New Horizons: Canada investing $100M to unlock the treasures of the Arctic

The mysteries and treasures of the Arctic have held the attention and imagination of Canadians since the earliest settlers set foot on the continent.

A recent announcement by the federal government to devote $100 million to an Arctic geo-mapping program seeks to unlock these mysteries and exploit whatever treasures may be buried there.

The program, Geo-Mapping for Energy and Minerals, will combine field research and scientific analysis to assess mineral and energy resources and help generate additional investment and economic development in Canada’s Northern communities.

In August, Prime Minister Stephen Harper toured Northern Canada and announced measures that would strengthen the country’s sovereignty over the Arctic.

In an address, Harper called attention to the riches that have already been found in the region.

“We know from over a century of northern resource exploration that there is gas in the Beaufort, oil in the Eastern Arctic, and gold in the Yukon. There are diamonds in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, and countless other precious resources buried under the ice, sea and tundra,” Harper said.

To be invested over the next five years, the funds announced by the government are an extension of the $34-million geo-mapping program announced earlier this year.

The five-year project will bundle together a variety of studies, including mapping of bedrock and rock sampling, aerial surveys, satellite imagery studies and seismic, magnetic, and gravimetric property testing of the rocks, land and seabed. The data will then be analyzed at Canadian research institutions.

Charts and maps will be produced indicating the most economically and environmentally viable areas to explore for mineral deposits.

The program is also expected to advance scientific knowledge about the effects of climate change on the Canadian North.

The government anticipates a five-to-one return in leveraged private-sector investment in resource exploration and development, upwards of $500 million.

In a letter published in The National Post, Jon Baird, president of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, noted that although Canadians began mapping the country more than a century and a half ago, those efforts have yet to provide a concise look at what lies beyond the 60th parallel.

“It is more than a little ironic that the geological mapping of Canada, which was the purpose of the Geological Survey of Canada’s founding in 1842, has 166 years later, still not been completed in Canada’s North,” Baird wrote. “Furthering the work that they started across the northern half of our country will be an important cornerstone of our prosperity for the next one hundred years.”

The Far North is home to several projects, including a few on Baffin Island: Diamondex’s Brodeur diamond project, Peregrine Diamonds’ Chidliak diamond project and Baffinland Iron Mines’ Mary River iron ore project.