Focus on Canada by The Northern Miner Group

FOCUS ON

Canada — An investors’ guide —

PROJECT SNAPSHOTS • CANADIAN GEOLOGY • INDUSTRY DATA

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TSX.V: SKE

SNIP REDISCOVERING LOST TREASURE IN THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Shear vein hosted highgrade gold system Produced 1.1 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 27.5 g/t 12 – 24 g/t gold cut-off grade while operating from 1991–1999 280,000 m of historical drill data 8,400 m of underground development New underground drill program commencing June 2017

PHONE:

+1 604 684 8725 |

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EMAIL:

info@skeenaresources.com | www.skeenaresources.com

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PUBLISHER: Anthony Vaccaro ADVERTISING SALES: Joe Crofts, Michael Winter

contents 5 Canada

EDITOR: David Perri ART DIRECTOR: Barbara Burrows CONTRIBUTING WRITER: Lesley Stokes PRODUCTION MANAGER: Jessica Jubb Printed in Canada.

27 Northwest

18 British

Territories & Nunavut

Columbia & Yukon

Prairie Provinces 38 Lesmill Road, Unit 2. Toronto, ON M3B 2T5, Canada PHONE: 1 (416) 442-2098 E-MAIL: avaccaro@northernminer.com

COVER: An aerial view of Pretium Resources’ Brucejack gold mine under construction in August 2016 in northwest British Columbia’s Golden Triangle region. CREDIT: MINING.COM

10 Ontario &

42 East

Quebec

Coast Provinces

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and

Would Like to Thank Our Valued Event Sponsors

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High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom

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CANADA: An industry heavyweight BY GLENN MULLAN,

PRESIDENT, PROSPECTORS & DEVELOPERS ASSOCIATION OF CANADA (PDAC)

anada is blessed with an abundance of rich natural resources that has contributed to its position as the world heavyweight of mineral exploration, sustainable development and mining. Our long and successful history has seen us become the international leader in mining finance and home to more publicly-listed exploration companies than anywhere else in the world. In 2016 alone, Canada captured 14 per cent of all money spent on global non-ferrous mineral exploration budgets. Due to immense geological potential, efficient regulatory systems, and attractive fiscal regimes, Canadian jurisdictions featured prominently in the top 10 of the Fraser Institute’s 2016 annual survey of mining companies. Saskatchewan proudly ranked number one, followed by Manitoba in second place, and Quebec in sixth. However, even with all of our successes, Canadian jurisdictions must continue finding ways to improve their investment climates. The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) plays an important role in the health of Canada’s mineral exploration and mining industry, representing around 8,000 members across the globe. Outside of its annual PDAC Convention – the largest of its kind in the world with over 24,000 delegates attend-

ing in 2017 – the association undertakes a variety of advocacy work to ensure Canada remains a leader in its field. For example, at the federal level, PDAC strongly encouraged infrastructure investments in remote areas and northern Canada where operating costs are up to 600 per cent of non-remote projects. Our efforts were rewarded in the federal 2017 Budget which allocated more than $7 billion for this purpose. At a provincial and territorial level, PDAC’s innovative research identified areas where governments can improve ways to fulfill their constitutional duty to consult and accommodate Aboriginal people. PDAC has an important role in helping shape policy with factual analysis, and engaging with its members on multiple issues. It can help to positively influence the direction of the industry to ensure that Canada remains a desirable destination to discover and develop, in a responsible and clean manner, the mineral and metal deposits that make modern life possible. With security of supply being top of mind for many European manufacturers, now is the time to invest in the many exciting projects happening in Canada. Financing is the lifeblood of the mineral exploration and mining industry, and PDAC is honoured to help connect great Canadian companies with European capital.

Global reach, Canadian roots.

We were Canada’s first bank, founded in 1817. Find out how our expertise can help you uncover opportunities, in Canada and around the world. bmocm.com BMO Capital Markets is a trade name used by BMO Financial Group for the wholesale banking businesses of Bank of Montreal, BMO Harris Bank N.A. (member FDIC), Bank of Montreal Ireland p.l.c, and Bank of Montreal (China) Co. Ltd and the institutional broker dealer businesses of BMO Capital Markets Corp. (Member SIPC) in the U.S., BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. (Member Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada and Member Canadian Investor Protection Fund) in Canada and Asia and BMO Capital Markets Limited (authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) in Europe and Australia. BMO Capital Markets” is a trademark of Bank of Montreal, used under license. “BMO (M-Bar roundel symbol)” is a registered trademark of Bank of Montreal, used under license. ™ Trademark of Bank of Montreal in the United States and Canada.

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CANADA FACTS CAPITAL:

CANADIAN GLOBAL PRODUCTION RANKING BY VOLUME

Ottawa

POPULATION:

POTASH 1st URANIUM 2ND NICKEL 2ND PGM 3RD COBALT 3RD ALUMINUM (PRIMARY) 3RD DIAMOND 4TH

35,151,728

AREA: 8,965,121

POPULATION DENSITY:

3.9 persons per km2

Source: StatCan 2016

SALT 4TH TUNGSTEN 4TH GOLD 5TH COPPER 8TH IRON ORE 8TH ZINC 9TH SILVER 10TH

Source: NRC Mining Sector Performance Report, 2015

MINERAL PRODUCTION GOLD

COPPER

KCI

$7,667M

$3,408M

$2,855M

$4,906M POTASH

DIAMOND

COAL

$6,133M

NICKEL

$2,149M IRON ORE

$8.5M

$49M

$240M COBALT

ZINC

URANIUM

MOLYBDENUM

$157M

$1,060M

TOTAL VALUE:

COAL

$633M

Fe $3,126M

SILVER

PGM

$1,609M

LEAD

$34B

data dashboard

Source: Natural Resources Canada, 2015. Chart excludes confidential values for remelted iron, niobium and magnesite. Total value excludes magnesite

