The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 401 - 425 of 588
One of the techniques that miners use to effectively and quickly mount a mining exploration program in the wilds of Alaska and Northwestern Canada is to hire out to knowledgeable contractors much of the work involved, including the actual exploring and decision-making. But it takes a very special kind of temp agency to fulfill such demanding job requirements. Equity Exploration Consultants Ltd. is one firm that has met this need for 20 years. The Vancouver, B.C.-based consultant has racked up considerable international...
ANDREW PROJECT, Yukon Territory - If Australia-based Overland Resources gets its way, this remote valley in eastern Yukon may become home to the next lead-zinc mine in the Far North. And if development plans currently being discussed by the aggressive junior come to fruition, the Port of Skagway could provide facilities for loading the mine's metal concentrates onto oceangoing barges bound for Asia. Overland has set its sights on defining and developing a growing base metal resource that began with discovery of the Andrew...
The Northwest Transmission Line along Highway 37 is once again on the front burner in British Columbia, and development of the 517-kilometer-long, or 321-mile-long, power line could provide easier access to Lower 48 markets for power generated in Alaska. British Columbia has resumed the environmental assessment process and First Nations consultation required for the project, following an announcement by the Canadian province's Premier Gordon Campbell Sept. 26 that the power project was back on track. The B.C. government...
North Arrow Minerals Inc. has discovered a large, lithium-rich pegmatite in the Aylmer Lake area of the Northwest Territories, about 70 kilometers, or about 43 miles, east of existing winter road infrastructure that services the Ekati and Diavik diamond mines. The Vancouver, B.C-based junior is focused on exploration of a diverse group of gold-silver-base metal-and-diamond-prospective properties in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Territory. North Arrow Sept. 18 said the northwest trending "Big Bird" pegmatite dike is...
FREEGOLD MOUNTAIN, Yukon Territory - Bill Harris, chief executive and chief operating officer of Northern Freegold Resources Ltd., is pursuing an exploration adventure of a lifetime, literally. Harris, who was born and raised just 10 miles from Freegold Mountain, began prospecting for gold in the Dawson Mountain Range as a young child, tagging along behind his father, Glen, and their good friend Fritz Gruder in the 1960s. Nearly four decades later, his intimate knowledge of the area's geology is paying off with eye-popping...
Canada Zinc Metals Corp. Oct. 8 said the first assay results of its 2008 drill program has significantly expanded the zinc-lead-silver bearing Cardiac Creek deposit on the Akie property in northeastern British Columbia. The news came less than two weeks after the feisty junior changed its name from Mantle Resources Inc. "to better reflect its major focus, being zinc-lead projects in northeastern British Columbia." A total of 5,161 meters, or 16,773 feet, in 12 drill holes had been completed as of Oct. 8 on the Cardiac Creek p...
The face of the geology profession is changing and no where is the trend more evident than in the Yukon Territory, where a mini-boom in exploration brought scores of women rock hounds trooping to mining camps across the northern wilderness this summer. "We've had women geologists in the industry all along, but nothing like the numbers we've been seeing lately," said Mike Burke, a senior geologist with the Yukon Geological Survey. Women are increasingly populating mining teams as high mineral prices has spurred exploration...
HOWARD'S PASS, Yukon Territory - In this wide, alpine valley that snakes across the border into the Northwest Territories at its southeastern tip, one of the world's largest zinc-lead-silver properties may slumber. First drilled by a joint venture between Placer Dome and Cygnus Mines Ltd. in the 1970s and 1980s, the mineralized zones here are strung along 65 kilometers, or 40 miles. Junior Selwyn Resources Ltd, formerly Pacifica Resources Ltd., believes the property contains more than the 500 million metric tons of indicated...
Selwyn Resources Ltd., the Vancouver, B.C.-based junior that owns the giant zinc-lead property also called Selwyn in the eastern Yukon and southwestern Northwest Territories, says the project is perfectly poised to meet future market demand. Though zinc prices are currently depressed, prospects for a long-term shortfall in zinc supply beginning in 2010 continue to strengthen. Expecting this shortfall, Selwyn's managers are considering various options for advancing development and production of the Selwyn Project, including...
BHP Billiton has completed an ownership transfer of the Iliamna property in Southwest Alaska to TNR Gold Corp. and Geocom Resources Inc. in early September. Two weeks later, TNR incorporated a new subsidiary in Alaska, Bristol Explorations Co., Inc., which has taken over TNR's properties in Alaska, including the Iliamna and Shotgun projects. Bristol will focus on developing and exploring TNR's Alaska ventures, TNR said in a Sept. 17 statement. The new entity, working with Geocom, has completed a $75,000 geochemical sampling...
DAWSON CITY, Yukon - Atop a wooded peak in this land of mountains and deep valleys near the confluence of the White and Yukon rivers, a New Zealand-based miner is hard at work exploring for gold. Underworld Resources Inc., a junior organized in 2007, has come to the Far North in hopes of making a commercial discovery at the White Gold and Black Fox Gold properties in west central Yukon Territory, about 95-123 kilometers, or 59-76 miles, by air south of Dawson City. Organized with an initial public offering in March 2007, Unde...
DAWSON CITY, Yukon Territory - Underworld Resources Inc., like a growing number of juniors, owes its chance to make a huge mineral discovery in Yukon to a couple of modern-day prospectors, Shawn Ryan and Cathy Wood. But Ryan and his wife and partner, Wood, are a far cry from stereotypical prospectors. No grizzled, elderly loners, these two are quiet parents in their 30s. Ryan is an energetic entrepreneur with a boyish grin and a rapid-fire style of conversing. He began tramping up and down the steep hills of western Yukon 11...
