QUERY — Records show Peterson Red Lake remains dormant

My late father was involved in mining most of his life, and after going through some papers I have come across three different mining stocks which I think are now defunct — but before I destroy the correspondence, I would like to know if you have any information on Peterson Red Lake Mines, Hearne Yellowknife Mines, and Alcon Exploration.

Bonny Notter,

Penticton, B.C.

Both Hearne Yellowknife Mines and Alcon Exploration are no longer in existence.

Hearne Yellowknife was one of those companies that burned brightly for a season — in its case, the drilling season of 1946. The company had three properties in the Yellowknife gold belt in the Northwest Territories — one which it owned outright, a 32-claim block in the Gordon Lake area; and two others, one in the Johnson Lake area and the other near Indin Lake, where it had part interests.

The 1946 Canadian Mines Handbook says the properties had undergone some “preliminary exploration” by mid-1946, and that further work was planned, but by May 1947 the company was inactive. It held on to the properties until at least the late 1950s, but by 1964 the Handbook described it as “idle, no properties.” The charter was cancelled in November 1973.

Alcon Exploration never appeared in the Handbook and could have been a private company with a limited number of shareholders. We can find nothing about it other than that its charter was cancelled in November 1970.

The other company appears to exist, but has been dormant since the 1970s. Peterson Red Lake Mines, incorporated in Ontario in 1964, was for a time listed on the Winnipeg Stock Exchange. The company held a gold exploration property in Balmer and Byshe twps., Ont., in the eastern part of the Red Lake gold camp.

Peterson drilled the prospect in 1965 and 1966, and then did more surface work, culminating with more drilling in 1975. The company was delisted from the WSE in 1971, when it was trading in the range of 8-9 cents.

Presumably the company ran out of money, because it did no further work and the property lapsed. The ground has since been overstaked and Goldcorp (G-T) has the claims.

Peterson Red Lake seems to have sunk without a trace, but there is no record of its corporate charter being cancelled. Its value as a “corporate shell” is probably pretty low, since it lost its exchange listing 28 years ago, but there is at least an off-chance it could be resurrected.