ACTIVE MINES

EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

PGM 1 URANIUM 2 GOLD 39

IRON ORE 4 DIAMOND 5

GOLD 1158

POTASH 10

BASE METALS 34 COAL 20

OTHER/POLYMETALLIC 2,107 (Including aluminum, antimony, chromium, coal, cobalt, copper, diamond, gold, graphite, iron ore, nickel, lead, molybdenum, niobium, PGM, REE, silver, tantalum, tin, tungsten, uranium, vanadium, zinc) TOTAL:

115

TOTAL:

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

3,265

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

EXPLORATION AND DEPOSIT EVALUATION EXPENDITURES BASE METALS $382M

PRECIOUS METALS

CAPITAL MARKETS TSX & TSXV

URANIUM $170M

$857.5M

FINANCING: Mining companies completed 1,540

financings for $9.4B in 2016

DIAMOND $119M

OPPORTUNITY: 1206 mining companies listed

IRON ORE $28M

VALUE: Listed mining companies worth $279B OTHER $285M TOTAL:

LIQUIDITY: 63.6B mining shares traded in 2016 Source: TSX MiG Report

$1.84B

Source: Natural Resources Canada, 2015

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CANADA

A 4-billion-year-old story etched in stone Canada’s diverse tectonic history generated many world-class ore deposits

BY LESLEY STOKES

geology & projects

anada’s geological heritage goes back over 4 billion years to when the earth was a young, hot planet covered by ocean. During this time, intense volcanism formed the earth’s crust, giving way to a barren and lifeless landscape blasted by radiation from the sun. About 3 billion years ago, in the Archean eon, the emergence of plate tectonics moved thin and small rafts of rocks at a rate much faster than they do today. Over time, the volcanic islands butted together into large blocks of continental crust, with most of the action (in what is today’s Canada) starting around the Red Lake area, a prolific gold-mining camp in northwest Ontario. The birth of Canada

As the terranes collided, balls of magma were injected into the volcanic pile and cooled into enormous granitic batholiths. Meanwhile, at the major spreading centres and back-arc rift zones, metal-rich fluids were exhaled from black smokers, peppering the seafloor with volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits. Magmatic nickel-copper-platinum group metal (PGM) deposits were also prolific during the Archean, as temperatures on earth were still hot enough to drive deep-seated, high-magnesium ultramafic melts – otherwise known as “komatiites” – into higher levels of the crust without cooling rapidly, as they might today. As the accreted landmass towered to new heights, intense pressures and temperatures partly melted deep-buried crust, releasing gold-rich fluids. The fluids travelled upwards along terrane-bounding structures in two major pulses, one at 2.9 billion years ago and the other 2.7 billion years ago, giving way to a variety of orogenic-style gold deposits. The deposits are preferentially

clustered within segments of volcanic terrane that saw low-grade greenschist metamorphism, or what geologists call “greenstone belts.” By the start of the Proterozoic eon, 2.5 billion years ago, the volcanic islands (that would one day form the core of Canada) had accreted into four main cratons: the Superior, Slave, Rae and Hearne. Over time, their crustal peaks got flattened by erosion, and a number of world-class ore districts were exposed. The most prolific districts seen today consist of the 150 million oz. gold Abitibi greenstone belt that spans the Quebec and Ontario border, the VMSrich Flin Flon belt across Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire district that hosts a number of magmatic nickel-copper and chromium deposits. Banded-iron formations

Sediments that were eroded off the cratons were swept into surrounding deepocean basins and along vast seaways. Here, metal-rich brines would circulate within the sediments for millions of years, occasionally spewing out onto the seafloor as sedimentary exhalative zinclead (sedex) lead-zinc deposits. Around 2.3 billion years ago, the oceans began to teem with oxygen-producing bacteria, and the iron-rich sediments deposited on the seafloor mixed with oxygenated waters to create vast iron deposits. These banded-iron formations (BIF) are prolific across the Labrador Trough, a world-class iron mining camp in Quebec and Labrador that today accounts for over 80 million tonnes of iron ore resources. (However, remnants of much older BIF deposits also occur within Canada’s greenstone belts, with the Mary

River iron mine on northern Baffin Island a prime example. The deposit formed in oxygen-deficient or “anoxic” conditions, having precipitated out from hydrothermal vents within volcanic centres. The formation of BIF is a wildly-debated topic amongst geologists, as it has massive implications to the origin of Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere.) Supercontinent Columbia

Superior, Slave, Rae and Hearne were stitched together along vast mountain ranges during the assembly of supercontinent Columbia about 2 billion years ago. The deformation was so intense that it either obliterated pre-existing deposits entrained within the rocks, or thrusted them closer to surface. As a result of this event, metal-rich fluids from deep-seated metamorphism were injected into major deformation zones, such as the 2,800 km long Snowbird tectonic zone dividing the Rae and Hearne cratons. Archean-age BIF acted as a sponge to the gold-rich fluids, leading to the formation of the 3.4 million oz. gold Meliadine and the 3.5 million oz. gold Meadowbank deposits in Nunavut’s portion of the Rae craton. Meanwhile, deformation along the northwestern perimeter of the Superior craton gave way to the nickel-copper rich dikes and sills that define the world-class Thompson nickel belt in Manitoba. The rock belt extends northeast to the Ungava Trough (formerly the Cape Smith belt) in northernmost Quebec, which hosts the Raglan nickel-copper camp. Around the same time, a 10 km wide meteor-

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Left: Pretium Resources’ Brucejack gold mine under construction in northwest British Columbia in August 2016. CREDIT: MINING.COM

A truck at Teck Resources’ Coal Mountain operations in southeast British Columbia.

