The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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With diamond markets rebounding from the COVID-19 downturn, North Arrow Minerals Inc. and partner Burgundy Diamond Mines Ltd. have continued to demonstrate the value of the fancy yellow diamonds in the Q1-4 kimberlite at the Naujaat project in Nunavut. Lying about nine kilometers (5.6 miles) northeast of the hamlet of Naujaat (formerly Repulse Bay) on Nunavut's Melville Peninsula, Naujaat covers 10,742 hectares (26,544 acres) of contiguous mineral leases and claims held by...
Looking to add to the 4 million ounces of gold it has already outlined at AurMac, Banyan Gold Corp.'s 2022 drill program systematically expanded the footprint of the Powerline and Aurex Hill deposits on this road-accessible project in the Yukon. Located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Victoria Gold Corp.'s Eagle Gold Mine and adjacent to Hecla Mining Company's Keno Hill Silver District, AurMac began 2022 with just under 1 million oz of gold in two deposits – P...
Ambler Metals LLC, a joint venture company equally owned by Trilogy and South32 Ltd., invested roughly US$28.5 million into a 2022 exploration program that included 10,738 meters of drilling targeting resource upgrades within the Arctic deposit and testing earlier-stage copper-rich prospects across the Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects in Northwest Alaska. Covering 448,217 acres of the famed Ambler Mining District, UKMP hosts the advanced staged Arctic Mine project and more than a...
The global transition to renewable energy is demanding enormous quantities of copper and zinc, two metals that are a specialty of Teck Resources Ltd. To help leverage its global portfolio to help fill the growing demand for copper, Teck launched Project Satellite in 2017. This initiative focused primarily on five copper assets in the Americas, including the Galore Creek and Schaft Creek projects in Northern British Columbia. According to a 2018 calculation, Galore Creek hosts...
Keeping stride as the largest silver producer in North America, Hecla Mining Company not only reported its second-largest silver reserves in its 130-year history but also added a highly prospective mine that brings it to the Yukon for the first time. Going into 2022, Hecla's three operating mines – Greens Creek, Lucky Friday (Idaho), and Casa Berardi (Quebec) – hosted a combined 37.3 million tons of reserves containing 200 million ounces of silver, 2.73 million oz of gold, 1.8...
Though effects of the COVID-19 pandemic lingered, mineral explorers rushed to the Yukon like moths to a flame during 2022. Mining's most daring sector rallied to generate the busiest field season seen in Canada's westernmost territory in years. In June, Natural Resources Canada projected mineral exploration and deposit appraisal spending in Yukon during 2022 to total C$157.9 million, up 14.5% from C$135.1 million estimated for 2021 and nearly double C$83.6 million in 2020....
Whether it is expanding its zinc-lead-silver resources on its flagship Macmillan Pass project in the Yukon, gaining a better understanding of its newly acquired Mactung tungsten project straddling the Yukon-Northwest Territories border, or carrying out reconnaissance exploration of its newly added Gayna River zinc-lead-gallium-germanium project within NWT, appropriately named Fireweed Metals Corp. decided Fireweed Zinc just would not cut it and changed accordingly. Comprised...
Looking to expand the resources at the Yellowknife City Gold projects, Gold Terra Resource Corp. 2022 exploration included drilling on its Con Option and Northbelt properties, which are part of a 309-square-mile (800 square kilometers) land package that covers roughly 43 miles (70 kilometers) of the Yellowknife greenstone belt in Northwest Territories. Gold Terra began accumulating this district-scale land package in 2013, with the Northbelt property that extends north from...
The increasing number of electric vehicles charged with renewable energy, connected to 5G networks, and boasting the computing power of 200 laptops to autonomously traverse global highways is creating a meteoric rise in demand for the minerals and metals critical to clean energy and high-tech. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the foremost authority on lithium battery supply chains, estimates that more than 300 new mines will need to come online by 2035 – just to produce the c...
Sitka Gold Corp. has been advancing its RC Gold project within the geologically fertile and highly prospective Tombstone Gold Belt region of Canada's Yukon. RC is an intrusion-related gold project that stands on the same playing field as other multi-million-ounce deposits within the Tombstone belt – Victoria Gold's Eagle and Olive deposits (a combined 4.7 million ounces), Golden Predators' Brewery Creek deposits (1.5 million oz), and Banyan Gold's AurMac deposits (3.99 million...
While drills targeted the expansion and upgrade of established gold resources at Ulu, Blue Star Gold Corp.'s geological team focused on elevating other targets across the company's Ulu, Hood River, and Roma properties, which cover a more than 45-kilometer (28 miles) stretch of the High Lake Greenstone Belt in Nunavut to drill-ready status. According to a 2015 calculation, the Flood and Gnu zones on the Ulu property host 2.5 million metric tons of measured and indicated...
Despite a year riddled with cold weather, equipment malfunction, and even territory fires, Victoria Gold Corp. maintained a steadfast view of the horizon for its Eagle Gold Mine, doing everything it can to hold true to its planned Project 250 strategy, and contributed toward that goal with the company's largest exploration program to date. One of the first announcements Victoria made at the start of 2022 was its new strategy to increase production at Eagle to 250,000 ounces du...
