he proposed combination of Newmont Mining Corp. and Goldcorp Inc. has raised questions about the future of the companies’ gold assets in the Yukon and investments in other junior mining companies across Canada’s North.
Two of the gold projects in the proposed Newmont Goldcorp pipeline are found in the Yukon – Plateau, a large property being explored by Newmont, and Coffee, a project that is nearing the mine development stage.
Knowing that the combined gold miner plans to shed some of its assets, it is currently unclear whether these projects will fit into the larger company’s pipeline or be put up for sale as part of the effort to slim down. Continue Reading →
Terry Dobbin is the Nunavut general manager for the NW.T. and Nunavut Chamber of Mines.
“We need healthy exploration today to find the mines that will carry on the jobs and benefits”
They say that history repeats itself, and that’s not a good thing if it’s negative. Some of us are afraid that’s where we are headed. Let me explain.
Mining in the Northwest Territories has been a tremendous success story, with four diamond mines over the past 20 years generating 58,000 person years of employment, $20 billion in spending, training of seven per cent of the total workforce, significantly reduced social assistance payments, significant IBA [impact and benefit agreement] payments, and billions paid in a pile of taxes and royalties to governments to help them look after their residents.
However, in 2007 the N.W.T. began to lose focus on keeping mineral exploration strong. Exploration is the very work that is needed to find new mines and their great benefits. Since 2007, the N.W.T. has missed out on at least $1.4 billion in lost investment. Continue Reading →
This is not going to be a column about the manufactured consumption of diamonds. But it is going to be a column about the manufacture — the cutting and polishing — of diamonds.
The news from Tiffany & Co. of a diamond provenance initiative is welcome. Steps the company has taken as of this week — providing geographic sourcing information for individual diamonds — will be ramped up in 2020 when the New York jewelry house begins sharing the “craftsmanship journey,” as in, where those stones were turned into princess-cut bedazzlers. Do you want your diamond to be ethically sourced? Of course you do.
Some may think, brightly: Tiffany-blue ring boxes, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn. Others may think, insightfully: conflict diamonds, blood diamonds, child labour. I think, simply: Northwest Territories, squandered economic opportunity, a sprinkling of fraud. They’re all connected. Human rights abuses abroad bleed as deeply through the mining of diamonds as those kimberlite pipes that plunge beneath the Arctic surface. Continue Reading →
The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame was conceived by the late Maurice R. Brown, former editor and publisher of The Northern Miner, as a way to recognize and honour the legendary mine finders and builders of a great Canadian industry. The Hall was established in 1988. For more information about the extraordinary individuals who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, please go to their home website: http://mininghalloffame.ca/
The discovery of placer gold in the Klondike set off one of the world’s greatest gold rushes and forever changed the history of Yukon and Canada. Historic accounts of the landmark event recognized the contribution of Canadian prospector Robert Henderson and the bonanza gold strike made by American adventurer George Carmack, his wife Kate (Shaaw Tlaa) and her Tagish First Nation relatives, brother Skookum Jim Mason (Keish) and nephew Dawson Charlie (Kaa Goox). The day of discovery was August 17, 1896.
In July of 1896, George and Kate Carmack, along with Skookum Jim Mason and Dawson Charlie, were camped at the junction of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers. Henderson visited their fish camp and told Carmack of some promising “colours” he had found panning in Gold Bottom Creek. Henderson invited Carmack, a part-time prospector, to try his luck in the region, but made it known that he did not want natives staking claims.
http://www.pendaproductions.com/ This video was produced by PENDA Productions, a full service production company specializing in Corporate Communications with a focus on Corporate Responsibility.
Carmack and his team later visited Henderson’s showing, but left unimpressed. During the brief visit, Henderson again offended Carmack’s Indigenous partners. His prejudices would ultimately cost him a fortune. The Carmack team returned to their camp via Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River where the fi rst large gold nugget was then found. Continue Reading →
WHITEHORSE—An Indigenous woman is being inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame for the first time. Kate Carmack of Yukon will be recognized as one of the handful of prospectors whose discovery of placer gold set off what the Hall of Fame describes as “one of the world’s greatest gold rushes” in the Klondike more than a century ago.
In 1999, the organization recognized four men who were known as the Klondike Discoverers by inducting them into the Hall of Fame for locating the site where the gold was found on Rabbit River in 1896.