Geological Survey of Canada/Lesley Stokes

CREDIT: TECK RESOURCES

Canadian Cordillera

Appalachian Orogen

Western Canada Sedimentary Basin

St. Lawrence Platform

Nain Province

Wopmay Orogen

Athabasca Basin

Proterozoic Sedimentary Cover

Superior Boundary Zone

Southern Province

Paleo-Mesozoic Sedimentary Cover

Slave Craton

Taltson-Thelon/Inglefield Orogens

Thelon Basin

Rae Craton (Churchill Province)

Hearne Craton (Churchill Province)

Trans-Hudson Orogen

Innuitian Orogen

Superior Craton

Snowbird Tectonic Zone (fault, dashed line postulated)

Arctic Continental Margin

Grenville Province

ite smashed into the Superior’s eastern margin, shattering and melting the rocks beneath. The impact injected prolific nickel-copper-PGM-rich dikes and sills into a cone-shaped bowl now called the “Sudbury Igneous Complex” in Ontario. During a lull in deformation, 1.5 billion years ago, the Snowbird once again became a passageway for fluids, but this time they were uranium rich. The structures, and where they pierce overlying basins of sediments, served as favourable traps for basement- and unconformity-hosted uranium deposits, such as those seen within Saskatchewan’s Athabasca

CANADA’S MAIN GEOLOGICAL DOMAINS

basin, and Nunavut and Northwest Territories’ Thelon. New eastern geological provinces

By 1.3 billion years ago, the earth’s continents were on a collision course to form the supercontinent Rodinia. The shuffling of plates forced deepseated nickel-copper-cobalt rich melts through a suture zone between the Rae craton and an Archean-age geological province called the Nain, creating what’s known today as the world class Voisey’s Bay deposit in Labrador. The melts devoured sulphur-rich country rocks

during its ascent and pooled in quiescent magma chambers, allowing time for the sulphur to scavenge the metals. As the melt cooled, the chamber floor was blanketed with sulphides. Deformation began to peak 1.1 billion years ago as the continents collided and the eastern side of ancestral North America began to transform. Continued on page 34

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ONTARIO FACTS CAPITAL:

QUEBEC FACTS

ACTIVE MINES PRIMARY PRODUCT

Toronto

13,448,494

POPULATION:

AREA: 908,608

CAPITAL:

14.80 persons per km2 Source: StatCan 2016

PRIMARY PRODUCT

Quebec City

POPULATION:

8,164,361

AREA: 1,356,547

GOLD: 20 BASE METALS: 13 PGM: 1 DIAMOND: 1

POPULATION DENSITY:

ACTIVE MINES

km2

GOLD: 12 ZINC: 2 NICKEL: 2

POPULATION DENSITY:

6.02 persons per km2

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

Source: StatCan 2016

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

IRON ORE: 2 DIAMOND: 1 NIOBIUM: 1

MINERAL PRODUCTION COPPER

GOLD

DIAMOND

$1,538M

Au $3,361M

$916M

$89M ZINC

TOTAL VALUE:

$407M PGM

SELENIUM

ZINC

$1,319M

$6M

$2,374M

$51M

$850M

$219M

$7.8B

$219M

Co $39M

COPPER

IRON ORE

COBALT

$301M

SILVER

TOTAL VALUE:

Source: Ontario Mining Association, 2015

data dashboard

NICKEL

GOLD

$56M

$1,279M NICKEL

SILVER

$140M

OTHER

$5.9B

Source: Institut de la statistique du Québec, 2015 Total value includes confidential values for niobium and remelted iron.

EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS OTHER/POLYMETALLIC 266 BASE METALS 53 DIAMOND 23

(Including aluminum, chromium, cobalt, copper, diamond, gold, iron ore, lead, lithium, molybdenum, nickel, niobium, PGM, REE, silver, tantalum, titanium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium, zinc)

CHROMIUM 15 URANIUM 13

GOLD 435

IRON ORE 10

DIAMOND 10 REE 13

OTHER/POLYMETALLIC 255 (Including chromium, cobalt, copper, diamonds, gold, lead, lithium, nickel, PGM, REE, silver, uranium, vanadium, zinc) TOTAL:

GOLD 282

BASE METALS 50

URANIUM 26 IRON ORE 29

804

TOTAL:

676 Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

EXPLORATION AND DEPOSIT EVALUATION EXPENDITURES DIAMONDS $5M PGM $11M

PHOSPHATE $5.3M

OTHER $6M

OTHER $7.2M

GRAPHITE $12.2M IRON ORE $13.2M REE $13.6M

BASE METALS

PRECIOUS METALS

$108M GOLD $264M

$108.4M

BASE METALS

$57.7M

TOTAL:

$393M

TOTAL:

Source: Ontario Mining Association, 2015

$220M

Source: Quebec Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, 2015

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Ontarioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Newest High Grade Gold Mine 70,000 Tonne Bulk Sample Completed Phase I Commercial Permit Issued Full Commercial Production targeted Q2 2018 $15 million Exploration Budget for 2017 Significant Exploration Potential C 62,000 HA District Scale Property Package

TSX - HRT / FRANKFURT - H40

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ONTARIO & QUEBEC

Magma, mountains and meteorites A story of mineral bounty stretching back 3.3 billion years

1 8 4

12 3

Kilometres

13 14

16 11

SELECT DEPOSITS, DISTRICTS AND GEOLOGY IN ONTARIO 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Red Lake Dryden Kenora Sturgeon Lake Thunder Bay Ring of Fire Victor Geraldton Marathon

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Wawa Sault Ste. Marie Timmins Kirkland Lake Larder Lake Cobalt Sudbury

between 5 and 10 km depth), which is referred to by geologists as “greenstone belts.” Over time, the rocks were levelled by erosion, and erosional windows of the greenstone belts were preserved across the Superior craton, juxtaposed against the highly-metamorphosed roots of the ancient mountain chain. The Abitibi: The world’s most prolific greenstone belt

A number of greenstone belts are seen

today across Ontario and Quebec, such as Ontario’s Wawa, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, Dryden-Kenora, Geraldton, Marathon and the 31 million oz. gold Red Lake camp, or Quebec’s Casa Berardi, Chibougamau, Matagami and James Bay districts. However, the worldclass Abitibi greenstone belt – which spans the Ontario and Quebec border – is by far the most productive in terms of gold and base-metals. Over its history, the Abitibi camp has

