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Canada Mining – North of 60

Boom times ahead for Yukon and Nunavut, but not N.W.T., report says (CBC News Canada North – November 15, 2018)

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

New mines will mean strong economies in Yukon and Nunavut until 2025, Conference Board of Canada says

Good times are in store for Yukon and Nunavut in the coming years, according to a new economic analysis by the Conference Board of Canada. N.W.T., not so much.

The board’s economic forecast for the territories, released Thursday, predicts strong growth in Yukon and Nunavut between now and 2025, saying the two territories will outpace much of the country in terms of growth. The N.W.T.’s economy, however, is expected to contract over that period, making that territory one of the weakest economic performers in the country, the board says.

The territorial forecast is based on a number of factors, including government spending, consumer behaviour, and population trends, but the main determinant for northern economies is still mining activity.

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Western Nunavut gold mine project gets review board’s final approval – by Jane George (Nunatsiaq News – November 13, 2018)

http://nunatsiaq.com/

Project now needs licence from Nunavut Water Board

TMAC Resources Inc. can move ahead with plans to expand its existing gold mine in western Nunavut, now that it has received a project certificate from the Nunavut Impact Review Board for Phase 2 of its Hope Bay Belt Project.

But the project certificate, issued on Nov. 9, comes with a caveat: TMAC will report and examine “barriers and opportunities to achieving high levels of Inuit employment.” The certificate follows the board’s review of the project’s potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. This was accepted, with some recommendations, by the responsible federal ministers in October.

The project certificate applies to the development of three gold mines and related infrastructure at Hope Bay, located about 150 kilometres southwest of Cambridge Bay and 700 km northeast of Yellowknife.

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Yukon gov’t’s decision on Dawson City mining claims ‘expropriation’, agent claims – by Alexandra Byers (CBC News Canada North – November 9, 2018)

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

Darrell Carey’s placer claims in Dawson City overlap town’s cross-country ski trail network

Darrell Carey’s former agent says a Yukon government decision regarding the miner’s claims in Dawson City is “nothing short of expropriation.”

Carey had applied to the Yukon Environmental and Socio-Economic Assessment Board (YESAB) to operate a placer mine over 34 claims on the east bench of the Dome. The claims overlap the town’s cross-country ski trail network, which, according to Carey’s former agent Randy Clarkson, were actually developed on old mining exploration trails.

In its decision document issued Wednesday, the last step in the process, the government approved YESAB’s recommendation of 21 strict conditions on Carey’s mining operation, but eased the restrictions in five of them.

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Excerpt from “Wealth Woman: Kate Carmack and the Klondike Race for Gold” – by Deb Vanasse (October 29, 2018)

Kate Carmack was recently inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame for her part in discovering the Klondike gold fields. She is the first Aboriginal woman inducted into the Hall of Fame. Deb Vanasse has written the definitive story of Carmack’s fascinating life. Click here to order a copy of “Wealth Woman: Kate Carmack and the Klondike Race for Gold”: https://amzn.to/2yF7wZs

Deb Vanasse is an American writer of seventeen books, many of which are set in Alaska. She first became interested in the story of Kate Carmack when she hiked the “meanest miles” of the Chilkoot Trail, where as a young woman Kate packed for prospectors over the summit. After 36 years in Alaska, she now lives in Oregon, where she continues to write while doing freelance editing, coaching, and writing instruction. She is a co-founder of 49 Writers. www.debvanasse.com

Gold I Bring – Excerpt from Chapter One

The Roanoke is loaded with gold. Bags, cans, boxes, and crates cram its lower deck, jammed with a whopping ten tons of the precious metal panned and sluiced by lucky devils in the northern wilderness. Only a year ago, few had heard of the patch of low mountains and dense northern spruce now known as the Klondike. But these days, like an incantation of magic, the very word Klondike invokes abundance, the vindication of the American dream and the triumph of the individual in its most measurable manifestation: wealth.1

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Feds give nod to expansion plan for western Nunavut gold mine – by Jane George (Nunatsiaq News – October 15, 2018)

http://nunatsiaq.com/

But “high levels of Inuit employment” sought at TMAC Resources’ Madrid-Boston project

CAMBRIDGE BAY—The planned expansion for TMAC Resources Inc.‘s gold mine near Cambridge Bay has cleared one of its final hurdles.

