Canadian Arrow has quite a history

I searched the Internet for information about shares in a mine called Golden Arrow Mines Limited. My father lived in New York when he was a kid. He got some shares in this company from his mother before she died in 1950. The share document is dated May 2, 1945. Do you have any information about this mine?

Torfinn KnutsenLyngdal, Norway

Golden Arrow Mines was incorporated in 1938 in Ontario. It was put together by mining promoter Viola MacMillan to take over the interests of a predecessor company called Golden Arrow Mining. It held claims in the Porcupine and Larder Lake mining divisions in northeastern Ontario.

Funding for exploration was hard to find in the 1940s, and Golden Arrow was inactive for most of that period. By the end of the Second World War — about the time your grandmother got her shares — Golden Arrow had put together an exploration program and some money to drill its prospect near Ramore, Ont. In 1946, the company started sinking an exploration shaft, and in 1947 it acquired a property near Slocan, B.C. But it ran low on money and did little or no exploration in the late 1940s and early ’50s.

In 1953, the shares were consolidated, with four of Golden Arrow traded for one share of Consolidated Golden Arrow. Control of the new company rested in a 54% block of shares held by MacMillan’s Violamac Mines.

Consolidated Golden Arrow retained the Ontario properties and much of the same management, while its British Columbia property was spun-off into a related company called Slocan Rambler Mines. It held a uranium property in the Beaverlodge area of northern Saskatchewan in the 1950s, which was the only one it actively explored.

By 1960, it held 13 claims in the Dogpaw Lake area, southeast of Kenora, Ont., and a base metal prospect near Matagami, Que. It still had its Ramore claims, though it had let the Beaverlodge ones go.

During the ’60s, most of the prospects remained idle. The company picked up an iron prospect in Nevada in 1963, which (curiously enough) reappeared as a gold prospect a few years later.

It also owned shares in the infamous Windfall Mines, which was at the centre of a stock-trading scandal in 1964. Arrow had sold its Windfall holding in the same year. Five years later, Viola MacMillan and her husband George were finally acquitted of fraud charges over the Windfall scandal. By that time, Viola had already been convicted (and later pardoned) of another securities offence: wash-trading, that is, the simultaneous buying and selling of a stock to create either the impression of volume, or an artificial price. The stock? Consolidated Golden Arrow.

In 1970, Consolidated Golden Arrow was reorganized and renamed Canadian Arrow Mines (ycl-v), which is still an active company. There was no share consolidation, so a certificate from Golden Arrow now represents one-quarter as many shares in Canadian Arrow.

The company still had the same prospects and optioned the Dogpaw Lake claims to Noranda (nrd-t) in 1974. With the gold price going up, Pamour Porcupine Mines, then a subsidiary of Noranda, looked at bringing the Ramore claims into production as a source of feed for its mill. In 1975, a feasibility study on the deposit indicated it wasn’t economic to mine, and Pamour discontinued test milling.

Canadian Arrow moved into another stable in 1980, when Pamour took up a 46% holding; MacMillan interests continued to hold around 16%. In 1988, as that decade’s gold boom faded, Pamour had exited, with control passing to a fund called First Toronto Capital. John Larche, a well-known prospector in Timmins, Ont., took over the company in 1990. It still held the Dogpaw and Ramore claims.

Canadian Arrow now trades on the Canadian Venture Exchange under the ticker symbol ycl and is based in Timmins. Larche owns 58% of the company and serves as president.

The company’s principal mineral interest now is the Halliday Dome property, 70 km south of Timmins, where it held a block of leased claims. An associated company, also run by Larche, Moneta Porcupine Mines (me-t), had made a deal that allowed Arrow to earn a 100% interest in 89 adjoining claims owned by Moneta.

Arrow drilled 10 holes on the property between January and April of this year, for a total of 2,016 metres of drilling. Two of the holes found what the company described as “elevated” base metal concentrations. The drill program was enough to earn Arrow a full interest in Moneta’s claims, and it plans further work.

The company’s address is 85 Pine Street South, Suite 104, Timmins, Ont. P4N 2K1. Arrow can be reached by phone at (705) 264-2296 or by fax at (705) 267-7490. It does not have its own web site, but some information and an e-mail contact can be found at Moneta Porcupine’s web site, which is http://www.monetaporcupine.com

If you have enough shares to be worth transferring, you can send your certificate to the company’s transfer agent, Equity Transfer Services, which is at 120 Adelaide Street West, Suite 420, Toronto, Ont. M5H 4C3. Equity’s web site is http://www.equitytransferservices.com. The agent will issue you a new certificate for your shares in Canadian Arrow.