Following three generations of exploration spanning four decades, Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. is moving forward with the development of the Goose gold mine on its Back River project in Nunavut, Canada. "This is a milestone decision for the company," Sabina Gold President and CEO Bruce McLeod said in September. A feasibility study that was updated in 2021 envisions a mine at the Goose deposit that will average roughly 223,000 oz per year. Over the entire 15 years of mining...
Continuing a tradition of robust investments to unlock the enormous gold potential on its Nunavut properties, Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. budgeted more than US$90 million on exploring this politically attractive and stable jurisdiction in Canada's Far North during 2022. Going into the year, Agnico already had an aggressive US$60.2 million exploration campaign budgeted for its three gold mine and regional exploration properties in Nunavut. Given the success of this work, by...
In preparation for a new era of mining at Prairie Creek, NorZinc Ltd. carried out a roughly 5,300-meter drill program in 2022 focused on gathering geological and other data needed for an updated feasibility study for this underground zinc mine project in Northwest Territories. According to a 2021 calculation, Prairie Creek hosts 9.8 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 9.7% zinc, 8.8% lead, and 139 grams per metric ton silver; and 6.4 million...
Toward its primary goal of expanding near-surface high-grade gold at Indin Lake, Nighthawk Gold Corp. completed 40,085 meters of drilling within the Colomac Centre and higher-grade satellite gold targets across its district-scale gold property in Northwest Territories. The 359-square-mile (930 square kilometers) Indin Lake property covers the northern end of the West Bay-Indin Lake fault zone, a regional structure that extends 125 miles (200 kilometers) south to the Giant and...
With the buyout of Constantine Metal Resources Ltd., American Pacific Mining Corp. gained a roughly 45% ownership of the Palmer zinc-copper-silver-gold-barite mine project in Southeast Alaska. Being advanced under a joint venture with Dowa Metals & Mining Alaska Ltd., Palmer hosts two adjacent volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits with a combined 4.68 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 5.23% (539 million pounds) zinc, 1.49% (154 million lb) copper, 30.8 grams...
With dewatering plans, an updated preliminary economic assessment, and updated mineral resource estimate out of the way, Osisko Metals Inc. has been exploring ways to maximize the potential of this world-class zinc-lead project that could easily rank it within the top ten zinc mines on the planet. Located just south of the Great Slave Lake, Pine Point was home to a former mine operated by Cominco (now Teck Resources) that produced roughly 14 billion pounds of zinc and 4...
In its effort to identify and delineate diamond-rich kimberlites that will extend the life of Gahcho Kué Mine in Northwest Territories beyond 2030, Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. is involved with exploration on two fronts. Located about 280 kilometers (175 miles) northeast of the NWT capital city of Yellowknife, Gahcho Kué is a diamond mine owned and operated by a joint venture between De Beers Canada Inc. (51%) and Mountain Province (49%). Going into 2022, Gahcho Kué ho...
American West Metals Ltd. capped its first season of exploration drilling in Nunavut with the discovery of substantial copper mineralization at depth at Storm Copper, a development that the explorer believes will be a "game-changer" for the early-stage project. Initial assays from drill hole ST22-10 confirm the presence of sediment-hosted copper and zinc sulfide mineralization that indicates the potential for a major mineralized system lying below the very high-grade copper...
While a small group of dedicated explorers returned in 2022 to advance production and development projects in Nunavut, a growing number of newcomers fanned out across the northern territory in search of a variety of minerals. Some came seeking gold deposits like those being explored and mined by Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd., while others chased historical occurrences of newly designated critical metals, especially copper and certain base metals, now in high demand for...
Less than three years after bringing its ambition to mine rare earth elements to Canada, Vital Metals Ltd. is rapidly establishing its presence on the world stage as one of few miners of rare earth minerals outside of China. In July 2021, the Australia-based company became the first to extract rare earth-rich material for commercial processing from the ground in Canada – a country known to host vast undeveloped quantities of the coveted resources. Vital Metals is also only t...
Mining activity in Northwest Territories held steady in 2022 despite constraints imposed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as a cadre of mainly junior mining companies took up the international challenge to seek out large deposits of critical minerals. Early in the year, government officials noted that industry interest in diamonds, gold, and especially critical minerals boded well for the NWT economy in the coming year. "An exciting new chapter is emerging for mining in the...
Pushes ahead AK mine, WA plant to meet vast EV battery demand. As automakers look to secure the graphite required for lithium-ion batteries that will power the hundreds of millions of electric vehicles expected to traverse global highways over the next three decades, Graphite One Inc. continues to put milestones in its rearview on a journey to develop a mine at its Graphite Creek project in Alaska and advanced graphite processing facility in America's Pacific Northwest. "Our s...
Has the discovery and development of the mines essential to meeting the massive demand for battery metals, copper, rare earths, and other critical minerals reached the end of the road? Not a metaphorical end where the visions of electric vehicles charged with sunshine are dashed – halting the demand for green energy and technology metals. Instead, I am speaking to pioneering critical mineral supply chains beyond the literal end of the limited highways extending into Alaska a...