On Friday, Caroline Bennett, minister of Crown-Indigenous relations, and Dominic LeBlanc, minister of intergovernmental and northern affairs and internal trade, issued a letter saying they accepted the Nunavut Impact Review Board’s recommendation to issue a project certificate for the company’s proposed Madrid-Boston project.

Last June, the review board spelled out 39 recommendations for the project. In their letter, dated Oct. 10, the ministers accepted all the terms and conditions recommended by the review board. But they agreed with a call from the Kitikmeot Inuit Association to tweak one recommendation on Inuit employment, so TMAC will now be obliged, through various committees, to report and examine “barriers and opportunities to achieving the high levels of Inuit employment.”

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Looking up, up north: The territories reap tangible and intangible benefits from their biggest industry – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – October 5, 2018)

http://resourceclips.com/

Nunavut’s environmental review said no to a mining proposal but Ottawa said yes. What happened? Hoping to finally make a profit at its four-year-old Mary River operation, Baffinland Iron Mines asked permission to boost production from 4.2 million tonnes annually to six million tonnes.

Worried about possible environmental effects, the Nunavut Impact Review Board recommended in late August that the federal government reject the proposal. But it was the NIRB recommendation that got rejected. Five cabinet ministers approved the mine’s request, for the time being anyway.

Swaying the decision was the support of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, whose members “strongly support the Production Increase Proposal as a method of furthering Inuit aspirations in the region,” Ottawa stated. Support also came from Nunavut Premier Joe Savikataaq, who urged a swift decision in favour.

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Kate Carmack will be joining nation’s mining hall of fame (Whitehorse Star – October 11, 2018)

https://www.whitehorsestar.com/

The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame (CMHF) will welcome five individuals who have made lasting contributions to Canada’s mining industry – including a Yukon legend.

Kate Carmack is included in the inductees. She will be joining the Klondike Discoverers, who were originally inducted as a group in 1999. The group included George Carmack, Robert Henderson, Skookum Jim Mason and Dawson Charlie.

Each have traditionally been credited with the discovery that led to the Klondike Gold Rush, which would essentially establish the Yukon. New information has been uncovered that Kate Carmack also played an integral role in the discovery.

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Yukon mine a year away from pouring 1st gold bar – by Mike Rudyk (CBC News North – October 1, 2018)

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

Victoria Gold is well on its way to building the newest large-scale gold mine in North America

Victoria Gold Corporation’s president John McConnell says he still can’t believe he will be pouring the first gold bar from Yukon’s Eagle Gold mine just a year from now — in October 2019.

The mine site, about 80 kilometres north of Mayo, was busy through the summer with the arrival of new heavy machinery. “I have to pinch myself,” said McConnell.

“It’s quite the undertaking for a company the size of Victoria [Gold]. It’s one thing for a company like Goldcorp or Teck Resources to build a mine with all their resources. But we are a small little company and we are doing it.

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Barrick and Randgold in talks on $18bn tie-up – by Henry Sanderson and Neil Hume (Financial Times – September 23, 2018)

https://www.ft.com/

Merger would create leading gold producer as sector struggles to attract investors

Canada’s Barrick Gold is in talks to merge with Randgold Resources, its London-listed rival, in a $18bn deal that would create the world’s leading gold producer, according to reports.

The discussions between Barrick and Randgold follow a dismal year for the sector, which has struggled to attract the interest of investors.

Shares in Barrick have dropped 25 per cent amid criticism of its strategy, while Randgold has fallen 34 per cent as it has struggled with a number of operational issues, including a strike at one of its biggest mines.

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Chamber of mines responds to allegations made at MMIWG hearings – by Alex Buchan (Nunatsiaq News – September 20, 2018)

http://nunatsiaq.com/

Alex Buchan is the V.P Chamber—Nunavut N.W.T. and Nunavut Chamber of Mines.

I wish to respond to the recent Nunatsiaq News story regarding violence against women in mining (“Sexual violence a spinoff of Nunavut’s mining industry: MMIWG hearings,” Sept. 13, 2018).