But the president of Yukon Women in Mining says many stories also say Carmack may actually have found the first gold nugget while fishing with her family. Anne Turner said Carmack was “missed” in the first round of recognition but it’s “really exciting” that she is finally being honoured. Continue Reading →
Shaaw Tláa – also known as Kate Carmack – was an often overlooked but essential part of the prospecting group that kicked off the historic Klondike Gold Rush. Carmack was the rumoured discoverer of the first nugget of Yukon gold and became, for a time, the wealthiest Indigenous woman in America, but was nearly forgotten by the industry she had a central role in launching.
Carmack was nominated to the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame (CMHF) in October, almost two decades after the four male members of her prospecting party that made the discovery were recognized.
The induction, which places her on equal footing with the other four and acknowledges her as “instrumental” to the expedition’s success, comes as researchers aim to correct a trend of underrepresentation of the contributions of Indigenous women to Canada’s mining history. Continue Reading →
Mining chatter in the Yukon these days is all about the yellow metal. It’s been that way for at least 10 years, according to geologist Mike Burke, who spent more than 20 years working for the Yukon Geological Survey before moving to the private sector.
“People were having a hard time in 2008, and then along came Kinross and bought Underworld Resources. That started an area play,” Burke recalls. Now headlines echo the shift toward the Yukon’s second gold rush. Victoria Gold (TSXV: VIT) is hurriedly building Eagle, the biggest gold mine in the history of the territory.
Goldcorp (TSX: G; NYSE: GG), fresh on the heels of a recent agreement with the Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation, is seeking to wrap up permitting this year at the 5 million oz. Coffee gold project, which should reach commercial production by 2021, in the White Gold district. Continue Reading →
‘Without investment the mining industry will die,’ says chamber of mines president
The City of Yellowknife was given a grim update on the state of the territory’s mining industry during a Governance and Priorities Committee meeting on Monday afternoon. Tom Hoefer, executive director of the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines, says the future looks bleak.
“The minerals industry in the North is not healthy at this time and that will have effects on the city,” said Hoefer. “This is the time when the industry is maturing… they [the city] can actually help sustain the industry.”
Specifically, that help would come in the form of lobbying the territorial government for lower power costs. Companies that once established mines in the Northwest Territories are pulling out of the area, said Hoefer. He cited high power costs and unsettled land claims as the main reasons for this. Continue Reading →
Anne Turner (nee Lewis) is the executive director of the Yukon Mining Alliance (YMA). Lindsay Wilson is communications manager at YMA.
It was finding gold at Rabbit Creek and along the riverbeds of the Klondike that forever changed one of the world’s final frontiers — the Yukon Territory — and cemented the region’s roots as an inspiring Canadian mining district.
Yukon’s rich mining history continues to provide exciting discoveries, varied commodities and significant opportunities for northerners and investors alike. As we kick off 2019, we reflect on our history and the last year that has proved — through achievements, advancements and accolades — that Yukon is a mining district to follow and to celebrate.
In 1896, a hundred-thousand stampeders journeyed north, following the news of “Gold, gold, gold!” and “The Klondike gold rush begins” in papers from Seattle to San Francisco. Kate and George Carmack, Skookum Jim Mason, Dawson Charlie and Robert Henderson discovered placer gold at Rabbit Creek (later renamed Bonanza Creek) on Aug. 26. Continue Reading →
Five sisters are modern pioneers linked to a colourful prospecting past that includes Carmack, whose lying husband took credit for the Klondike strike and cheated her out of her fortune
During the summer, when by fate of their unpredictable schedules the five Bjorkman sisters actually find themselves together at their parents’ log home on Whiskyjack Lake, Ont., the conversation inevitably turns to rocks.
Jessica Bjorkman, the eldest sister at 38, might, for example, start talking about what she found or didn’t find, or the bear she had to run off, or the view from a B.C. mountain ridge that was so perfect she couldn’t quite believe it was real. Continue Reading →
Northern Exposure is a three-part series that examines how a warming Arctic opens up the Northwest Passage and economic opportunities, but also creates headaches.
Ask Tim Keane to recount his voyage through the fabled Northwest Passage and he’ll spend a good bit of time talking about the things that aren’t there.