Geological Survey of Canada/Lesley Stokes

BY LESLEY STOKES

geology & projects

he rocks underlying Ontario and Quebec have a long and lively geological past dating back 4 billion years in the Archean eon, when the Earth was a young, hot planet covered by oceans. During that time, intense volcanism formed the Earth’s first crust, giving way to a barren and lifeless landscape blasted by radiation from the sun. Three billion years ago, plate tectonics began to move thin rafts of rocks at a rate much faster than they do today. Over time, the volcanic islands butted together into one large block of land – known today as the Superior craton – with most of the action starting around the Red Lake area, a prolific gold-mining camp in northwest Ontario. As the volcanic terranes collided, volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits – which formed around submarine hydrothermal vents, or “black smokers,” – were exhumed and thrusted upwards into mountainous chains. Meanwhile, balls of granitic magma were injected into the volcanic pile, sporadically crystallizing into lithium-bearing spodumene crystals such as those seen at Nemaska Lithium’s (TSXV: NMX) Whabouchi deposit in the James Bay region of Quebec, as magmatic nickelcopper platinum group metal (PGM) and chromium deposits precipitated out of ultramafic dikes and sills funneling through the crust, most notably seen in northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire district. The rock packages were baked during the deformation, and partially-melted, deep-seated crust released gold-rich fluids that flushed upwards along structural corridors in two major pulses around 2.9 billion and 2.7 billion years ago. The gold was eventually deposited in the weakly-metamorphosed portions of the accreted volcanic crust (typically found

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Left: An aerial view of Harte Gold’s Sugar gold project in northern Ontario. CREDIT: HARTE GOLD

A helicopter hovers above a drill site on KWG Resources’ Big Daddy chromite deposit in Ontario’s Ring of Fire in the James Bay Lowlands. CREDIT: KWG RESOURCES

Around 1.9 billion years ago, a 10 km wide meteorite smashed into the margin of the Superior and Southern cratons, shattering and melting the rocks beneath. The impact created the world-class Sudbury nickel-copper-PGM camp.

SNAP SHOT

HARTE GOLD SUGAR ZONE

Gold

HARTE GOLD (TSX: HRT) is focused on advancing its flagship Sugar Zone gold property in northern Ontario. A 2012 PEA suggested that Sugar Zone would be profitable at US$1,200 per oz. gold. The deposit holds indicated resources of 980,900 tonnes grading 8.72 grams gold per tonne (capped) for 275,000 oz., as well as 580,500 inferred tonnes averaging 7.03 grams gold for 131,300 oz. gold. Harte is completing infill and step-out drilling to move more tonnes into the indicated category.

The junior has just finished a bulk-sampling program where it shipped 70,000 tonnes of ore 80 km west to Barrick Gold for processing at its Hemlo gold mill. Harte expects an average recovered grade of 8.5 grams gold per tonne for 19,000 contained oz. gold.

Geological Survey of Canada/Lesley Stokes

The company has staked another 325.9 sq. km near Sugar Zone and is beginning an airborne magnetic and electromagnetic survey over its entire land package, which will identify targets for on-the-ground follow ups and potential drilling in 2017.

produced 150 million oz. gold, exceeding that of the Kalgoorlie camps in Western Australia, and the Homestake deposits in South Dakota. In Ontario’s portion of the Abitibi, world-class camps include Timmins, Kirkland Lake, and Larder Lake, whereas in Quebec, camps include the Val-d’Or, Malartic and Rouyn-Noranda camps. Mineralization is focused along splays off regional-trending fault zones, which represent the sutures between the

accreted volcanic terranes. Some of the camps also contain world-class VMS deposits, such as Ontario’s 2.7 billion year old Kidd Creek deposit in the Timmins camp, which yielded 153 million tonnes of copper-zinc ore from 1966. In Quebec, the Horne VMS deposit in the RouynNoranda camp accounted for 11 million oz. gold and 2.5 billion lb. copper in past production. Horne is unusual because of its high gold content, and

geologists believe that the deposit may have been sweetened with gold by crustal-tapping structures. Metals surround the Superior craton

The second stage in Ontario and Quebec’s geological story is captured in its Southern craton. The craton had its start 2.5 billion years ago, when intense rains and sheets of ice scraped the tops off of Superior’s greenstone mountain ranges and deposited large packages of sedimentary rocks. Some of the rocks contained uranium, which was mined for over 35 years at Elliot Lake. By 2.3 billion years ago, the oceans surrounding the ancient cratons began to teem with oxygen-producing bacteria, and iron-rich sediments on the seafloor mixed with oxygenated waters to create vast banded iron formations (BIF) deposits. During the assembly of ancestral North America, about 2.1 billion years ago, these iron formations were thrusted onto the eastern edge of the Superior craton. Today, they define the worldclass Labrador Trough that spans the Quebec and Labrador border, where iron resources total 80 billion tonnes. »

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As the Superior craton collided with nearby cratons, metal-rich ultramafic melts were driven into the sedimentary rocks along its northwestern and northern margins. The melts solidified into a number of magmatic copper-nickelPGM deposits at Glencore’s Raglan mining camp in Quebec’s northernmost tip. The belt of rocks, formerly named Cape Smith belt, is considered to be the northeastern extension of the world-class Thompson nickel belt in Manitoba. Around the same time as metals were being introduced into the Thompson and Raglan belts, a 10 km wide meteorite smashed into the eastern margin of the Superior and Southern cratons, shattering and melting the rocks beneath. The nickel-copper-PGMrich melts squeezed into the fractures rimming the impact crater, which today encompasses the world-class

SNAP SHOT

CANADIAN OREBODIES

After listing on the TSX Venture exchange in January 2017, junior explorer CANADIAN OREBODIES (TSXV: CORE) kicked off a 2,500 metre drilling program in April. The drill is turning at the company’s North Limb gold property, a 68 sq. km land package in Ontario’s Hemlo gold mining district.

The drill is probing a variety of identified targets, including “Hemlo style” mineralization related to high-grade gold intersected in 1996 on the Lunny Lake Porphyry, 200 and 400 Gold metres from the North Limb property. Canadian Orebodies will drill EM anomalies along the extensions of the porphyry on its land. NORTH LIMB

The drill will also visit the Tongue zone, an area that hasn’t been explored since the Hemlo gold rush in the 1980s, with no drilling records in existence for area. The company says Tongue has been interpreted as being up-ice from the angular float of high-grade mafic volcanic material found to the southwest, the source of which has never been found. The company is also drill testing VMS and MMS mineralization targets.