This article makes substantial reference to expert testimony from an Iqaluit resident—TJ Lightfoot—to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls held in Iqaluit last week.

With great respect to the actual professional credentials of this expert, Lightfoot is not an expert on mining in Nunavut. In fact, I understand Lightfoot is a youth services worker. As such, these views cannot be relied upon in considering the risk to women that may, or may not, be posed by resource development in our territory.

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De Beers makes further inroads into Canadian diamond market as global discoveries prove elusive – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – September 17, 2018)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

De Beers Group has high hopes for a small Canadian diamond project, as the world’s biggest diamond producer by value seeks to redress a global dearth in new discoveries and further diversify outside of its African base.

Last week, De Beers, which is controlled by global diversified miner Anglo American PLC Group, closed its acquisition of Vancouver-based Peregrine Diamonds Ltd., owner of the Chidliak project in Nunavut. De Beers paid $113-million for the junior, which was founded by Eric Friedland, brother of famed mining financier Robert Friedland.

Chidliak has 74 known kimberlite formations, a rare type of rock that can contain diamonds. According to a preliminary economic estimate (PEA), the inferred resource contains about 22 million carats, about two-thirds of De Beers annual production. It’s not yet known whether the resource can be profitably developed, but the PEA pegs the cost of building a mine that would last 13 years at $521-million.

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[Yukon Mining] Coffee Gold project prepares for 2021, with support of Tr’ondek Hwech’in – by Philippe Morin (CBC News Canada North – September 13, 2018)

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

First Nation says Coffee Gold owner Goldcorp is hearing its concerns

Leaders from Yukon’s Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation got a tour of Goldcorp’s Coffee Gold project near Dawson City this week — and so far, they like what they’ve seen. The exploration camp at Coffee Creek, about 130 kilometres south of Dawson City, is a busy place these days, with crews already working in shifts 24-hours a day.

In a few years, it could be even busier — Goldcorp is proposing to open a large-scale gold mine by 2021, employing hundreds of people. The project is still under review by the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB).

The Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation is now on board with the project. Last April, it signed a “collaboration agreement” with Goldcorp, which includes a number of benefits for the First Nation — such as jobs, contracts, and training for First Nation citizens.

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Reaching arctic mines by sea: Operating in northern Canada often means creating your own transportation routes – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – September 10, 2018)

http://resourceclips.com/

Amid all the controversy over spending $4.5 billion of taxpayers’ money to buy a pipeline project whose $9.3-billion expansion might never go through, Ottawa managed to come up with some good, if relatively minor, infrastructure news.

Rehab work will begin immediately on an idled railway connecting with a port that together linked Churchill, Manitoba, with the rest of Canada by land and the world by sea. Should all go to plan the private-public partnership would be one of just a few recent success stories in northern infrastructure.

Denver-based owner OmniTRAX shut down Churchill’s deep-water port in 2016, blaming the demise of grain shipping through that route. The following year the company said it couldn’t afford rail repairs after a flood washed out sections of the line.

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Coffee mine proposal clears information adequacy stage – by Julien Gignac (Yukon News – September 5, 2018)

Yukon News

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB) says it now has adequate information about Goldcorp’s proposed Coffee gold mine to proceed to an assessment.

A public comment period opened late last month and will close on Oct. 15, after which the public will have the opportunity to parse through a draft report. This development marks a big shift in a roughly two-year saga.

The mining company had an incomplete proposal package until this point. The board found that the company didn’t properly consult with First Nations, nor did the board have adequate information to move ahead. But now it does.

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Environmental permitting needs more flexibility, says Yukon placer miner – by Dave Croft (CBC News Canada North – September 4, 2018)

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

Stuart Schmidt says the adversarial nature of the permitting process is dividing Yukoners

A longtime Yukon placer miner says the territory’s environmental regulations are dividing Yukoners when they should be building bridges.

Stuart Schmidt is reacting to concerns about placer mining’s effects on wetlands in the Indian River and its tributaries, about 30 kilometres south of Dawson City.

The Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation is asking the Yukon Water Board to hold a public hearing about mining on undisturbed wetlands in the Indian River valley. The request is part of an intervention on 5582 Yukon Ltd.’s application for water and land use approvals on hundreds of claims.

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