The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 1 - 14 of 14
In late August, I was forced to send an email to Curt Freeman, owner of the Fairbanks-based Avalon Development, with the subject line, "Smoke hinders travel." Throughout the prior week, I could not fly from my remote home 60 miles east to Fairbanks, to attend Freeman's Aug. 20 presentation as a consultant on the Golden Summit project, being explored by Freegold Ventures and its new joint venture partner, Meridian Gold. I made plans to fly to Fairbanks on Aug. 16, well in advance of the presentation and following day's tour...
Global diamond mining giant De Beers has optioned properties in northern Canada to two junior explorers. Vancouver-based Pure Gold Minerals has negotiated an agreement covering 6,300 square miles north of Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories, while Montreal-based Ditem Explorations, with a mere stock market value of C$1.4 million, has gained access to 1,684 square miles on Southampton Island in Nunavut Territory. South Africa's De Beers through its Canadian subsidiary holds rights to more than 42,000 square miles in...
In case you hadn't noticed, one of the busiest but quietest Augusts in the last 10 years just slipped into the pages of history. Mineral exploration, development and production maintained a low profile in just about every region of the state during August. Drills continued to turn and samples continued to stream in from programs searching for gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, nickel, platinum and palladium. The hot spots continued to be the Iliamna District, the Goodpaster...
Healthy bullion prices are driving a resurgence of exploration spending in Canada, with budgets at their highest level in seven years. In a note to clients, National Bank Financial said that "after a prolonged drought," second quarter spending was up 20 percent from a year earlier, 75 percent ahead of 2002 and 100 percent above the late 1990s, when gold prices were only half of today's US$400 an ounce. The Canadian bank said North America's 11 largest gold producers hiked their exploration budgets to US$28 an ounce in the...
Rich Hughes, a former project manager at the Nolan Creek mine in northern Alaska, has been selected by the state of Alaska to serve as the development specialist for mining in Fairbanks. Hughes started the job July 1, working in the Office of Economic Development, Mining, a part of the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development. "I've been playing catch-up, because no one has been in the position since early April," he said. Rich Harris held the minerals development specialist position, beginning last...
Late summer rains and cooler temperatures, usually the norm for Interior Alaska, did not materialize this year, allowing wildlands fires to continue burning and spreading throughout the region in August. According to state and federal fire reports posted Sept. 3, a total of 6,378,692 acres of land in Alaska has burned during this summer's wildlands fires, reportedly the most ever in a single season. Statewide, 648 fires were reported and more than 80 fires remain active, even in early September when fire crews typically...
Vancouver, British Columbia-based War Eagle Mining Co. Inc. has partnered with Strategic Metals Ltd. to drill for the first time the Antimony Mountain copper-silver-gold porphyry prospect, 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Dawson City, Yukon Territory. Reconnaissance field work started in late June, with core drilling beginning in August. A total of 1,000 meters (3,275 feet) is planned for this year's five-hole program, according to an Aug. 26 press release. "This summer's work program budget is $400,000, of which roughly...
Seattle-based Nevada Star Resource Corp. in mid-August began a 2,000 meter (6,561-foot) reverse circulation drilling program on the northern portion of the MAN nickel, copper and PGE property in central Alaska. It's the latest development in an active, million-dollar plus summer field season for the 271-square mile MAN property on the southern flank of the Alaska Range near the Richardson Highway community of Paxson. Nevada Star is completing about $550,000 worth of exploration work on the northern part of the property this s...
This summer's exploration, engineering and environmental baseline data work at the Pebble prospect in southwest Alaska is progressing "exceptionally well," according to a spokesman for the deposit's developer, Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. Northern Dynasty, a Hunter Dickinson-managed mine-development company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, is on track to spend $25 million (C$33.5 million) this year on the Pebble project, a gold-copper-molybdenum deposit several miles north of Lake Iliamna, a little more than 200 miles...
An experienced geologist in Alaska himself, Charles Caldwell "Chuck" Hawley has compiled a well-documented and compelling story about one of Alaska's pioneer prospectors and mining engineers, Wesley Earl Dunkle. An economic geologist who prospected many mineral occurrences and developed several mines in Alaska in the early to mid-1900s, Dunkle's career and life story weave together many interesting aspects about the history of the Last Frontier. Alaska historians, explorers, aviators, prospectors and miners will find this boo...
One of six new 190-ton Caterpillar haul trucks hit the dirt at the open pit Fort Knox gold mine near Fairbanks, Alaska, on Sept. 1, part of a $15 million-plus capital investment in the mine's dirt-moving fleet this year. Fairbanks Gold Mining Inc., a subsidiary of Toronto-based Kinross Gold, has gone on a $24 million-plus equipment shopping spree this year and last, increasing capacity of the Fort Knox dirt-moving fleet by 30 percent each year. The new equipment additions will help mine crews remove 55 million tons of waste r...
NovaGold Resources appears to have hit another prospecting grand slam one year after optioning the Galore Creek project in a remote section of northwestern British Columbia. The Vancouver, British Columbia-based junior in August released "exceptional" drill results, the first from this summer's planned 20,000-meter (60,000-foot) program, and an economically positive scoping study for developing the large gold-silver-copper deposit as an open-pit mine. Four drill rigs were working on the property in late July, and a fifth was...
For Inco, it is the road to becoming the world's largest nickel producer. For the residents of isolated, depressed Labrador, it holds the rare promise of steady jobs and solid economic gains. For the government of Newfoundland and Labrador, it will be a triumphant end to some of the toughest resource-development negotiations in Canadian history. For now, if all goes as planned, the mine and concentrator at the Voisey's Bay project and a demonstration processing plant at Argentia, Newfoundland, will begin operations in 2006, a...
Vancouver, British Columbia-based Silverado Gold Mines Ltd. has been auctioning gold nuggets mined from its northern Alaska gold mine on eBay, an on-line auction site. So far, the company has auctioned five nuggets and it began the sixth on-line auction for an 8.65 troy ounce nugget Aug. 23. The nuggets have been mined from the Nolan Creek mine, just west of the historic mining community of Wiseman, roughly 280 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. Some of the gold nuggets sold have been hosted in white quartz. Gold nuggets from...
