The Golden Highway FOLLOWING THE BREAK

On the side of a tavern along Highway 66 near Kirkland Lake, Ont., the sign reads “Go with the Flow.” The diamond drillers along the Golden Highway that runs from Timmins, Ont., to Val d’Or, Que., dearly wish they could. But the bonanza of flow-through financings has peaked, and the evidence is sprinkled along the highway in drill yards. The diamond drill rigs in their brightly- painted box housings sit in rows in the yards of drilling outfits in and around Val d’Or, Que., for example. In one yard, maybe 10 or 15 rigs are idle; in another, five or seven; in a third, several more are parked. John McAdam, president of McAdam Resources, says the change in exploration strategy within his company reflects the attitude of most junior explorers along the Highway. “We’re typical of most juniors. We’ve halted outside, grassroots exploration. We’re not spending a penny. We’re trying to prove up our deposit here at McWatters and get early cash flow.”

Probably a majority of the rigs that had been drilling only a year ago are silent today, but despair hasn’t settled in. Optimists figure that plenty more rigs will be drilling this fall, that the customarily busy summer field season has shifted to autumn. And while the peak of the boom might be history because of changes to the rules governing flow-through financings, post-flow-through exploration work and relatively healthy metals prices should keep the area buoyant for a while yet.

Beyond that, the fruits of flow- through money, in the form of new producers and near-producers, will buoy the region. A number of new headframes can be seen as you drive the Golden Highway. Not all of them are producers as yet. But some have a fair chance of attaining that status. We visited several of these projects. St Andrew’s Stock Twp.

This project is coming right along. St Andrew aims to have the mill running ore by September, 1989, but during our site visit, Project Co-ordinator J. D. Bryant said it may be earlier than that. Judging by the activity on-site, he may be right. Bermingham Construction of Hamilton, Ont., had driven most of the pilings that will support the mill and its machinery.

A Symons 4 -ft short head cone crusher and a 9×12-ft Allis-Chalmers ball mill were on the property. The Kemco jaw crusher can be delivered within a week of ordering it. The rated capacity of the mill and carbon-in- pulp circuit will be 500 tons per day.

The 3- compartment shaft was sunk several years ago. Mill feed will be provided by two, 3-ton skips. The shaft bottoms at 884 ft. Underground, a crew was conditioning the ground for the loading pocket on the fourth level, which is the deepest part of the mine. The main sump on the fourth has already been excavated. Exploration drifts have been driven on all four levels at 125-vertical-foot intervals.

The mining method to be employed is tight cut-and-fill, largely because of ground conditions. The biggest mineralized zone, the N-2 zone, with reserves of 1.5 million tons grading 0.183 oz gold per ton, sits between a small shear zone called the Minor Break and the larger Porcupine Destor Fault.

“We have to be careful with our mining widths. It’s the sort of ground that you have to monitor carefully,” Bryant told The Northern Miner Magazine. In more competent ground, room and pillar mining or shrinkage stoping is planned. Each level will have a “captive” (no ramps will be driven between levels) Eimco Jarvis Clark 2.2-cu-yd scoop for mucking. Stope access raises and ventilation raises have been bored out.

Chief Geologist Otto Zavesiczky said the N-2 zone, which has been traced to a vertical depth of 1,000 ft., dips between 65 and 90 . Other mineable zones include the M-2, running from just above the first level to just above the second level; M-1, a pipe- like structure that’s been traced from the overburden/bedrock contact to the fourth level; and N-1, which is found only on the first level. A sericitic porphyry complex to the southwest has been identified, but so far it’s been a teaser, running between 0.05 to 0.1 oz gold per ton, Zavesiczky said. Cheminis

Chemenis is one of several projects that are practically within hailing distance of one another on Highway 101 near Virginiatown, Ont. The 85-ft-high Chemenis headframe sits over a 1,084-ft-deep shaft. Golden Shield Resources, the operators of the property, have dewatered the 3-compartment shaft and are currently rehabilitating it. David Price, project supervisor, said the old shaft had been sunk through weak schist material, so rebar, cable bolts, screen and some concreting have all be required to strengthen the rock. New timber will be installed after the ground conditions have improved, and the rehabilitation project should be over by late September.

