Canada Mining – North of 60 – Page 30

[Yellowknife NWT] A Giant’s Legacy: A look at cleanup plans for one of Canada’s most notorious abandoned mine sites (Canadian Mining Journal – June 1, 2019)

June 13, 2019

http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

The Giant mine, located just 5 km from the city centre of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, produced more than 7 million oz. of gold over its entire history, starting in the 1940s.

Through the ore roasting process, the mine also produced an enormous amount of highly toxic arsenic trioxide dust. When the owner of the mine went bankrupt in 1999, the cleanup of the site fell to the federal government.

If the project gets its water licence approved, full remediation could finally get under way in 2021 and be completed in 2030. CMJ spoke to Natalie Plato, deputy director for the Giant Mine Remediation Project in May about the site’s history and progress towards its remediation.

New discovery at Gahcho Kué mine could be good news for N.W.T., company bottom line – by Walter Strong (CBC News North – June 12, 2019)

June 13, 2019

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

The discovery of a new kimberlite pipe at the Gahcho Kué diamond mine could be good news for Mountain Province Diamonds and De Beers Canada, the co-owners of the mine, and for the Northwest Territories.

The diamond bearing, underground rock — named the Wilson kimberlite after Alice Evelyn Wilson, Canada’s first female geologist — is the first kimberlite discovery at Gahcho Kué in 20 years.

It is too soon to say if the new discovery will prove to be economically viable, but Mountain Province CEO Stuart Brown says drill sample results are promising.

Canada’s Northern mining future looks as glorious as our golden past – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – June 7, 2019)

June 7, 2019

https://business.financialpost.com/

Canada’s gold-mining spirit is still alive today, and doing extremely well in Nunavut

Around this time of year, half a century ago, 4,400 feet underground, as an apprentice miner I lugged heavy timbers around dark damp stopes to help tough-talking miners of every nationality drill for gold at the Kerr Addison mine in Virginiatown, 600 kilometres north of Toronto.

I got the job and “apprentice miner” title through the father of a girl I’d met — Claudia was her name — at school in Ottawa. As a native of east end Montreal, I had no idea that Canada was a gold-mining powerhouse.

Even today there is much to learn, including the fact that a few years before my summer job at the mine, Kerr Addison produced 500,000 ounces of gold a year — shipped by rail south to Montreal — and in 1962 it was the largest gold producer in the Western Hemisphere.

Agnico-Eagle may fly Mexican bullion to Canada to skirt Trump tariffs – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg/Financial Post – June 6, 2019)

June 7, 2019

https://business.financialpost.com/

The opportunities in Canada’s North are enormous, but the
country’s leaders need to have a conversation about how
committed they are to fund projects. … As global warming
makes the region more accessible, Canada would do well to
secure its sovereignty claims through its natural resources,
he said. “If we want to have a say on how the North develops,
and how the North is used and utilized, we’d better have a
presence there,” Boyd said. “And the best presence would be businesses.”

If push comes to shove, one of the world’s largest gold miners is prepared to do an end run around the U.S. should President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs on Mexican goods bite.

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. currently produces about 300,000 ounces of gold in Mexico that it refines in the U.S., all of which would likely be subject to the proposed tariffs, Chief Executive Officer Sean Boyd said Wednesday. But he already knows how he’d respond to potential levies.

Agnico Eagle’s mine training program has its critics – by Avery Zingel (CBC News North – May 16, 2019)

May 16, 2019

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

A worker at Agnico Eagle’s Meadowbank Mine in Nunavut says a training program designed to train Nunavummiut allows southern contractors to rise, while Inuit wait for training. Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. operates the Meadowbank open-pit gold mine, north of Baker Lake and the Meliadine mine near Rankin Inlet.

CBC has agreed not to name the worker, who said he fears reprisal from the company. The man has been an employee with the company for over a decade, and said he has never been suspended.

The employee, who is not Inuit, said he is “fed up” with the treatment of his Inuit colleagues. The man said Inuit on his crew are overlooked for higher-paying positions and become frustrated when they are turned down for the training they need to advance.

Study indicates mine contamination not a big health issue for Yellowknifers – by Richard Gleeson (CBC News North – May 15, 2019)

May 15, 2019

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

The most comprehensive study undertaken on the concentration of mine contaminants in people living in the Yellowknife area shows contaminant levels similar to those found in Canadians generally.

“We don’t have any evidence or reason to be concerned about the immediate health effects that we see in other populations that have high levels, like India and Bangladesh,” said Dr. Laurie Chan, the University of Ottawa professor leading the study.

Researchers analyzed tongue swabs, toenail clippings and urine from 2,037 residents of Yellowknife, Ndilo and Dettah. They measured concentrations of arsenic, lead and cadmium. In adults, they found arsenic levels slightly lower than levels measured in Canadians generally. The levels in children were higher than in Canadian children generally, but not high enough to be a concern.

North: Sale of abandoned, contaminated mine site in Yukon gets go-ahead (CBC New North – May 7, 2019)

May 8, 2019

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Yukon Supreme Court approves Alexco/JDS Group plan to purchase Mount Nansen mine site near Carmacks

A polluted mine site that was abandoned two decades ago and once called “an embarrassment to Canada” by a Yukon Supreme Court judge, may have a new owner to clean it up.

The federal government announced Monday that Alexco/JDS Group has been approved by the Yukon Supreme Court to purchase the Mount Nansen site near Carmacks, Yukon, and remediate the site within 10 years. The purchase price has not been made public.

