Suggestion Box A PORTABLE SOLUTION

With the proliferation of flow-through financing, some exploration companies have found it nearly impossible to find a drill rig. In the winter drilling season last year, at least one junior company, Golden Terrace Resources Corp., of Kleinburg, Ont., lost the entire season because no rigs were available. To avoid the same problem this year, the company has taken a 1,000-ob Argo drill rig, which is normally used for underground drilling, and put it, along with an 8-wheel, all-terrain vehicle (atv), into a used school bus. This rather novel solution has resulted in greater equipment mobility, quicker access to drill sites and significant cost savings, according to company geologist Garry K. Smith.

Golden Terrace uses the light-weight drill to pre-test targets on properties in northern Ontario.

The company refitted the bus to carry the Argo, the atv and virtually all the other equipment needed in a drill camp.

“The bus is now a rolling warehouse which we drive to airbases nearest our drill sites, then fly in the equipment.” Smith says. “We airlift the bus in by helicopter and once landed it becomes the transportation for the rig and all other equipment, and men. The Argo has proven itself equal to bogs, swamps, high and low ground and even water.

“From our bus-warehouse base we’ve found we can now move around twice as fast with our portable, lightweight equipment, than with heavier vehicles and rigs, and save time and money in the bargain. Meantime, the bus has been parked at the airbase for security. “Because the bus can carry just about everything the company needs for a drill program, the problem of having exploration equipment scattered `all over the country’ is avoided”, Smith says. Garry Smith submitted this suggestion as a way for other exploration companies to avoid the problem his company encountered last year.

Has your company adopted innovative techniques that others could incorporate? If it has, please send them along to Suggestion Box, care of The Northern Miner Magazine, 7 Labatt Ave., Toronto, Ont. M6R 1H8.