Exploration work will follow. This will include drifting and the cutting of diamond drill stations. Several zones have been identified. The C zone, for example, on the west side of the shaft, runs from surface down to 695 ft with a total reserve of 150,000 tons grading 0.12 oz gold per ton. This zone tends to be wide and continuous and is associated with the andesitic flow-type ore that was such a rich producer in the Kerr Addison mine that’s situated just down the road to the east. The A and B zones to the east are smaller and tend to pinch and swell, while the D zone, of which the least is known, will be of prime interest in the next phase of underground drilling. That will start some time in November or December, Price said. He estimates another 50,000 ft of drilling will be needed to prove it up.

Fourteen holes have been shot into the D zone to date with grades running between 0.12 and 0.20 over 22 ft. By February or March of next year, Golden Shield should have a good handle on exactly what the D zone comprises. With the limited information at hand now, it seems this zone starts at about 800 ft and goes down to 3,000 ft.

“If it looks good, we’ll deepen the shaft and we’ll also mine the upper zones and have the ore custom-milled at the nearby Kerr Addison mine,” Price said. Golden Shield recently bought the Kerr mine complex.

From the Cheminis C zone, the company extracted a 5,000-ton bulk sample, the assay results of which hadn’t been made public by presstime. The zone was opened up from contact to contact along strike. The dimensions were 12 ft high, 30 to 35 ft wide and 150 ft long. Most of the material came from drift backs and raises.

Cheminis is owned by Golden Shield, Northfield Group and Rockford Minerals. The three companies are also involved in the Barber Larder open pit, east of Cheminis along Highway 66. About 56,000 tons were mined from the Barber Larder and have been processed at the Kerr mill. Armistice

This must rank as one of the more interesting plays along the Golden Highway. Armistice Resources is working on the theory that the big Kerr Addison orebody to the east of the ground held by Armistice was faulted, dropping a big piece of the deposit about 2,000 ft down and displacing it to the west. If the theory proves true, Armistice will have the pleasant prospect of having to deal with an elephant-sized orebody. Apparently, a former Kerr Addison geologist predicted the fault after reviewing a drifting program on the 3850 level that was driven toward the Armistice ground from the Kerr Addison mine.

Drilling to date has picked up traces of ore at the 1,250-ft level, said Meredith Armstrong, the project manager. But underground drilling at that level will be the next step. The existing shaft, which bottoms at 1,281 ft, is being rehabilitated and enlarged to three compartments. At the 3700 level, a fourth compartment will be added so that the shaft can be deepened if need be without disrupting production. The old operation hoisted fully- loaded, one-ton cars to surface. But Armistice plans to use two 8-ton skips. An old Canadian Ingersoll-Rand 10-ft, double drum hoist is on-site and working. An Atlas Copco raise-borer reamed out a ventilation raise and an escape raise from the 1250 level to surface.

Sheldon Larder Mines holds a 24% interest in the property. Kerr Addison

The workings at the old Kerr mine go down 4,600 ft. The new owner, Golden Shield, is aiming to produce 40,000 oz this year. However, there is skepticism over Golden Shield’s ability to keep the mine afloat. Financial results for the first six months of this year showed a 6 -per-share loss, although mine operations broke even, according to Jack Tait, the company’s chief financial officer.

He told The Northern Miner Magazine that the half-year results were skewed by one poor month. Still working on Kerr Addison’s old mining schedule, Golden Shield mined out a block of ore in June that ran no better than 0.025 to 0.030 oz per ton gold. Much tighter controls can now be incorporated because the company has seven geologists on staff where before only a geological technician was on-site. At the time of our visit, three diamond drills were probing the core zone (the area in and around the old mine workings) and another three were testing four other zones — Chesterville (an old mine to the east), Lake, Mill and Town zones.

The Chesterville tops the list in terms of urgency. Old mining records show that ore-grade mineralization rests between 1,600 ft and 1,900 ft below surface. And from Kerr’s own 3800 level, there is some indication that the same zone extends to that depth.

“We’re just theorizing at this point,” Tait said. “Once we’re out there, we’ll start drilling down from the 1900 to see if it is continuous.” Contract miners are driving a drift and crosscuts to that zone now. They should be finished by early November, if not sooner. The geology department, meanwhile, is going through the old Kerr mine records to identify blocks of ore that, though ore-grade now, might have been passed up by earlier mining.

