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Mining News: 'Spell of the Yukon' still rings true
Gold dominates the some C$300 million being spent on 2011 exploration in Yukon Territory, but there is more to the modern rush
YUKON TERRITORY – “There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting; It’s luring me on as of old; Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting; So much as just finding the gold.”
This passage from the “Spell of the Yukon” is as applicable to the contemporary stampede of explorers seeking mineral riches in the home of the Klondike as it was to the prospectors of which Robert Service wrote more than a century ago.
It is estimated that the modern rush of prospectors to Yukon Territory will spend more than C$300 million on exploration here in 2011, the bulk of which will be spent on seeking rich lode sources of the placer gold-rich streams that drew their predecessors north at the turn of the 20th century. But aurum is not the only metal drawing explorers north; silver, zinc, lead and platinum group metals are other commodities being found across this mineral-rich land.
Mining News took a six-day government-sponsored trek around Yukon Territory visiting 14 projects ranging from a greenfield copper-gold prospect being generated by Tarsis Resources Ltd. near the Alaska border to Yukon Zinc Corp.’s Wolverine Mine more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) to the east.
Here is snapshot of the wide array of projects visited during the early August tour across this spellbinding landscape.
Junior finds copper-gold near Alaska
WHITE RIVER – While masses of explorers staked up large swaths of gold-prospective land in the White Gold and Klondike districts, Tarsis Resources has quietly made a grassroots copper-gold-silver discovery at its White River project in the largely overlooked southwest corner of the Yukon Territory.
“The things that we are looking for are porphyry-style deposits or deposits that are related to that type of mineralization,” said Tarsis President and CEO Marc Blythe. “We like them because they are potentially large – and potentially large means bigger companies will be interested in them.”
Situated about 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of the Alaska border and 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the Alaska Highway – White River is showing the potential to host the large-scale mineralization the project-generating junior is seeking.
Assay results received in early August – including one select sample containing 4.41 grams per metric ton gold, 0.47 percent copper and 391 g/t silver – confirm the property’s potential.
Apparently spurred by Tarsis’ work in the region, Teck Resources Ltd. has staked two claim blocks immediately to the southeast of the White River property.
During the Aug. 12 visit to White River, Tarsis provided Mining News a peak into the largely secretive world of claim staking in the Yukon Territory.
Waiting for the helicopter that is servicing both companies to deliver Teck’s geological team safely to the field, Tarsis loaded claim posts and headed out to stake a promising area adjacent to the southeast of Tarsis’ property and between the Teck claim blocks.
“Their crew went out first because it is their helicopter and we didn’t tell anyone we were going staking until the helicopter pilot came back,” Blythe explained with a grin.
Tarsis is seeking a company with the technical expertise and financial strength to take White River to the next level.
“We have had quite a lot of interest from potential partners with this property,” Blythe said.
He declined to say whether Teck was one of them.