The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Will the next decade usher in a mining renaissance in Alaska? With six operating mines producing some US$3 billion worth of minerals in 2010 and another 10 projects positioning themselves to join the ranks, mining in the Far North state is beginning to show a glimmer of its former glory. A century ago dozens of mines were operating across the Last Frontier, including world-class operations such as Treadwell, the largest gold mine of its time, and Kennecott, considered to be...
From college students seeking their first job in the minerals industry to executives of the world's leading mining companies, a record-setting 7,003 people packed the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver, B.C., Jan. 24-27 to attend the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia's 2011 Mineral Exploration Roundup. "The theme this year is 'Exploring Today for Tomorrow's Resources' - it couldn't be more important a theme, and it couldn't be more important an activity,"...
There are some new stats out regarding mining's impact on Alaska that the McDowell Group Inc. produced for the State of Alaska. For 2010, the Alaska mining industry accounted for 3,500 direct jobs and 5,500 indirect jobs. The industry paid US$350 million in payroll with the average salary totaling US$95,000 per year, which is double the statewide average for all sectors. Mining salaries were higher than all other sectors except for the oil and gas sector. The industry paid...
One soil at a time," said Shawn Ryan, describing the gold-hunting technique he has perfected in a decade of working what has become the hottest exploration play in Canada. After collecting more than 200,000 soil samples since 2003 and leading at least two junior mining companies to the most significant gold discoveries in the new White Gold District of Yukon Territory, Ryan is happy to share the particulars of his slow and careful approach to prospecting. The former Dawson City prospector, who recently moved to Whitehorse,... Full story
Ryan Gold Corp., the junior created when Valdez Gold Corp. merged with Ryan Gold Inc. in December, said it has defined a significant gold-in-soil anomaly during initial exploration of its Ida Oro Property in Yukon Territory. In mid-February, the company also reported signing a letter agreement to purchase 50 properties, comprising about 6,631 quartz claims located throughout the Yukon from Shawn Ryan and Wildwood Exploration Inc. "Having acquired the Ida Oro and Fifty Mile projects from Ryan Gold Inc. last fall, we are...
The last half of December and the first half of January are normally relatively slow for business in the mining industry, in general, and in Alaska, in particular. The last two weeks this December were a bit slower than the first two weeks of the month but if anyone was thinking that January 2011 was going to creep silently into being, they were sadly mistaken! With metals prices heading toward recent and, in some cases, historical highs, there seems to be a sense of urgency... Full story
Two years after explorers stampeded to Yukon Territory in search of gold and other minerals the rush is showing no sign of abating. In fact, the exploration frenzy appears to gather fresh steam with every new mineral discovery reported in the territory. And the pipeline of discoveries is flowing, fast and furious. Junior mining companies and prospectors also continued to stake hordes of claims in 2010 right up to Dec. 23, stopping only when Government of Yukon mining recorders called a halt for the holidays. The excitement su... Full story
Mining exploration activity in northern British Columbia approached record levels in 2010 with explorers setting a new drilling record and spending about C$168 million in pursuit of a wide range of minerals, including gold, copper, silver, molybdenum, and rare earth elements, according to a top provincial geologist. Paul Wojdak, regional geologist for the Northwest Region of British Columbia's Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, said the major good news mining story in 2010 for central and northern British... Full story
Terrence Chandler, former CEO of Redfern Resources Ltd., has joined Chieftain Metals Inc., a newly created company focused on re-opening the Tulsequah Chief Mine, a precious metals-rich volcanic massive sulfide deposit on British Columbia's western border, about 40 miles, or 64 kilometers, northeast of Juneau. Chandler serves as executive vice president of the company. In his former role at Redfern, he spent some 20 years working on exploration, permitting and development of... Full story
The Ambler Mining District, a mineral-rich region of Northwest Alaska, is getting renewed attention in 2011. While two exploration companies expand their copper-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide projects during the upcoming season, State of Alaska engineers will work on penciling in a potential road to the area. NovaGold Resources Inc. is creating a new company to explore its 36,670-hectare, or 90,614-acre Ambler property and Andover Ventures Inc. plans to return to its Sun...
