Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Michael Barnes is the author of more than fifty books about characters, communities, mining, and police work. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and makes his home in Haliburton, Ontario, Canada. While living in Northern Ontario most of his life, he has come to know and admire those who make their living in the mining industry.

To order a copy of “Fortunes Found – Canadian Mining Success” go to: General Store Publishing House

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Ontario ‘s Ring of Fire Discovery

Robert studies a week’s menus. Suppers have a minimum of two proteins, two starches, two vegetables, and one dessert, as well as the baked dessert tray. Other lunch and dinner options have three salads and vegetable, cheese, and pickle trays. Some menu items this week include rosemary chicken schnitzel, halibut fillet, roast beef, and barbequed T-bone steaks. A highlight dessert is apple, raspberry, and pear cobbler. Well-fed workers do a good job, and there are no complaints about meals here.

Before dinner, Diane Pohl puts on a fire drill conducted by the Matrix Aviation crew. Fire is a danger in such isolated locations. A small fire is set in a clearing in a forty-five-gallon oil drum. There is a 1,000-foot fire hose ready laid and the pump is on a small pond. Within a couple of minutes it is jetting water, and other workers come running in with portable hand pumps. One is David Carrier, who comes from Marten Falls First Nation. He is a burly man able to do a lot of physical jobs around the camp and is pleased to be able to save money in the camp environment.

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Michael Barnes is the author of more than fifty books about characters, communities, mining, and police work. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and makes his home in Haliburton, Ontario, Canada. While living in Northern Ontario most of his life, he has come to know and admire those who make their living in the mining industry.

To order a copy of “Fortunes Found – Canadian Mining Success” go to: General Store Publishing House

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Ontario’s Ring of Fire Discovery

Bruce gives us a tour and points to other residents. There are twenty drillers, some from Cyr Drilling from Western Canada, but the majority from Orbit Garant, a company from that seemingly inexhaustible supplier of the trade, Val–d’Or, Quebec. There are also three men who operate Devico directional drilling equipment, and their skills can send diamond drill rods slanting off in any desired direction. Caterer 1984 provides food services, and Matrix Aviation Solutions Inc. works to deliver services maintaining camp operation. One 1984 employee is Diane Pohl, who with her occupational first-aid certificate also is Health and Safety Officer, and in her spare time oversees housekeeping services. Her cautionary safety signs are found everywhere, as well as the Noront policy warning that states the camp is alcohol-free and illicit drug-free and advises all on the site that those who ignore this dictum face instant termination.

The camp consists of a combination of thirty-eight tents and green painted plywood cabins. One row of tents is called Sleep Alley, and signs warn passersby that drillers who work in twelve-hour shifts are sleeping. The tents are sixteen by ten feet and, like all the buildings, are well insulated.

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Michael Barnes is the author of more than fifty books about characters, communities, mining, and police work. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and makes his home in Haliburton, Ontario, Canada. While living in Northern Ontario most of his life, he has come to know and admire those who make their living in the mining industry.

To order a copy of “Fortunes Found – Canadian Mining Success” go to: General Store Publishing House

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Ontario’s Ring of Fire Discovery

The hour-long flight offers an overview of small trees, narrow, winding rivers, and small lakes. The aircraft skims along at 283 knots and bumps down on schedule on the dirt runway at Fort Hope, whose traditional name is “Eabmetoong.” This settlement is on a fairly large lake, and the name means “the reversing of the water place.” The pilots stow baggage that accompanies the newcomers. One young mother has her baby in a soft, moosehide-covered tikanagan, the cradle of the Cree. The flight to Landsdowne House or Neskantaga is only about ten minutes. The population is similar to that of Fort Hope, less than 300 persons for this settlement on Attawapiskat Lake. The plane takes off and has another short hop of fifteen minutes before arriving at Webequie, the third dirt runway of the trip.

Although the resident population is only 253 persons, Webequie is an important community, as it is a jumping-off point for northern exploration camps. The band council has taken a 20 percent share in a drilling company, and local entrepreneurs have formed a logistics company to provide services to camp operators. This village is 540 kilometres by air from Thunder Bay.

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Michael Barnes is the author of more than fifty books about characters, communities, mining, and police work. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and makes his home in Haliburton, Ontario, Canada. While living in Northern Ontario most of his life, he has come to know and admire those who make their living in the mining industry.

To order a copy of “Fortunes Found – Canadian Mining Success” go to: General Store Publishing House

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Ontario’s Ring of Fire Discovery

When junior companies take on ambitious exploration projects like the work to develop The Ring of Fire, the rate of burn — the expenditure of hard-won financial investment — is used up at a fast clip. Noront Resources alone spent $19 million in 2009. One industry analyst suggests that the six companies drilling in the area will spend around $250 million over five years on exploration. Since site access is by fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, the budget for transportation is huge.

So it is that the juniors band together in various joint ventures and option agreements, and, since many actually share offices in the same building, there is frequent consultation and shared planning. Nickel ore is considered attractive and would likely bring the fastest payback, but chromite as chrome also has great possibilities for development. If this is the case, concentrate produced on-site could be shipped on the hoped-for road to the south and possibly be processed at a facility set up to produce ferro-chrome, which could be built in Thunder Bay.

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Michael Barnes is the author of more than fifty books about characters, communities, mining, and police work. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and makes his home in Haliburton, Ontario, Canada. While living in Northern Ontario most of his life, he has come to know and admire those who make their living in the mining industry.

To order a copy of “Fortunes Found – Canadian Mining Success” go to: General Store Publishing House

For an extensive list of articles on this mineral discovery, please go to: Ontario’s Ring of Fire Mineral Discovery

Ontario’s Ring of Fire Discovery

As the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Convention came to a close in March 2008, a group of industry influentials crowded the Imperial Room of the Royal York Hotel in Toronto for a luncheon to benefit Mining Matters, the mining education charity.

While they waited for the event to begin, a scratchy version of the stirring Johnny Cash song was played over the public address system. The fundraiser was in aid of charity, but the draw beyond the lunch was a claim-staking venture in the remote James Bay Lowlands, which was initiated in the late 1990s, and the events that followed. The series of properties that sparked the interest was dubbed — some say by Rob Cudney — “The Ring of Fire” because when it was further explored, the target area had the distinct shape of a broken circle or crescent with an original source as magma or molten rock from huge volcanic action.

The Cash song was really about love, but this mining play with the potential to create huge wealth for Canada and the expected much needed jobs and spinoff economic activity conjures up a mixture of emotions. The origin of the interest in the area came when two junior companies, Spider Resources and KWG Resources searched as a team for diamonds in 1997–98. They had optioned promising targets to De Beers, and one of these kimberlite targets was drilled and unexpectedly turned up evidence of copper and zinc.

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