, Adrian (2006). Placenames of the World (2nd ed.). Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. p. 132. ISBN   0-7864-2248-3 . Retrieved 15 December 2009.
  2. 1 2 "Finally the Facts About Flin Flon". The Rotarian: 26. June 1946. Retrieved 15 December 2009.
  3. 1 2 Roeth, Leo W. (October 1952). "Hobby Hitching Post". The Rotarian: 63. Retrieved 15 December 2009.
  4. 1 2 Rayburn, Alan (1994). Naming Canada: Stories About Canadian Place Names. University of Toronto Press. pp. 238–240. ISBN   0-8020-4725-4 . Retrieved 15 December 2009.
  5. "Canada Vignettes: Flin Flon". Online film. National Film Board of Canada . Retrieved 15 November 2011.