The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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"What is the impact of not mining in Alaska?" Liz Cornejo, vice president Dowa Metals & Mining Alaska, asked during the 2022 Alaska's Minerals: A Strategic National Imperative summit. For such a simple question, the implications are enormous. Alaska is practically synonymous with mining. Aside from the strong tourist appeal – which accounts for a large portion of the state's economy – the remaining economic contributors all come from natural resources. Fishing, mining, oil...
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, America's tenuous relationship with China, and global competition for the enormous volume of mined materials needed to build the envisioned clean energy future has elevated the urgency for the United States to bolster domestic critical mineral supply chains. For many, these geopolitical and economic realities have elevated the development of Alaska's incredible critical mineral resources to a national imperative. The urgency of this matter is why...
Tectonic Metals Inc. Sept. 7 announced that it is carrying out a baseline metallurgical program aimed at de-risking Flat, an intrusion-hosted, bulk tonnage gold project about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the Donlin Gold project in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region of Southwest Alaska. "Metallurgical testing is one of the most critical steps a company can take in successfully transforming an exploration-stage project into a profitable mining opportunity," said Tectonic Metals...
Chiefs from the Doyon region and village leaders from the NANA region came together for a meeting at Ambler Metals' Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects to gain a first-hand understanding of the mining proposed for the Ambler Mining District, as well as to discuss the economic benefits this resource development and a proposed road into the region could have on both the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) regions represented. "One of our core values is respect – for people, t...
With zinc prices on the rise and strong production of the galvanizing metal, the Red Dog Mine in Northwest Alaska generated strong profits for Teck Resources Ltd. and revenues for NANA Corp., the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) regional corporation for Northwest Alaska. During the first quarter of this year, Red Dog produced 131,600 metric tons (290.1 million pounds) of zinc, a roughly 10% increase over the 119.7 metric tons (263.9 million lb) produced during the...
Doyon Ltd., the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act regional corporation for Interior Alaska, is strengthening its partnership with Tectonic Metals Inc. with another investment into the equity of the company exploring for gold on Doyon and state lands in Alaska. "Working on Native Owned Land is one thing, but being funded by Alaska Natives to explore on their land is something completely different," said Tectonic Metals President and CEO Tony Reda. "It is truly an honour, a...
May 10, 2022, celebrates the ninth annual Alaska Mining Day. Established in 2013, Alaska Mining Day was created through legislation sponsored by Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, "to recognize and honor the intrepid individuals and industry that played an enormous role in settling and developing the territory and the state that continue to contribute to the economy of the state." Why May 10? On this day in 1872, the General Mining Act of the United States was approved – w...
Since World War II there may not be a more urgent time to produce Alaska's rich mineral resources. Our nation's immediate defense needs and commitment to clean energy all require a healthy, vibrant mining industry to give our country the security of domestic critical mineral production and the bridge to future clean energy technologies. Crisis brings clarity, and quickly subordinates ideology to real-world practicality. Today we see our globe reeling under the actions of...
Kinross Alaska has donated $1 million to support the Troth Yeddha' Indigenous Studies Center, a 34,000-square-foot facility to be built on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus that will provide a center for Alaska Native programs and support indigenous student success. "This is much more than a building. It is a space and tangible symbol of honoring and valuing Alaska's first people," Kinross Alaska External Affairs Director Anna Atchison said upon announcing the donation...
From an expected multimillion-dollar exploration program on the hardrock sources of the placer gold discovered by Felix Pedro in the Fairbanks Mining District 120 years ago to preliminary investigations of the Nikolai nickel-copper-cobalt-chromium-platinum group element project recently added to its portfolio, Millrock Resources Inc. is looking forward to a busy year of exploration on the properties it has generated in Alaska. "Millrock is looking forward to a very active...
In a move criticized by a wide swath of Alaska policymakers and trade organizations, the Biden administration has filed a motion to reverse the federal authorizations for a proposed 211-mile road to the mineral-rich Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska. "You would think President Biden would want to improve access to American sources of copper and other strategic minerals that are needed in our combined efforts to increase renewables. Instead, actions like this only...
In today's topsy-turvy world, perhaps the question we all should be asking is, in the unforgettable opening words of Admiral James Stockdale during the 1992 Vice Presidential debate, "Who am I, why am I here?". Admiral Stockdale was the person chosen to be Independent Ross Perot's Presidential running mate. His challengers were then-President George Bush and then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Perot garnered about 19.7 million votes, many of which might have gone to...
The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority and Ambler Metals LLC have agreed to equally fund $30.8 million for a 2022 field program to advance the Ambler Access Project, a proposed 211-mile road that serves as an Alaskan epitome of connecting the aspirations of a low-carbon future with the large volumes of minerals and metals required to build the electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure that will make the green energy future a reality. The World Bank...