Northern Tiger Resources Inc. began drilling in July at its Sonora gold-silver-copper-molybdenum project, located 110 kilometers, or 68 miles, northwest of Carmacks, Yukon. The 5,244-hectare, or 12,952-acre, Sonora property is located within 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, of the Minto copper-gold mine owned by Sherwood Copper Corp. Sherwood is providing logistical support to Northern Tiger through use of its Minto Mine access road and airstrip to expedite mobilization of fuel and supplies and through crew accommodations during...
When voters go to the polls Aug. 26, they will be asked to accept or reject Ballot Measure 4, a controversial proposal that is throwing into limbo years of progress in building up a hardrock mining industry in resource-rich Alaska. Titled "Bill Providing For Regulation Of Water Quality (07WTR3)," the measure reads: This bill imposes two water quality standards on new large scale metallic mineral mining operations in Alaska. The first standard does not allow such a mining operation to release into water a toxic pollutant that...
KENO HILL - Here amid hills dusty with glacial silt in the eastern Yukon, miners have tapped rich veins of silver and gold for nearly a century, right up until silver prices tanked in the late 1980s. In its heyday, the historic Keno Hill silver mining district boasted more than 40 producing mines and at least two bustling villages, Mayo and Keno City. Miners not only grubbed for pay dirt, they made homes in the valleys beneath the mines and raised families while extracting the gray precious metal. In all, the district has...
CARMACKS - Western Copper Corporation said its Casino copper-gold-molybdenum deposit in central Yukon Territory has the potential to be developed economically as a sizable open-pit mine. The porphyry deposit at Casino is the latest in a long line of precious- and base-metal zones of mineralization in the area to be considered for extraction. It is considered unique among Canadian porphyry deposits, with a substantially preserved oxide gold leach cap, a well-developed supergene or near-surface, copper-enriched zone, and a...
Western Copper Corp. cleared an important hurdle July 21 in the permitting process for its Carmacks copper project 38 kilometers, or nearly 24 miles, northwest of the town of Carmacks in central Yukon. The Executive Committee of the Yukon Environmental and Socioeconomic Assessment Board released a final screening report for the proposed Carmacks Copper Project that concluded the project may go ahead without further YESAB review. The decision paves the way for Western Copper to obtain a quartz mining license and move ahead wit...
NovaGold Resources Inc. July 11 posted its second-quarter financial results and admitted that the company has encountered significant problems getting Rock Creek, its most advanced gold mining project, up and running. NovaGold also outlined plans to sell some of its noncore assets, including its Ambler lead-zinc property near the Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska. NovaGold said it initially budgeted about $42 million in fiscal 2008 to complete construction at the Rock Creek mine near Nome. However, significant adverse weather...
After six years of hard work, NovaGold Resources Inc. is moving closer to its goal of developing a world-class gold mine in the hills above the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Basin of southwestern Alaska. The Vancouver, B.C.-based junior is set to produce its first gold at the Rock Creek project near Nome this year, but its ongoing development of the Donlin Creek deposit hundreds of miles southeast of Nome is more likely to propel the company onto the world stage as a mega-producer of the yellow precious metal. NovaGold and its 50...
Sometimes less can be more and then other times, more is just plain more. That's the word from Sherwood Copper Corp. The company posted a major jump in mineral resource estimates June 17 for its Minto Mine in central Yukon, based on results of 101 new holes drilled across four deposits - Area 118, Ridgetop, Main Minto and Area 2 deposits - in 2007. Sherwood said the net result of all adjustments produced a 50 percent increase in contained copper and a 40 percent hike in precious metals in Minto's latest mineral resource...
Canada's Federal Court of Appeal has set aside a lower court ruling and confirmed a federal environmental assessment of the Red Chris copper-gold project 18 kilometers, or about 11 miles, southeast of the village of Iskut, east of the Alaska Panhandle in Northwest British Columbia, according to project owner Imperial Metals Corp. In September 2007, the Federal Court Trial Division of Canada ruled in favor of an application by MiningWatch Canada for judicial review of a federal environmental assessment of the Red Chris...
Mining exploration appears to be hotter than ever this season in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, but the Canadian Arctic region's few producers are getting hammered by the strong Canadian dollar. The discrepancy was particularly evident in the territories' mining production. The total value of metal and diamond shipments from the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Territory decreased to C$1.53 billion during the calendar year 2007 for the second consecutive year, down from C$1.63 billion in 2006 and C$1.79 billion in...
KETZA RIVER - Now that Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp. is a producer at its Jerritt Canyon Mine in Nevada, the Vancouver, B.C.-based miner is poised to develop a mine at its gold- and silver-rich claims here in the southern Yukon. After three years of exploration drilling and even longer cleaning up an abandoned mining camp left behind by another mining company, Yukon-Nevada is targeting 2010 for initial gold production and ramping up to 60,000 ounces in annual output in 2011. In 2007, the company upgraded measured and indicated...
Teck Cominco Ltd. reported a 4.3 percent dip in profits in the first quarter of 2008 due mainly to a higher Canadian dollar and lower coal and zinc prices. Earnings fell to C$345 million, or C78 cents a share, compared with C$360 million, or C83 cents per share, in the first quarter of 2007. Teck Cominco President and CEO Don Lindsay said significant income from three copper mines that the Vancouver, B.C.-based major acquired from Aur Resources in 2007 along with a 32 percent increase in the copper price helped the outcome....
Kinross Gold Corp., owner of the Fort Knox Gold Mine near Fairbanks, is accelerating work on an expansion project now under way at the mine to boost gold production at Fort Knox as much as six months sooner than originally planned. Based on the revised schedule, production from the project is now expected to begin in mid-2009 instead of at the end of 2009, as reported in its fourth-quarter 2007 and year-end reports. The accelerated schedule will result in the advancing about $35 million of capital spending from 2009 to 2008....