“The scarcity of traffic, the vastness of the place, the total remoteness, that’s what I remember,” said the manager of Arctic operations for Montreal-based shipping company Fednav. Press him a bit and he’ll tick off some things that are there: “A few whales, loads of birds, the odd seal.”
But four years after the icebreaker Nunavik hauled a belly full of nickel from Deception Bay, Que., to Bayuquan, China — becoming the first unescorted cargo ship to cross the Northwest Passage — what still grabs Keane most about Canada’s Arctic sea route is its emptiness. Continue Reading →
The following is part two of Northern Exposure, a three-part series that examines how a warming Arctic opens up the Northwest Passage and economic opportunities, but also creates headaches.
The 49-hour drive from FortisBC’s liquefied natural gas facility in Delta, British Columbia to Inuvik, Northwest Territories is not for the faint of heart as it winds through mountain passes and frequent avalanche zones.
Despite the 3,615-kilometre of distance and risks, trucks carrying liquefied natural gas from southern B.C. routinely make the arduous trip to supply the 3,000-person Inuvik, an Arctic outpost close to the Beaufort Sea, with fuel for power generation. An increasing number of remote communities in Canada’s northern region are using LNG as a power source as it’s cheaper and less emissions’ intensive than diesel, which is still widely used.
In the eyes of the Northwest Territories government and the energy industry, it’s painfully ironic that the Beaufort Sea contains an estimated 56 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 8 billion barrels of oil while remote communities such as Inuvik, Iqaluit and many more rely on LNG or diesel shipped in from southern Canada for power. Continue Reading →
The following is part three of Northern Exposure, a three-part series that examines how a warming Arctic opens up the Northwest Passage and economic opportunities, but also creates headaches.
It’s December in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, about 20 degrees below freezing on what is considered a warm day, and for the first winter ever Nicole Maksagak thought she would be driving in the comfort of a Ford F-150 pick-up truck. Instead, she’s making at least eight runs per day on her Ski-Doo to take her four children, aged six to 13, to school, commute to work and run errands.
Maksagak said she might feel better on her snowmobile if she didn’t owe so much money on the 2018 Ford. Her truck, however, is stranded more than 1,000 kilometres away in Inuvik — along with critical supplies ordered by businesses and the town of Cambridge Bay — after shipping traffic in the western Arctic unexpectedly stopped early this fall due to poor ice conditions.
“I’ve never seen my vehicle in person, I never even test drove it,” she said. “But I’m paying for it, and I paid for the insurance, plus the registration.” Her situation shows why shipping is such a flashpoint for tension in Arctic communities since a failed arrival of just about anything has cascading consequences. Continue Reading →
The Klondike Gold Rush helped to define a region, and a second Yukon gold rush is only just beginning to inspire further exploration and mining in the Yukon.
The remote Northwestern Canadian territory of the Yukon is known to people the world over largely due to the events that took place between 1896 and 1899. The Klondike Gold Rush brought tens of thousands of people to the previously barely known region and those four short years created numerous stories of adventure and riches that today live on as legend and define the remote territory.
Over the century since, the Yukon’s mining industry has continued to be the primary source of economic development in the region, as it features a wealth of resources matched by few other places on earth. Today, the Yukon is in the midst of what has been described as a second gold rush, driven by high precious metal values and the discovery of yet another ‘once in a generation’ gold trend. Continue Reading →
Charles Wyndham has been in the diamond industry for over 40 years. He was a director of the CSO, De Beers’ selling arm, before deciding to leave De Beers to set up his own diamond businesses in 1995. He is co-founder of WWW International Diamond Consultants Ltd. (WWW) and is engaged in related businesses, mainly with others whose skills are based on the company’s expertise in technology, the gathering of detailed market information, and a wide range of contacts.
WWW has had a joint venture with the Aboriginal Diamond Group (ADG) through Diamonds International Canada (DICAN) and since 1998 has been the Government Diamond Valuator for the Federal Government of Canada and now for the Government of the North West Territories.
It also acts as the diamond valuator for the Government of Ontario. In 2000, he founded U2 Diamonds Ltd., which owns polishedprices.com, the only polished diamond price list based on multiple sourced actual transactions. Charles holds an MA in jurisprudence from Oxford University. Continue Reading →