Sudbury nickel-copper PGM district in eastern Ontario. The Sudbury deposits have produced more than 40 billion

lb. copper, 44 billion lb. nickel and 62 million oz. gold, silver along with significant amounts of PGMs. The assembly of eastern Canada

SNAP SHOT

OSISKO MINING (TSX: OSK), is keeping very busy exploring its prospective gold properties in Ontario and Quebec. The junior in the midst of carrying out large drilling campaigns in both provinces.

OSISKO MINING WINDFALL AND GARRISON

In Quebec, the company is focused on its Windfall project, 200 km northeast of Val d’Or, where it is in the middle of a 400,000 metre definition and expansion drill program which has yielded a steady stream of high-grade results.

The project already has a resource estimate from 2014 which outlined 748,000 oz. gold at 8.42 grams per tonne in the indicated category, plus a further inferred 860,000 oz. at 7.62 grams. A 2015 PEA envisioned a 1,200 tonnes per day underground mine producing 106,200 oz. payable gold for 7.8 years at cash costs of $778 per oz.

Gold

In Ontario Osisko is searching for gold at its Garrison gold property, 40 km north of Kirkland Lake. The firm is carrying out a 35,000-metre drill program to test and extend the property’s Garrcon, Jonpol and 903 zones. The Garrison property contains two deposits with compliant resource estimates. The Garrcon zone has an open-pit measured resource of 521,000 oz. gold at 1.07 grams and an indicated resource of 526,000 oz at 1.16 grams. In addition there is an underground inferred resource of 577,000 oz. at 3.49 grams. The Jonpol zone estimate shows 150,000 oz. gold at 5.34 grams gold in the indicated category, and 192,000 oz. gold at 5.56 grams in the inferred category.

Pinned against the Southern and Superior cratons in the east are rocks belonging to the Grenville orogen, a mountainous belt of mainly gneiss (a metamorphosed granite) that formed between 1.1 billion and 570 million years ago during the assembly of the supercontinent Rodinia. The Grenville orogen hosts a variety of industrial minerals, along with iron and ilmenite, but is mostly recognized for Imerys Graphite & Carbon’s Lac des Îles graphite mine in southern Quebec, which is the only graphite producer in North America. Over time, the Grenville mountain range eroded down to its metamorphosed core, and in part was blanketed with sediments from encroaching seas. » Stornoway Diamond’s Renard diamond mine in north-central Quebec’s James Bay region, 350 km north of Chibougamau. CREDIT: STORNOWAY DIAMOND

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In Ontario and Quebec, the sedimentary units are mined for limestone, but two carbonatite intrusions – Saint-Honoré and Oka in Quebec – found within the sediments are exploited for niobium. Rodinia was eventually disassembled, only to reassemble again, 350 million years ago, to form the supercontinent Pangaea. At this time, the North African continent collided with the eastern coast of ancestral North America and thrusted up a belt of rocks known as the Appalachian orogen. Today, the Appalachians have been eroded down to its core, exhuming the historical Gaspe copper mine in the Murdochville camp in Quebec’s portion of the belt. The porphyry and skarn deposit was operated by Noranda from 1959 to 1999, and produced 141 million tonnes of 0.9% copper, with some molybdenum credits. Between 155 million and 180 million years ago, a sudden pulse of volatilerich magmas punched up through the Paleozoic sedimentary cover in the northern reaches of Ontario, picking up diamond-bearing material during

BALMORAL RESOURCES (TSX: BAR) owns a suite of exploration properties in Quebec’s famous Abitibi region, holding more than 1000 sq. km of mineral rights along strike from the Detour Lake gold mine.

SNAP SHOT

BALMORAL RESOURCES MARTINIERE

The firm is exploring its Martiniere gold project, which has delivered high grade results, including an eye-popping half metre drill hit grading 9,710 grams (312 oz.) gold per tonne. Since acquiring Martiniere in 2010 Balmoral has drilled 250 holes, more than 50% of which returned intercepts better than 10 grams gold per tonne.

Gold

Martiniere hosts four shallow gold deposits which remain open to depth and down plunge, with 90% of drilling done above 300 vertical metres. The company has expanded its winter drill program to 10,000 metres — to grow the Bug South and Bug North deposits, and follow up on five new discoveries identified in 2016 — and plans a minimum of 25,000 metres for 2017. With open deposits and new proximal discoveries, Balmoral is moving towards an initial resource estimate on the shallow portion of the Martiniere system.

its ascent. The kimberlite pipes are currently being exploited for diamonds at DeBeers’ Victor mine. Much older kimberlite pipes, dating

back to 640 million years ago, are also found at Stornoway Diamond’s (TSX: SWY) Renard mine in the James Bay region of Quebec. b

SELECT DEPOSITS, DISTRICTS AND GEOLOGY IN QUEBEC

Located in Quebec’s James Bay region, GOLDCORP’s (TSX: G; NYSE: GG) newest mine, Éléonore, achieved commercial GOLDCORP production in ÉLÉONORE April 2015 and is expected to reach its Gold nameplate capacity of 7,000 tonnes per day in 2018.

SNAP SHOT

For 2017 the underground mine is set to produce 315,000 oz. gold, 17% more than the 2016 total, with all in sustaining costs of $985 per oz. The latest estimate published in late 2015 shows Éléonore hosts proven and probable reserves of 28.32 million tonnes grading 5.87 grams gold per tonne, for 5.35 million contained oz, which would allow for a 12 year mine life. Goldcorp is currently completing a life of mine study to determine the optimal mining rate at Éléonore. Goldcorp started a productivity and cost optimization improvement program at Éléonore this year.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Raglan Éléonore Whabouchi Renard Chibougamau Matagami Casa Berardi Malartic Val-d’Or Lac des Iles Oka Labrador Trough Saint-Honore Gaspe

12 4 2 3

5 13

6 7

Kilometres

The project also hosts a large, underexplored land package.

