In case you missed it: the most-clicked stories of 2013

It’s been a record year of growth for www.northernminer.com, with the site now attracting more than 85,000 visits per month, and almost half a million unique visitors for all of 2013. Here is a selection of the most-clicked stories over the past year:

1. Life after Bre-X  by Trish Saywell (Dec. 31, 2012 – Jan. 6, 2013) John Felderhof looks much thinner than when we first met at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in 2010. The weight loss could be from the heat and humidity of the Philippines, where the 72-year-old lives in a house with a single beaten-up air conditioner in his bedroom.

2. Groia ground down but defiant after Felderhof’s Bre-X trial by Trish Saywell (Dec. 31, 2012 – Jan. 6, 2013) Early in 2012, the Law Society of Upper Canada convicted Toronto securities lawyer Joe Groia of “incivility” during his defense of John Felderhof against quasi-criminal charges laid by the Ontario Securities Commission of insider trading and issuing false or misleading information. 

3. Site visit: Countdown to production at Mount MilliganThompson Creek Metals (TCM-T, TC-N) is building in central B.C. will be a novel operation in many ways. 

4. Canadian Mining Hall of Fame welcomes four more by Alisha Hiyate, Trish Saywell, Salma Tarikh and John Cumming (Feb. 11 – 17/13) Four new inductees — Pierre Lassonde, Gerald Grandey, Chuck Fipke and James O’Rourke — boasting outstanding achievements in the diverse fields of diamonds, gold, uranium and copper joined the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame in the twenty-fifth annual ceremony in Toronto.

5. Site visit: The high-stakes world of Papua New Guinea mining by Ian Bickis (March 4 – 10/13) PORT MORESBY, PNG— Rising out of the sea at the collision of the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates, Papua New Guinea is the stuff of legend for both its geological potential and punishing working environment.

6. ‘This is the beginning of the African decade,’ Friedland says (March 11 – 17/13) Financier Robert Friedland spoke about Africa’s immense potential at a breakfast meeting organized by the Canada-Southern Africa Chamber of Business and MineAfrica at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference.

7. Editorial: Be there at 7 and bring a six-pack by John Cumming (May 13 – 19/13) Do you have a friend who’s so consistently late that you and your buddies always tell him to show up an hour before the real time he’s supposed to be there? 

8. Greenland’s timeless allure by Trish Saywell (July 8 – 14/13) With a receptive government and receding ice, a new exploration frontier is on the rise.

9. Site visit: Probing Chapleau for more than just timber by Anthony Vaccaro (Aug. 19 – 25/13) CHAPLEAU, ONT. — Play the game of word association with anyone who has heard of the small town of Chapleau, located west of Timmins in northern Ontario, and lumber, wildlife and railcars are bound to come up. But Probe Mines (TSXV: PRB) is adding a new word to that list: gold.

10. Editorial: Yukon – The downturn up here by Gwen Preston (Aug. 26 – Sept. 1/13) WHITEHORSE, YUKON — After several scorching hot years of exploration, the Yukon has cooled off.

11. Shawn Ryan’s new Yukon vision by Gwen Preston (Sept. 9 – 15/13) DAWSON CITY, YUKON — Shawn Ryan could have retired. Ryan and his wife, Cathy Wood, are the Yukon prospecting team whose dedicated soil sampling led Underworld Resources to the million-ounce-plus White Gold deposit in 2009, a discovery that sparked a new Yukon gold rush. 

12. Commentary: Ned Goodman and the ‘Botox Economy’ (Sept. 23 – 29/13) Commentary: Ned Goodman and the ‘Botox Economy,’ pt. 2 Ned Goodman, president and CEO of Dundee Corp., spoke about the perils of quantitative easing at the Toronto Resource Investment Conference.

13. Mexico’s mining tax causes concern by Trish Saywell (Sept. 30 – Oct. 6/13) A proposed 7.5% mining tax on companies in Mexico and as much as 8% on those extracting precious metals is creating uncertainty in the industry about investing in a country that until now has been thought of as one of the world’s most attractive mining jurisdictions.

14. Interview: Pretium’s Quartermain on the Strathcona fallout, and the road ahead by John Cumming (Nov. 11 – 17/13) Pretium Resources (TSX: PVG; NYSE: PVG) president and CEO Robert Quartermain about the controversy that’s swirled around the company since the shocking Oct. 8 resignation of highly regarded Strathcona Mineral Services as a consultant at the company’s Brucejack gold project in B.C.

15. Strathcona’s Farquharson on the problem with Brucejack by Gwen Preston (Dec. 2 – 8/13)  Strathcona Mineral Services founder and president Graham Farquharson spoke with The Northern Miner to explain why the company walked away from Brucejack.

16. Editorial: The Cliffs Notes on the Ring of Fire by John Cumming (Dec. 2 – 8/13) Dear Ontario, there’s been way too much off-base and irresponsible commentary in the province about Cliffs Natural Resources’ decision to shelve its Ring of Fire Chromite project. And so, in the spirit of afternoon reality TV and the very best perma-tanned psychiatrists with books to peddle, it’s time we both sat down and you got a little straight talk.