While much of Teck Resources Ltd.'s investment and focus during 2021 was on the implementation of its long-term sustainability strategy, the British Columbia-based miner continued to carry out exploration behind the scenes. In Alaska, Teck operates the Red Dog zinc mine on lands owned by NANA Corp., the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) regional corporation for the Northwest Arctic region where the world-class operation is located. This operation, which produces...
Alaska boasts what many consider the most successful aboriginal land claims settlement on Earth – a solution that has not only turned out to be a cultural success but a brilliant business move for the more than 140,000 Alaska Natives and an economic boon for the state that covers the resource-rich lands these industrious and innovative peoples have called home for millennia. Signed into law by U.S. President Richard Nixon on Dec. 18, 1971, the Alaska Native Claims S...
Covering a roughly 450-mile stretch of postcard-worthy Gulf of Alaska coastline where glacier-carved fjords and bays teeming with fish, birds, and marine mammals are framed by dense forests of hemlock and spruce and majestic mountain vistas, the Chugach Alaska Corp. region epitomizes Alaska beauty. In addition to the immediately apparent abundance of subsistence, fishing, tourism, and timber resources, this 10-million-acre picturesque area along Alaska's southern coast is...
Pioneer Alaskans swore that Alaska's economy would be destroyed if "the Natives" secured control of any lands in Alaska. However, they did not realize how practical and pragmatic Alaska Natives have had to be to survive and thrive in their Arctic homeland. Whatever tool was needed to survive, Alaska Natives created it with the minimal materials at hand-skin, wood, stone, jade, copper, seashells, mud, plants, flint, obsidian, snow, and ice. With the settlement of Alaska Native...
As an Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act regional corporation that is balancing traditional values with economic opportunities across a 26-million-acre picturesque and resource-rich traditional region at the epicenter of Alaska's highway system, Ahtna Inc. lies at a literal and figurative crossroads. Bordered by the majestic Alaska Range to the north, the equally beautiful Chugach Mountains to the south, the Canadian border to the east, and the Denali National Park to the...
Vast petroleum reserves underlying what is now the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. (ASRC) region, and the need to build a pipeline to deliver this oil to an ice-free port 800 miles to the south and then to global markets that lie beyond, raised the urgency to settle aboriginal land claims in Alaska. This need for a resolution before a pipeline corridor that would bisect the state prompted lawmakers in Washington, D.C. to enact the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, a...
Home of the famed golden beaches of Nome that has captured the imagination of millions over the past 120 years, the Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC) region covers the Seward Peninsula and coastal lands arcing around the eastern and southern coast of the Norton Sound in the far western reaches of Alaska. While this region may be 300 miles beyond North America's highway system, it has served as a crossroads for human activity for at least 15 millennia and will continue...
The Bristol Bay region is home to two resources that beyond a doubt earn the moniker "world-class" – an annual run of sockeye salmon that is second to none and Pebble, the largest undeveloped copper and gold deposits known to exist on Earth. These world-renowned resources, however, have stirred up controversy in this Oklahoma-sized region of Southwest Alaska, as many of the roughly 7,400 Bristol Bay residents are concerned that mining the copper, gold, molybdenum, rhenium, and...
Calista Corp. and its more than 33,000 Yup'ik, Cup'ik, and Athabascan shareholders are on the cusp of realizing the benefits that will come with the sustainable development of a mine at the 45-million-ounce Donlin Gold project on their land in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region of Southwest Alaska. With 39 million oz of gold in measured and indicated resources that average 2.24 grams per metric ton, and another 6 million oz in the inferred category averaging 2.02 g/t gold, Donlin...
From the wide distribution of the massive resources provided by a bowhead whale harvested in the icy waters of the Beaufort Sea to sharing the catch from successful fishing in the Gulf of Alaska, sharing the bounty nature has to offer is among the most important core values of Alaska Natives across the state. This millennia-long tradition of sharing the hunt has been enshrined in the sections 7(i) and 7(j) provisions of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. From the early...
It is my good fortune to be asked to write a short piece on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. My mother, Naungagiaq, would have been proud. She set me free to seek an education in a Tennessee boarding school when I was 14 – just at the time of my life that I could have been of help to her and the family in our hunting, fishing, and trapping world of the 1940s and 1950s. We had lived in three sod homes along the Little Noatak about a dozen miles from Kotzebue. She, in a...
President Richard M. Nixon signed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1971, exactly 230 years after Captain Vitus Bering's Second Kamchatka Expedition finally sighted land in Alaska offshore from what is now Mount Saint Elias in 1741. In the years between, the 70,000 or so Unagan (Aleut), Sugpiaq, Yupik, Inupiat, Athapascan, Tlingit, and their descendants began to experience extreme changes brought on by Russian and American firepower, disease, religion,...