10 11

– 16 –

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2017-04-21 4:11 PM

LEADING CANADIAN GOLD EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPEMENT COMPANY

www.osiskomining.com

TSX:OSK

Osisko mining is a TSX-listed company which is currently conducting one of the world’s largest drilling campaigns on it’s 100%-owned Windfall gold project in Quebec, Canada. WINDFALL PROJECT QC

- LOCATED IN THE URBAN BARRY CAMP, QUEBEC - OVER 400,000 METRES OF DRILLING ONGOING IN CANADA’S MOST ACTIVE EXPLORATION CAMP - RAMP PERMITTING IN 2017 - OSISKO GROUP HAS A TRACK RECORD OF STRONG VALUE CREATION - EXPERIENCED MANAGEMENT, TECHNICAL TEAMS AND BOARD

FOC_ad pages.indd 17

2017-04-21 12:34 PM

BRITISH COLUMBIA FACTS CAPITAL:

Vancouver 4,648,055

POPULATION:

AREA: 922,509

POPULATION DENSITY:

5.004 persons per km2 Source: StatCan 2016

YUKON

ACTIVE MINES

FACTS

PRIMARY PRODUCT

CAPITAL:

POPULATION:

COPPER: 6 COAL: 6 GOLD: 1 MAGNESITE: 1

POPULATION DENSITY:

ACTIVE MINE PRIMARY PRODUCT

Whitehorse

35,874

AREA: 474,713

km2

COPPER: 1

0.08 persons per km2 Source: StatCan 2016

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

MINERAL PRODUCTION GOLD

COAL

$2,528M

$3,040M

MOLYBDENUM

$62M

$592M

TOTAL VALUE:

$0.44M

$111M

LEAD

$9.5M

Ag $8M

ZINC

$6.3B

Pb $0.3M

ZINC

GOLD

TOTAL VALUE:

Source: British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines, StatCan, 2015

data dashboard

SILVER

COPPER

$106M

$49M SILVER

COPPER

LEAD

$20M

$234M

Source: Natural Resources Canada, 2015

EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS OTHER/POLYMETALLIC 392

OTHER/POLYMETALLIC 99

(Including aluminum, chromium, cobalt, copper, diamond, gold, graphite, iron ore, nickel, lead, magnesium, molybdenum, niobium, PGM, REE, silver, tantalum, tungsten, uranium, zinc)

(Including antimony, cobalt, copper, emerald, gold, iron ore, nickel, lead, molybdenum, niobium, PGM, REE, silver, tantalum, tin, tungsten, uranium, zinc)

GOLD & SILVER 217

BASE METALS 55

GOLD & SILVER 112

COAL 32 REE 9 TOTAL:

MOLYBDENUM 24

729

TOTAL:

211 Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

EXPLORATION AND DEPOSIT EVALUATION EXPENDITURES BASE METALS

OTHER $110.4M

$48.6M PRECIOUS METALS

PRECIOUS METALS

$147.5M

$43.2M

IRON ORE $0.4M OTHER $0.4M

BASE METALS $88M TOTAL:

$346.3M

TOTAL:

$92.2M Source: StatsCan, 2015

– 18 –

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2017-04-21 4:19 PM

YUKON: The majors moved in BY ANNE LEWIS,

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, YUKON MINING ALLIANCE

ith majors moving in, Yukon may be on the verge of its next new gold rush and this time Yukon is poised to have an encouraging pipeline of producers for the coming years. The famous Klondike Gold Rush of 1896 put Yukon on a map and the New Gold Rush of 2010-11 brought the discovery of new significant regions. With four major gold companies locking in their claims in rapid-fire succession, the tipping point for a third rush could be on the horizon for Yukon. The renewed interest has three goldproducing majors saddled up beside each other in the new White Gold District and another in Yukon’s north east, which hosts Canada’s only gold carlin-type system. Less than a year ago, the 4th largest gold producer globally, Goldcorp Inc., secured a substantial land package in the White Gold District at Kaminak’s Coffee Gold Project with a $520M acquisition. As the new year closed, Agnico Eagle re-invested in the region and entered into a share purchase agreement of $14.5M with then G4G Capital Corp, now White Gold Corp, for a total of 19.93% strategic investment of one of Yukon’s largest land packages. Leading into PDAC 2017, Newmont Mining Corporation, formed a strategic alliance with Goldstrike Resource with a $53M earn-in agreement over several years; and just ahead of what is sure to be an exciting exploration season, gold producing giant, Barrick Gold Corp announced a $63.3M earn-in agreement and financing for a potential of 70% of ATAC Resource Ltd.’s Orion Project. Four majors, millions in investment, and less than 12% of Yukon’s land mass explored – there is no doubt that Yukon is poised for an exciting season! After six years of strategically highlighting Yukon’s investment potential, the Yukon Mining Alliance (YMA), Yukon Government and Yukon companies are seeing a significant return on their investment in the unique Invest Yukon marketing model. These Yukon companies’ collaborative promotion highlighted Yukon’s geological potential, geopolitical stability, and strong partnerships through a lengthy bear market and ensured that Yukon remained at the forefront of investors’ minds. In addition to interest from the majors, Yukon Government renewed their commitment to advancing the sector and are

supporting an important infrastructure investment proposal to Canada’s federal government; there is also a renewed focus from the territorial government on facilitating important dialogues between government, First Nations and mining companies. All this being said, gold is not all that’s “in them thar hills” in Yukon, as Alexco Resource Corp, which wholly owns Canada’s highest grade-silver deposits, recently released a new PEA and an innovative and updated silver streaming agreement for the turnkey Keno Hills Silver District. With majors for neighbours, Canada’s premier copper-gold resource, Western Copper and Gold’s Casino Project, is also advancing through the permitting process and Victoria Gold’s fully-permitted Eagle Gold Project continues to advance towards construction, which would make it Yukon’s next new gold mine. Investors can visit Yukon and see first-hand the investment potential at the exclusive Yukon Investment Conference and Property Tours July 10th-14th, 2017, hosted in partnership by Yukon Mining Alliance and Yukon Government in Dawson City. With majors and minors alike gearing up for a sizable exploration season, and companies advancing projects through development, Yukon may see the next rush and this time it could be polymetallic! LEARN MORE:

ABOUT YUKON MINING ALLIANCE Founded in 2009, Yukon Mining Alliance (“YMA”), a strategic industry alliance of Yukon’s leading exploration, development and mining companies, is focused on creating innovative capital attraction initiatives to promote Yukon’s competitive advantages as a top mineral investment jurisdiction and its member companies and their Yukon-based projects. All member companies must have identified resources and significant project expenditures in Yukon; as well as, adopt and adhere to a corporate sustainability policy including community relations and environmental responsibility.

www.yukonminingalliance.ca

YMA MEMBERS

Alexco Resource Corp – TSX:AXR NYSE-MKT:AXU ATAC Resources Ltd – TSX.V: ATC Goldcorp – TSX:G NYSE-MKT:GG Strategic Metals Ltd – TSX.V:SMD Victoria Gold Corp – TSX.V:VIT Wellgreen Platinum – TSX.WG Western Copper and Gold Corp – TSX.WRN NYSE-MKT:WRN Banyan Gold Corp – TSX.V:BYN Independence Gold Corp – TSX.V:IGO Metallic Minerals Corp – TSX.V:MMG Rockhaven Resources Corp – TSX.V:RK Triumph Gold Corp – TSX.V:TIG

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2017-04-21 4:19 PM

BRITISH COLUMBIA & YUKON

When the east pushed back Western Canada’s tectonic history sees base and precious metals driven into crust

geology & projects

n 1971, two geologists from the Geological Survey of Canada, Jim Monger and Charlie Rouse, proposed an idea that helped radically shape how we view the geological history of Western Canada today. Rather than using the more widely accepted theories of facies changes or extensive seaways to explain the presence of certain fossils in the rocks of central British Columbia, they proposed that the rocks, and the fossils in question, must have migrated across the Pacific Ocean to their present location. Their revolutionary idea would come to explain a geological story that was set in motion 180 million years ago, when

the opening of the Atlantic Ocean drove the ancestral North American continent westwards. The movement ignited subduction beneath the western margin of the continent, and a number of offshore volcanic island chains and intervening basins of sedimentary and oceanic rocks were thrusted onto the landmass. Exotic rocks

The first, truly exotic rocks to have docked onto western North America were contained within a package of terranes – the Quesnellia volcanic arc in the east, another volcanic arc called Stikinia in the west, and oceanic crust belonging

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to the Cache Creek terrane in between. Today, the terranes fall within a mountainous belt known as the Intermontane, but how they arrived at their present position is still an enigma among geologists. Some say that Cache Creek docked onto the Quesnellia and Stikinia arc – which at the time formed a linear belt – 230 million years ago, outboard of ancestral North America. As Cache Creek pushed into the volcanic chain, the northern tip of the QuesnelliaStikinia arc bent backwards onto itself in a counter-clockwise motion, and the oceanic crust was trapped in the middle. This “isoclinal bend” theory could explain why the two arcs – which are almost geologically identical – are separated by a piece of oceanic crust that originated in eastern Asia, as suggested by the types of fossils caught within its vestiges. Geologists concluded that the crust must have migrated across the planet via plate tectonics. Most of the porphyry copper-gold and

goldenarrowresources.com TSX-V:GRG FSE:GAC OTC: GARWF

IDM MINING

There has been a lot of action around IDM MINING ’s (TSXV: IDM) flagship Red Mountain gold project in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle region.

RED MOUNTAIN

Since January the company has announced an updated resource estimate (with a 32% increase), started a resource expansion drilling program, received a positive environmental assessment, reported positive metallurgical test results and closed a $15 million financing.

Gold

The latest resource tally for Red Mountain comes in at 2.07 million measured and indicated tonnes, grading 8.75 grams gold and 25 grams silver per tonne, for 583,700 oz. gold and 1.66 million oz. silver. In 2016 the firm completed a PEA and is scheduled to release a feasibility study in Q2 2017, and anticipates production as soon as 2019.

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2017-04-21 4:19 PM

SELECT DEPOSITS, DISTRICTS AND GEOLOGY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 1 3

SKEENA RESOURCES SNIP

Gold

4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Geological Survey of Canada/Lesley Stokes

SNAP SHOT

8 9 10

11 12

Schaft Creek Red Chris Snip Eskay Creek KSM Valley of the Kings Huckleberry Barkerville Mount Polley Prosperity Myra Falls Highland Valley Ajax Sullivan

(TSXV: SKE) is searching for the ounces left behind at the historic highgrade Snip gold mine in northwest British Columbia.

Low gold prices shuttered the Snip mine in 1999 when gold sold for an average of US$290 per oz. The mine operated for nine years with average grades of 27.5 grams gold per tonne. In 2016 Skeena optioned the property from Barrick Gold, and is expected to soon announce it has met its $2 million exploration spending obligation to acquire 100% of the property. So far the junior, helmed by Canadian Mining Hall of Fame inductee Ronald Netolitzky, has had some great drill results including 24.44 grams gold per tonne over 3.2 metres and 30.99 grams gold over 4.5 metres. The project has more than 280,000 metres of historical drill assays, which Skeena has reviewed and modelled with its recent drilling. This year, Skeena plans to drill 9,000 metres at potential new production zones that were left unmined, near existing underground workings. An initial resource estimate for Snip is in the works and expected in late 2017.

related epithermal systems found in B.C. and the Yukon formed between 220 and 175 million years ago – before the landmass was accreted onto North America – in a setting similar to the present-day Indonesian and Philippine volcanic arcs. The most notable examples are found in the northwest parts of the Stikinia terrane, a region known to many as B.C.’s “Golden Triangle.” The Golden Triangle encompasses a number of world-class, gold-rich porphyry deposits, such as Teck Resources’ (TSX: TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) Shaft Creek, Imperial Metals’ (TSX: III) Red Chris copper-gold mine, and Seabridge Gold’s (TSX: SEA; NYSE: SA) KSM camp – the latter containing a whopping 38.8 million oz. gold and 10.2 million lb. copper, at grades of 0.51 gram gold per tonne and 0.2% copper, in proven and probable reserves.