Tait said Golden Shield can make money at a millhead grade of 0.10 oz gold per ton. Starting in 1989, he expects the grade to run 0.12 to 0.125 oz. That can be accomplished by finding areas of higher-grade mineralization and mining them with less costly methods. Currently, about seven different methods of mining are being employed. The most expensive, because of the timbering involved, is underhand square set. In new blocks of ore, Golden Shield hopes to use the less costly shrinkage stoping. In some thicker sections of the orebody, blasthole methods have been used.

The deepest level of the mine currently being worked is the 4400 level. Ore-grade material is associated with an andesitic flow and green carbonated breccia. Some gold is also found in a felsic dike. Andesitic flow ore is usually more consistent and can be as wide as 40 ft. The narrowest portions of the orebody measure 7 to 8 ft across. Roughly 90 mi of workings snake through the orebody.

The Kerr mine’s audited reserves, compiled by Watts, Griffis and McQuat, stand at 838,999 tons grading 0.115 oz gold per ton of proven reserves, another 783,000 tons grading 0.125 oz of probable ore, and a possible reserve of 1,084,000 tons grading 0.10 to 0.14 oz.

Golden Shield recently added a new, $2-million surface crushing plant to process material for custom milling, most of which will come from Golden Shield’s joint-venture projects such as the Barber Larder open pit. The mill is currently operating at 1,200 tons per day at an average millhead grade of 0.10 oz. The Barber Larder ore, which runs 0.17 oz gold per ton, will be fed into the mill at the rate of 6,000 tons per month. Silidor

In the fall of 1985, Noranda Inc. decided to test a geological structure that had been identified by straight aerial photography a few miles west of Rouyn/Noranda, Que. The very first diamond drill hole cut 4.0 m of 10 grams gold per ton, and Noranda embarked on a much larger project almost immediately. Some 280 holes were drilled to a vertical depth of 750 m. By mid-1987, the company could report a major deposit and a shaft sinking and exploration drift development program.

On our visit to the site in mid- August, Project Manager Robert Michaud, said the reserves are 4.9 million tonnes grading 6.0 grams per tonne (0.18 oz per ton) gold, based on a 30% dilution factor (half from the footwall and half from the hangingwall) and a cutoff grade of 3.4 grams per tonne. The average width is 3.3 m over the full strike length, although the ore zone varies widely in thickness and in grade. It pinches and swells both vertically and horizontally.

So far, the zone has been tested from the top of the structure to the 200-m level on 25-m centres and from the 200-m to 400-m level on 50-m and 75-m centres. Below 400 m, the fracture-filled, vein-type deposit has been spot drilled. On each side of the quartz vein is hematized tonalite.

“The mineralized portion is predominantly a quartz vein,” Michaud said. “But there is some mineralization in the hetamized tonalite. The gold is contained in pyrite.” The greater the amount of pyrite, the higher the gold values, he added. The majority of the orebody dips at 55 east. It also plunges a bit to the north and strikes north/south. Towards the south, it starts to steepen to 80 .

Between June and December last year, the head frame, collar house and hoist room were constructed. A Nordberg 10-ft, double drum hoist has been delivered and installed. There is also a temporary sinking hoist. The shaft has been sunk to 420 m, 140 m short of the eventual target, and it has four compartments and a 7-ton skip that is hoisting bulk sample material.

The first station was cut at 60 m, with stations cut every 40 m after that. Exploration drifts, roughly 2.45×2.45 m, will be driven at 100 m, 220 m, 340 m, and 380 m. About 350 m of exploration drifting and slashing have been completed on the 100-m level. Where the ore zone thickens, the drifts were driven as wide as 9 m, but because of ground control problems at that width, Michaud said they’ve decided to confine openings to a maximum 6 m. If the section is wider at that point, crosscuts are driven into the ore, leaving pillars as required.

Underground sampling is intensive. The face is sampled every round with as many as seven samples per round. Test holes 8 ft in length are drilled to each side of the pilot drift and two separate samples are taken from each. “So far, the grades are holding up to expectations. The average grade of a bulk sample of 16,000 tonnes, including 25% dilution, was 6.8 g per tonne,” he said. “We’re comparing quite favorably.”