The federal government would oversee and pay for the cleanup work, but Alexco/JDS will do the job and then own the site. It’s a similar arrangement to what the company has at Yukon’s Keno Hill district.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Canada’s claim to the Northwest Passage is ‘illegitimate’ – by Mike Blanchfield (Canadian Press/National Post – May 7, 2019)

May 7, 2019

https://nationalpost.com/

Pompeo’s statement is described as a ‘stunning rebuke’ of the 1988 Arctic Co-operation agreement reached by Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan

OTTAWA — Canada’s claim over the Northwest Passage is “illegitimate,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday in a major speech to the Arctic Council that Canadian experts called both provocative and frequently inaccurate.

Pompeo offered his characterization during a wide-ranging speech in Finland in which he also warned against China’s increased Arctic presence, saying it threatens North American security and could be harmful to the environment.

Pompeo reiterated long-held concerns about Russia’s military build-up in the Arctic and how that, too, is viewed as being counter to American security interests.

Agnico Eagle’s Meliadine mine set to start commercial production – by Jim Bell (Nunatsiaq News – May 1, 2019)

May 2, 2019

https://nunatsiaq.com/

Inuit orgs could rake in nearly half a billion from Agnico Eagle’s Kivalliq operations

Following the pouring of its first bar of gold last February, the Meliadine gold mine near Rankin Inlet will start commercial production this month, Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. said last week in its financial statements for the first quarter of 2019.

The processing plant at Meliadine has already produced 17,582 “pre-commercial” ounces of gold. And by the end of this year, AEM hopes to produce about 230,000 ounces, the company said.

The long-awaited Meliadine mine, which cost more than $900 million in capital expenditures, is expected to require about 900 employees, at least 350 of whom will be Inuit. “Three underground mining areas are now in operation, with operations in a fourth area expected to commence in the second quarter of 2019,” the company said.

Glory to ghost; the 25-year NWT zinc town – by A.J. Roan (North of 60 Mining News – April 26, 2019)

April 26, 2019

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

Like many single-industry towns, once the well dries up, people seek greener pastures. However, the residents of a place many probably have never even heard of hold on to the remnants of their past. For them, it was an important and irreplaceable land, it was their home.

Pine Point, Northwest Territories, was a town located 10 kilometers (6 miles) inland from the south shore of Great Slave Lake and 87 kilometers (54 miles) east of Hay River. Cominco Ltd. (now Teck Resources Ltd.) explored the area around Pine Point as early as 1929 but it wouldn’t be for at least thirty years until development would begin and the plans for a settlement established. Production started in 1965.

Cominco built its own townsite which became known as Pine Point. It became a territorial settlement with private businesses and boasted a population of nearly 2,000 at its peak. By the mid-1980s depressed prices caused economic difficulties for the mine. Cominco shut down operations in the summer of 1987, although it continued to mill until the following spring.

Northerners aren’t ready to cash in on $1B Giant Mine cleanup, oversight board says – by Alex Brockman (CBC News North – April 24, 2019)

April 25, 2019

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

The $1-billion cleanup of Giant Mine will be one of the largest economic projects in the Northwest Territories, but northerners aren’t ready to take advantage of it, according to the latest report from the board overseeing the project.

The ongoing project could be a boon to northern contractors and workers, with $36.3 million spent in 2017-18 and $40.3 million in 2016-17 for care and maintenance work, such as tearing down buildings, repairing electrical equipment and keeping the site safe.

But only 20 per cent of the workers on those projects were from the North and only four per cent Indigenous, continuing downward trends from previous years, the Giant Mine Oversight Board reported in its 2018 annual report, released Tuesday.

Agnico bets on high grade gold as it digs in Canada’s remote north – by Nichola Saminather (Reuters U.S. – April 23, 2019)

April 25, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO (Reuters) – Agnico Eagle Mines is doubling down this year on Nunavut, Canada’s least developed territory, betting that the high-grade gold ores and slim competition there will offset the risks of digging in the remote location in the far north.

For miners desperate to shore up reserves, the choice is often between safer jurisdictions with inhospitable geographies and easier-to-reach ores in politically challenging locations. Investors have been rewarded for backing Agnico’s strategy.

The company’s shares have surged 71 percent over the past five years, trouncing the 0.3 percent gain in the benchmark S&P/TSX Global Gold Index. They believe the company is making the right move again, thanks to high-grade ores in Nunavut and Agnico’s 12 years’ experience in the Arctic territory.

CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS ICE ROADS. SATELLITES COULD HELP – by Nick Stockton (Wired Magazine – April 18, 2019)

April 18, 2019

https://www.wired.com/

FOR A FEW months each winter, Canada’s Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road is the world’s longest ice highway, a 300-plus-mile network of frozen lakes that connects lucrative diamond mines in Canada’s Northwest Territories to supplies from the nation’s not-quite-so-far north.

But warmer winters and earlier springs have shortened the road’s open season by up to two weeks over the past decade. The loss of the road for even such a short time is very expensive, because the only other way to reach these mines is by air.

Salvation may come from space. A Canadian researcher has demonstrated that radar emitted from satellites can peer through the ice, determining not just its thickness but also its quality. (Does it have a lot of bubbles?

EDITORIAL: Support mines that support Nunavummiut (Nunavut News – April 17, 2019)

April 18, 2019

Nunavut News

Whether you notice it or not in your daily life, all reports show a glittering economic forecast for Nunavut. Speaking at the Nunavut Mining Symposium, Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz noted that the territory is set for the strongest growth among all territories and provinces for 2019, at a rate of nine per cent.

“That’s pretty spectacular stuff,” Poloz said. “That’s not some fiction, that’s real.” Nunavut’s senior economist Francois Picotte piled on the good news, noting the territory will see very high growth for the next four years.

All of this is thanks to mining, which is becoming such an economic force in Nunavut that it will surpass even government in its weight in the territorial economy.