‘You’re always a drill hole away from an immense discovery’: Pirie (2024)

Timmins MPP George Pirie, Ontario’s minister of mines was engrossed in conversations with three promising junior mining operations in the Prospector’s Tent at the 2024 Canadian Mining Expo on Thursday, June 6.

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“That’s what excites me about the mining industry,” Pirie told the Daily Press before heading off to give the Ontario State of Mining Address. “You’re always a drill hole away from an immense discovery.”

According to the Ministry of Mines, the Timmins-Porcupine gold camp is the largest producer of gold in Ontario.

Last year Ontario allocated $6 million to support junior minors (who explore mining deposits), bringing the province’s total investment in their junior mining program to $35 million since 2021.

Pirie spoke at length with Nico Kastek from Gold Candle Ltd.’s Kerr-Addison Mine Project. The historic mine produced 11 million ounces of gold between 1938 and 1996.

Based on their drilling to date, the company thinks a revived Kerr-Addison mine could possibly yield a few million ounces of gold.

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“Kerr-Addison was the only mine in the Kirkland Lake camp that raised over 10 million ounces out of traditional production,” Pirie said.

“Kerr-Addison was a special mine. It always used to compete with the Hollinger in the late 50s-early 60s as Canada’s largest gold mine,” he said, adding that Hollinger produced 20 million ounces, McIntyre was 10 million ounces, and the Dome Mine produced over 15 million ounces up to that point in time.

“What has me interested in the Kerr-Addison is the reinterpretation of new structures that contain potentially new gold deposits, but also, to the north, they’re telling me they’ve got nickel deposits associated with the Larder Lake Fault…when you’re talking about new nickel deposits in a gold camp, it sounds like a similar story with what you have here in Timmins, with nickel deposits in traditional gold territory,” said Pirie, who was a senior mining executive for over 35 years.

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The Kerr-Addison mine was one of the top three Canadian gold mines in Canada as early as the 1940s, mining out high grade, narrow veins.

Gold Candle Ltd., based in Virginiatown, east of Kirkland Lake, is now concentrating on the gold that was left behind, that was too low grade for previous mining methods.

Extraction and refining processes have improved dramatically in the last decades, such that companies can now mine much lower grades.

“What the old timers left underground because it wasn’t worth it, we now think can make a decent profit,” said Nico Kastkek a geologist with Gold Candle, who was busy showing a group from Schumacher public school some core samples.

“So we are evaluating how much of the gold is still underground and how much the deposit actually expands further,” he said.

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Some samples showed tiny flakes of gold along green vein systems, while others only showed the precious metal chemically, explained Kastek.

Pirie noted that another company in the Prospector’s Tent, Atacama Resources International “is talking about new interpretations of traditional gold properties southwest of the Kirkland Lake area.”

Atacama’s virtual office is based in Florida but they work with Timmins geologists and drilling teams. They have amassed 6,736 acres in ten years with 168 registered claims in Ontario and Quebec.

They have gold, graphite, cobalt and lithium properties in the Timmins and Kirkland Lake areas and are currently seeking to raise $7.5 million to prove the resources on all of their claims.

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John Grant is the operation’s exploration manager. Grant previously ran Essex Exploration for 43 years, which did all the geophysical work for Atacama.

William MacRae, past president of the Porcupine Prospectors and Developers Association, is the geologist consultant.

Atacama has a team of local geologists and drillers exploring for precious metals and minerals —gold, lithium, silver, cobalt, diamond nickel and graphite— in the Timmins, Kirkland Lake and Atikokan area.

“We are in Canada’s and North America’s golden mile,” said Greg Praver, chief operating officer.

“It’s all about location. Kirkland Lake is the centre of the golden mile, and we believe we’re in the right spot to find all the right things to provide companies. Think of us like a store. We find all the necessities to find companies to grow, and we explore for them,” he said, adding they are currently expanding, drilling deeper to find the finer gold.

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The company wants to be in the market to provide the minerals for electric vehicle manufacturers and developers. Government backing of the EV market gives Praver confidence, despite recent reports that interest in EVs is dropping, though interest in hybrid vehicles is on the rise.

“The government knows very well where we’re headed, especially ten years down the line, maybe even 50 years. So the fact that we’re ahead of this—we know we’re doing the right thing,” he said.

Pirie spent a long time at the Kraken Gold Corp. booth talking to Doug Bryant, its vice-president.

“That’s a structure that has a lot of faults on it. It’s a splay off the Porcupine Destor Fault,” Pirie said.

“The issue with a lot of junior companies is just raising the funding to go after all of this,” Pirie said. The operation, which is still at the grassroots stage, has funding from Canadian companies that want to option and explore the property, Bryant said.

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A fault is a zone of fractures, or a fracture between two volumes of rock. Bryant says the mines in Timmins are on the Porcupine Destor Fault, and he thinks they have found a very deep new break containing gold, copper and zinc.

It took Kraken Gold eight years to find the new fault, looking at old data and geophysics.

The government has tested the geophysical structure and confirmed its depth. Bryant is hoping they will test it in another area to confirm the company’s interpretation.

“People are starting to believe it now,” Bryant said, adding that with no outcropping of rock, and without knowing how close to surface gold may be, they don’t yet know if it can be mined without sinking a shaft.

In addition, there are 50 to 100 feet of overburden (the soil or rock that has to be removed to access ore that can be mined) in some spots, but Bryant is optimistic.

“We believe there’s gonna be a mine here someday,” he said. “We’re not sure how deep it’s going to be. We have gold in these holes down about 200 metres or so. There’s gold there.”

An electromagnetic survey Bryant had on display shows gold, copper and base metals.

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