Exploration drifting is carried out round the clock seven days a week, advancing at the rate of 6 m per day using jack-legs and stopers. Track equipment is used to minimize the size of openings and to keep down exhaust fumes. This relatively narrow- vein structure will require shrinkage stoping to mine it out. However, where the orebody widens out, a sub-level, long-hole method may be possible. This is something that Noranda and the other joint-venture partners will have to study. The best guess currently is that it will be a 1,000- to 1,200- tonne-per-day operation, Michaud said.

The results from the work being done now will lead to a feasibility and possible production decision perhaps later this year. Noranda is the operator and 55% owner of the property. Cambior Inc. holds a 25% interest while Nova Cogesco Resources holds 20%. McWatters

Roughly seven miles east of Rouyn/ Noranda is the McWatters project, owned and operated by McAdam Resources. This former producer has an 85-ft headframe and a shaft that goes down to 400 ft and two winzes that step down in stages to 1,500 ft.

One of the main areas of exploration interest lies in the midst of the Cadillac-Larder Break to the northwest of the shaft in ground never worked by the former operators. McAdam has driven toward the ground from the old workings; however, during our visit, all underground operations had been suspended after McAdam discovered that the crown pillar near the shaft was dangerously thin. Only about 7 ft of bedrock separated an open stope from surface.

President John McAdam predicted that the project would be delayed about four months because of the crown pillar problem, which was discovered in mid-June. At the time of our visit, the company was considering sinking a new shaft to the south of the current one. That could cost about $1.5 million, McAdam said. (Soon after our visit, McAdam was given the go-ahead to continue using the old shaft for exploration purposes.)

Fortunately, the company is relatively well-financed with some strong backing from Muscocho Explorations and Golder Associates has been hired to help deal with the crown pillar problems. McAdam said he is aiming for early cash flow from the property. (The Spud Valley project on Vancouver Island also holds promise of early cash flow.) That means establishing an initial small tonnage reserve at the McWatters property at a grade of about 0.2 oz gold per ton. The J, K and L zones in the Cadillac-Larder Break just might provide that, he said. So far, the zones host a drill-indicated reserve of roughly 200,000 tons grading 0.2 oz. Channel samples have run as high as 0.9 oz gold per ton, while the face in a drift that has penetrated the zone runs 0.3 oz across the full 7 ft of the drift. The zones are open at depth and to the east.

Another area of interest is the 702 zone, located 2,200 ft to the east of the existing shaft. Total possible and drill-indicated reserves from all zones tested stand at 910,869 tons grading 0.189 oz per ton. Also involved in the project are Tashota Nipigon Mines and Quinteko Resources. Siscoe Project

When new people tackle the exploration potential of a former producer, the enterprise often results in surprises. Maufort Resources discovered that recently on its Siscoe project, an old gold mine 6.4 km northwest of Val d’Or, Que., that shut down in 1949. Dewatering had proceeded uneventfully as far as the 14th level, when Maufort found that the existing shaft was plugged below that level. The vertical extent of the caving is not known yet, but Maufort has stopped further underground exploration drilling until more money is provided from a financing this fall.

Gilles Provost, vice-president, exploration, said a clam is digging out the debris in the shaft, and the company is considering driving a raise to bypass the plugged portion of the shaft.

Most of the gold produced from previous mining came from the Main zone and the Siscoe vein, according to Andre Duquette, project co-ordinator. These were typical quartz veins with free gold and rich pockets of ore. Last year, exploration drilling tested new targets from surface and probed for ore-grade values underground. However, Duquette said the strike length of the Main and Siscoe veins decreases at depth. For that reason, the company has not established drill stations at the 13th level to test the extensions of those veins. “We are not expecting good results in the extension of the known veins. We are confident in finding new structures,” he said.

Specifically, Maufort plans to test for structures that would repeat in the same manner as the Main and Siscoe veins but to the west and east of those two known systems. In addition, the K zone, which is known to dip northwest at an average dip of 85 , is a prize target. Duquette believes the K zone, a shear zone rich in talc, chlorite and sericite and which averages 75 ft in thickness, is responsible for the shaft problems, because it moves across the shaft at the 14th level. Test samples on the K zone to the fourth level underground produced low-grade gold mineralization.

Maufort’s joint venture partner is Cambior Inc., which is acting as operator on the Siscoe project.