As the last days of the decade tick by, I am tempted to look back on 2010 and distill the year in a few sentences. I'll resist and opt for a bunch of sentences similar to some I recently dumped on the Society of Economic Geologists, an exploration-focused scientific organization of which I am a card-carrying member. Those words prompted more than a few heated responses, both supportive and not so supportive ("You're a pin-head" is the one that will probably stick with me... Full story
A revitalized Yukon Territory is ushering in a new era of mining prosperity as two more mines enter production this winter. "For the first time in a generation," the territory will have three operating mines that together will employ more than 400 workers and provide 100 direct service jobs and countless indirect positions and generate C$800 million for the Yukon economy annually," said Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie. "That's almost as much as the Government of Yukon's entire C$1 billion yearly budget." The recent startup of... Full story
As termination dust falls across most of Alaska, the curtain has come down for the bulk of the exploration projects around the state; however, mine development programs as well as mine-site exploration continue apace as does some exploration work in tropical Southeast Alaska. With few exceptions, preliminary conclusions drawn from 2010 work indicate that 2011 is going to be a busy year. And though a lot of exploration and development is still going on for gold, copper... Full story
With copper-gold-molybdenum intercepts up to 500 meters thick and a location near tidewater on the Pacific Rim, Full Metal Minerals Ltd.'s Pyramid Project on the Alaska Peninsula is shaping up as a significant copper deposit. Chilean copper producer Antofagasta Minerals S.A. joined the junior to explore Pyramid earlier this year and the partners launched an initial 1,668-meter drill program at the porphyry copper-gold-molybdenum project in August. Antofagasta Minerals, a... Full story
Mining is becoming increasingly important to Alaskans looking for good-paying jobs. Not only does the industry provide high wages, the geographical diversity of the mines provides employment opportunities to oftentimes economically challenged rural regions of the vast state. According to the Alaska Department of Labor & Workforce Development, the number of mining jobs in Alaska has jumped 40.3 percent since 2000, almost triple the statewide average employment growth of 14.1... Full story
The resurgence of mining industry activity in Yukon Territory is bringing with it the prospect of more commercial activity in Southeast Alaska, specifically in the coastal community of Skagway. Though tiny in size with only 850 year-round residents, Skagway is home to one of Alaska's most strategically located ice-free, deepwater ports. The Skagway Ore Terminal at the port stores 65,000 tons a year of copper-gold-silver concentrates from Yukon's only operating mine, Capstone Mining Corp.'s Minto Mine. And once a month for...
When I wrote a first editorial for Mining Explorers last year, it was on the occasion of Nunavut celebrating its first 10 years as a separate territory, and so it was fitting to review some of the accomplishments of the decade. Now, as we enter into a second decade, many of the fruits of those labors are coming to bear. That first decade, 1999-2009, wasn't, of course, without its share of both accomplishments and setbacks. Early in Nunavut's short life around 2002, three long-producing mines closed: the Polaris and Nanisivik...
The search for furs opened up the Northwest Territories more than 400 years ago, bringing explorers and traders to the North. In today's economy, it's the search for - and the development of - mineral resources that is the one of the main cogs in the NWT economy. It's an industry that contributes more than C$1 billion annually to our economy and creates more than 2,000 direct jobs. And while the past two years have been challenging for the mining industry everywhere due to the global economic crisis that has seen exploration...
The Last Frontier, as Alaska has long been labeled, is as applicable a moniker today as it was to prospectors who ventured to the territory at the end of the 19th century. Alaska is considered one of the most mineralized provinces on Earth, but due to an inter-related combination of Arctic weather, rugged terrain, limited infrastructure and high exploration costs, the state's vast mineral potential remains at the edge of exploratory expansion. Though the Far North state...
Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. kicked off 2010 by presenting a debut resource estimate for its Palmer copper-zinc-gold-silver project in Southeast Alaska. Based on 32 holes drilled into the RW and South Wall zones of the property's Glacier Creek prospect through 2009, an inferred resource of 4.12 million metric tons grading 2.01 percent copper, 4.79 percent zinc, 0.30 grams per metric ton gold and 31 g/t silver (using an NSR cut-off of US$75/t) has been calculated for the... Full story
Corvus Gold Corp., a new junior formed to explore International Tower Hill Mines Ltd.'s non-Livengood assets, hit the ground running with C$8 million worth of partner-funded exploration on its four Alaska properties and a 10,000-meter drill campaign on its sole-owned gold property in Nevada. By the time the Corvus' ticker symbol, KOR, lit up on the Toronto and New York Stock exchanges in August the new explorer was well into the summer exploration its promising Alaska...
Efforts to build an electricity transmission line critical to economic development of northwestern British Columbia moved closer to reality in 2010. Cheered by the prospect of access to cheap power, scores of miners flocked to the region to re-activate dormant projects and scour the mountainous terrain for new discoveries. The Canadian government allocated C$130 million in funding for construction of the Northwest Transmission Line in September 2009, providing critical funding for the estimated C$404 million needed to build... Full story
From its search for White Gold-style mineralization in the Fortymile placer gold district just across the border from the Klondike in eastern Alaska to exploration of the Pyramid copper-gold project some 900 miles, or 1,450 kilometers, to the southwest, Full Metal Minerals Ltd. returned to the Alaska mining exploration scene in 2010. The Vancouver B.C.-based junior also worked with fellow junior and senior mining companies on projects across Alaska's vast expanse. Beyond...
AOT: TSX-V President and CEO: John A. Toffan Chief Financial Officer: Robert A. Evans Ascot Resources Ltd., a junior exploration and development company formed in 1986, holds four major properties - the Swamp Point sand and gravel deposit on the Portland Canal in northwestern British Columbia where it suspended the project in 2008 due to a downturn in the aggregate market; the historic Premier Gold Mine and Dilworth contiguous properties located about 25 kilometers, or 16 miles, north of Stewart, B.C., in the Cassiar Mining...
AUU: TSX-V President and CEO: Rob Boaz Hon. B.A. Chief Geologist & Director: James M. Franklin, Ph.D., P. Geo. VP, Exploration and Consulting Geologist: Eric Craigie, B. Sc. (Geo.) Formed in 2003, Aura Silver's strategy is to act as an exploration arm with other miners that host untested exploration potential on their mining properties in major silver belts. Aura Silver has two active projects in North America, including one located in an under-explored Archean greenstone belt in Nunavut. Aura Silver's Greyhound Lake...
