Exploration on the increase in Keewatin District

“It would be very anomalous if there wasn’t a gold mine in there somewhere,” says J. L. Griep, resident geologist for the area with the federal department of Indian and Northern Affairs. “There’s no reason to assume the potential is any less than on the Abitibi belt.”

Nevertheless, the area is only now being given more than a cursory look by exploration companies.

“It’s amazing, really,” says Griep. “It’s easily possible to find showings on open ground that haven’t been touched. In Ontario there would be four or five drill holes put down on any one of those showings.”

The Kaminak greenstone belt, sometimes known as the Ennadai- Rankin Inlet belt, extends about 300 km from Rankin Inlet in the northeast to South Hanik Lake in the southwest. Geologically, the belt lies within the Churchill province and Hearne subprovince.

In 1988 there were 35 prospecting permits issued for the Keewatin District compared to just five in 1987 and 26 in 1986. Most of the increased exploration in the Keewatin is centred on this Archean belt.

While remoteness makes exploration in the Territories riskier than in the provinces, many companies are becoming aware of the fairly easy access to the Keewatin, at least to areas near the Hudson Bay coast. Some of the companies involved (almost all with preliminary programs of prospecting and mapping and with gold as the target) include BHP-Utah Mines south of Kaminak Lake, Sikaman Gold Resources at Maze Lake and Kaminak Lake, Placer Dome southeast of Kaminak Lake and Inco at Wilson Bay. The most advanced gold projects are Dejour Mines and Noble Peak Resources at their Turquetil Lake project and Borealis Exploration at its Fat Lake project.

There are also several uranium exploration projects under way in the area following on the success of Urangesellschaft Canada at its Kiggavik deposit where a feasibility study is being done. Production at Kiggavik is a possibility, but probably not for another four to five years.

Such a development could really open up the area. In the meantime, however, access is not as difficult as in areas of the Territories far inland. There is rail access to Churchill, Man., and access by barge from there to both Eskimo Point, about 150 km north of Churchill, and Rankin Inlet, another 125 km north of Eskimo Point. Eskimo Point and Rankin Inlet are both served by scheduled airline flights and are jumping off points for exploration on the Kaminak belt.

What’s more, working north of the tree line makes it much easier to get around than in the provinces. There aren’t problems with linecutting here and block-staking makes it possible for a single claim to cover anywhere from 50 to 2,500 acres.

The area has problems, however, that those exploring in the provinces don’t face. For example, a huge tract of land that takes in a significant portion of the greenstone belt lies within a Caribou Protection Area. That means air access to exploration camps can be halted with two days notice anytime from mid-May to mid-July if government biologists determine that caribou herds are too close. That can effectively shut down an exploration camp for a few days. In 1988, Borealis, Inco and Noble Peak Resources all suffered shutdowns lasting about six days.

There is also the potential for land claim settlements to have some impact on the area, but there is no indication at the moment that either land claims or the caribou herds will have any significant effect on mineral exploration or development (if development becomes warranted) in the area.

Griep describes the style of mineralization found along the belt as analogous to the carbonate alteration in the Timmins area, in particular, large shear zones with similar alteration. The most successful exploration project to date is probably the Turquetil Lake project, a 50-50 joint v enture with Noble Peak and Dejour. So far, the joint venture has drilled 64 holes with considerable success. Some of the better intersections include: 0306,0400,0400

Core length Oz. gold Hole No (ft.) per ton 88-35 27.9 0.269 88-31 65.3 0.119 88-06 12.8 0.374 76-1* 43.0 0.212 88-02 18.1 0.288 88-04 31.3 0.215 88-54A 45.3 0.227 88-59 17.2 0.282 *drilled in 1976 by Essex Minerals

Stan Robinson, project geologist for Dejour which is operator on the project, says what appeals to him is the extent of alteration and the consistency of gold values. He says one of his colleagues calls the 100,000- acre Turquetil project “the Tundra of the Keewatin,” referring to the Tundra gold project in the MacKenzie District of the Northwest Territories which is known as Canada’s largest undeveloped gold deposit. Comparisons between the two projects on anything other than potential size, however, are probably not warranted.

Most of Dejour’s drilling has been done on the Joyce 1 claim within that large property where a surface showing led to drilling by Essex Minerals in 1976. But Robinson says the potential horizon extends for 30-40 km. Within that horizon there have been anomalous gold values recorded over 15 km.

There are few areas in Canada where such geological potential is still open, but Dejour and Noble Peak were able to go in and stake the ground in 1987 and 1988. The Essex Minerals hole, drilled when base metals were the object of exploration, was appealing. That hole assayed 0.21 oz gold over 43 ft, but gold didn’t raise any interest in 1976.

Some 34,000 ft of diamond drilling conducted in 1988 found continuous gold-arsenide-sulphide mineralization along a strike length of 3,083 ft, according to part of an Exploration Overview report. (The report was written by Robinson, Dejour President Ian Thompson and Mark Waychison and put out by the federal government.) Gold was also intersected in three holes drilled to test a second showing of similar quartz-veined carbonate rich, mafic volcanics at Hook Lake, about 2,296 ft west of and on the geological trend of the Joyce showing.

But the Turquetil project is by no means the only project in the area. Noble Peak has several other projects on the go in the area including its Happy Lake project, about 160 km northeast of Turquetil. Noble Peak has earned a 50% interest in the 150,000-acre property from Borealis. Drilling at Happy Lake has so far returned erratic gold values.

Just south of Happy Lake is Noble Peak’s 100%-owned Southwin project. On the Cache zone on this property, drilling has defined a gold zone over a strike length of 1,640 ft. Some of the better results include 19.4 averaging 0.25 oz, 9.2 ft of 0.31 oz and 22.3 ft of 0.22 oz.

Elsewhere in the area, Borealis has driven a 1,000-ft decline on its Fat Lake project and is talking about a production decision, although proven reserves stand at just 52,500 tons averaging 0.325 oz.

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