Exploration ’88 PICKLE LAKE PICKS UP

During the past three years, exploration expenditures have increased fourfold in the Pickle Lake, Meen Dempster and North Caribou areas of northwestern Ontario. By any measure, the money that has been lavished on the area has yielded several notable successes. Last year, 670,000 man-days of assessment were recorded in the Sioux Lookout offices of the province’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. At about $45 per day, that translates into $30.1 million for the year. But resident geologist D. A. Janes feels that that figure might be understating the case. “At least $40 million was probably spent,” he asserts. Such a high level of staking and exploration has not been seen since the days of the Sturgeon Lake rush in the 1970-72 period, and Janes’s $40-million estimate stands in sharp contrast to the $7 million spent exploring the area in 1984.

“In general, the amount of exploration has been fantastic, and it was generated mostly by flow-through financing and omep.” (Omep is the acronym for the Ontario Mineral Exploration Program, which partially subsidizes mineral exploration work.)

The bottom line to this record spending — all of it poured into the hunt for gold — has been the discovery of three gold deposits and the delineation of large reserves at a formerly producing mine. By the early 1990s, the area could have four mines in operation, producing more than 200,000 oz of gold per year.

The most advanced projects are those operated by St. Joe Canada and Placer Dome. St. Joe plans to bring a mine on-stream by the third quarter of this year. Reserves total 800,000 tons grading 0.61 oz gold per ton. Included in this inventory are more than 300,000 tons of proven and probable reserves grading 0.88 oz gold per ton.

This discovery, known as Golden Patricia, is 35 miles west of Pickle Lake. It was made public in the spring of 1986 and became the primary catalyst behind the resurgence of exploration in the area. At that time, St. Joe was busy with a large exploration program examining several target areas within the Meen Dempster belt, a remote area west of Pickle Lake.

Today, the company controls more than 2,000 claims and has come up with another discovery, five miles west of Golden Patricia. Known as the Dobie deposit, this find has reserves totalling 360,000 tons grading 0.14 oz gold per ton.

Just five miles southeast of Pickle Lake, Placer Dome is busy building a mine and mill which are scheduled for start-up next year. Discovered in 1984, the Dona Lake deposit, like Golden Patricia, is the end result of diligent exploration in a region known for hosting iron-formation-associated gold deposits. Costing $40 million, the Dona Lake mine will produce 40,000 oz of gold per year from reserves totalling 1.87 million tons grading 0.2 oz gold per ton.

The largest in-situ gold resources are found at two other Pickle Lake area projects that are still in the exploration phase. Immediately northeast of town, Noramco Mining Corp. is in the final stages of a surface and underground exploration program on the formerly producing Pickle Crow and Central Patricia gold mines. From 1935 to 1965, the mines together produced more than two million ounces of gold from ore averaging 0.42 oz gold per ton.

Work completed by Highland Crow Resources, which merged with Noramco late last year, has outlined reserves in all categories of 7.3 million tons grading 0.226 oz gold per ton. When the mine was shut down in 1966, Teck Corp., which owned the property, estimated that remaining probable reserves totalled 154,177 tons grading 0.33 oz gold per ton. Teck remains an important shareholder of Noramco. Noramco’s objective is to have the Pickle Crow properties back in production by 1989.

As at Dona Lake, gold is associated with pyrite-rich and pyrrhotite-rich ironstones, which strike for several thousand feet across the property and display a depth component of at least 4,000 ft. High-grade gold is also found in crosscutting quartz veins — a feature absent at Dona Lake.

The association of gold with ironstone is a key guide to exploration in the camp. As a result, juniors and seniors have staked every prominent magnetic anomaly. In the North Caribou belt, 50 miles north of Pickle Lake, drilling of strongly folded ironstones by Placer Dome and a consortium of partners has given renewed life to the Musslewhite project. Other partners include Lacana Mining (17%), Esso Minerals (24%) and Inco Gold (24%). Previous exploration on the original Musslewhite showing outlined 3.2 million tons grading 0.17 oz gold per ton. However, underground exploration results from a program completed in 1984 were generally disappointing. Nevertheless, encouragement followed from an exploration program on the East Bay area, fewer than two miles east of the original Musslewhite deposits. Here, two drill holes cut economic sections of gold mineralization from strongly folded sulphide- rich ironstones.

To date, exploration has outlined four discrete mineralized zones. The new discoveries have increased reserves to more than six million tons grading 0.203 oz gold per ton. Underground exploration, followed by a feasibility study, could be completed by late 1989, says Ronald Stewart, a Placer Dome geologist.

The combination of four future gold mines has naturally attracted numerous companies to both the Pickle Lake and North Caribou areas. One of the earliest entrants to the camp, in 1980, was Power Explorations along with affiliates Moss Resources and Van Horne Gold. Headed by geologist Harry Hodge, the group holds varying interests in more than 2,500 claims. “He (Hodge) is one of the movers up there,” Janes says. “His companies performed a tremendous amount of work — more exploration than any other single company.”

This combined effort translates into seven drills in service this winter. The top-priority property is the Opapimiskan Lake project, adjacent to the Musslewhite project in the North Caribou belt. Drilling by Power has identified six gold mineralized zones which have yielded generally good results. (For example: 0.68 oz gold per ton across 16.5 ft and 0.49 oz gold across 5 ft. Another high-grade assay of 2.09 oz gold per ton in a 5-ft section has also been intersected.)

The new gold discoveries with production potential and favorable geology have revitalized Pickle Lake, Janes says. And with four future mines in production, the benefits to this area are expected to continue long after exploration programs driven by flow- through shares are gone.