SKEENA RESOURCES

Hydrothermal fluids off-gassing from underlying porphyries spurred the growth of Pretium Resources’ (TSX: PVG; NYSE: PVG) Valley of the Kings epithermal gold deposit – where proven and probable reserves stand at 8.1 million oz. gold in 16.6 million tonnes grading 16.1 grams gold – and Skeena Resources’ (TSXV: SKE) 1 million oz. Snip gold deposit and former mine. Stikinia’s volcanic pile is also prospective for volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits, as seen at Barrick Gold’s (TSX: ABX; NYSE: ABX) Eskay Creek mine, which produced 3.3 million oz. gold and 180 million oz. silver at grades of 49 grams gold and 2,406 grams silver over its mine life. Teck’s open-pit Highland Valley copper mine near Kamloops, B.C., is a star example of porphyry deposits in the Quesnellia terrane, having yielded

more than 1.1 billion tonnes of ore in its lifetime. The birth of the Omineca

After the Stikinia-Cache and CreekQuesnellia landmass docked onto North America, it buckled, deformed and metamorphosed intervening basins of sediments that were deposited along the margins of ancestral North America up to 2 billion years ago. In the eastern reaches of B.C. and the Yukon, the rocks were only mildly affected, and organic-rich peat bogs were metamorphosed into coal. Two main coal fields in B.C. – the East Kootenay and Peace River – were exhumed by the deformation, and have resources similar in quality to many Permian-age coals exported from Australia. Rocks closest to the deformation front, however, were complexly »

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2017-04-21 4:19 PM

SNAP SHOT

SEABRIDGE GOLD

When it comes to deposit size, SEABRIDGE GOLD ’s (TSX: SEA; NYSE: SA) KSM stands out from the crowd. At 2.2 billion tonnes of proven and probable reserves, grading 0.55 gram gold, 0.21% copper and 2.6 grams silver, the heavyweight orebody contains 38.8 million oz. gold, 10.2 billion lbs. copper and 183 million oz. silver.

In 2016 Seabridge completed a preliminary feasibility study which outlined a $5 billion mine, which would produce gold at average cash costs of $277 and total costs of $673 per Gold-copperoz. over a 53 year mine life. The study showed the open silver pit and underground operation would operate at 130,000 tonnes per day for the first 35 years and pay back its construction costs after 6.8 years, representing 13% of the mine’s life. KSM

On the permitting front, Seabridge has shepherded KSM through the harmonized environmental assessment process, getting federal and provincial approvals in 2014.

deformed and highly metamorphosed. Today, the mountain chain is referred to as the Omineca, and represents the deeper roots of a mountain chain created between 180 and 60 million years ago. The Omineca is divided into four main terranes – Yukon-Tanana, Cassiar, Slide Mountain and Kootenay. The mountain-building event exhumed a number of pre-existing sedimentary exhalative (SEDEX) lead-

zinc-silver deposits, which formed when metal-rich fluids – derived from basinal brines – either exhaled onto the seafloor via hydrothermal vents, or migrated through permeable sediments. Teck’s historic Sullivan lead-zinc-silver mine, near the town of Kimberley in south-central B.C., is a textbook example of a SEDEX deposit in the Omineca belt. Hosted within a package of sediments belonging to the Kootenay terrane, the

1.4 billion-year-old Sullivan deposit yielded 17 million tonnes of zinc and lead, and 285 million oz. silver – more than $20 billion worth of metal – over its century-long mine life. Similar deposits are also found in the Yukon, such as the Selwyn Chihong Mining’s Howard’s Pass zinc-lead project at the border with the Northwest Territories. As the Omineca terrane towered

DIG AROUND AND SEE

THERE’S MORE BENEATH THE SURFACE Our strategy remains unchanged. We continue to focus on operating safely and efficiently, maintaining financial discipline and delivering sustainable value. We’re proud of our record of safe responsible operations everywhere we do business, our commitment to people and diversity, and our drive for innovation.

TSX:G NYSE:GG

www.goldcorp.com

– 22 –

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2017-04-21 4:19 PM

Atac Resources’ Rackla gold property the central Yukon CREDIT: MATTHEW KEEVIL

SELECT DEPOSITS, DISTRICTS AND GEOLOGY IN THE YUKON

1 2 3 4 5

3 4

to new heights, deeply-buried rocks were metamorphosed, and fluids laden with gold travelled upwards along terrane-bounding structures until encountering a structural or chemical trap. This orogenic-gold style of mineralization is most prolific in the Yukon’s Klondike goldfields, a placer gold camp in the Yukon-Tanana terrane that produced over 20 million oz. gold since 1896. The bedrock source of the Klondike

has never been found, with the exception of Kinross Gold’s (TSX: K; NYSE: KGC) White Gold deposit, which hosts 9.8 million inferred tonnes of 2.67 grams gold for 840,000 oz. gold. Another wave of orogenic-style gold

Klondike White Gold Coffee Casino Howards Pass

mineralization that was introduced roughly the same time as the Klondike is the Barkerville gold camp near the town of Wells in south-central B.C. The camp saw over 3.1 million oz. placer gold and 1.3 million oz. lode gold from historical production, »

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construction and mining companies, owners and Insurers/Sureties facing Performance and L&M Bond Claims, construction liens, contractual claims and disputes, occupational/safety inquests and other complex construction and mining litigation.

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all manner of construction, mining and contractual disputes, fraud related actions, class actions and private actions.

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– 23 –

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2017-04-21 4:19 PM

Deformation in the Stikinia

About 100 to 115 million years ago, two, offshore volcanic terranes belonging to the Insular belt – called the Wrangellia and Alexander – smashed into Stikinia, compressing the metal-rich arc by more than 160 km, or nearly half of its width. Many of Stikinia’s deposits were highly deformed, and most structural clues that explorers use to hone in on mineralization were either overprinted or reactivated, making them more challenging to find. Wrangellia and Alexander’s volcanic crust is known for its world-class VMS polymetallic deposits, such as Nyrstar’s Myra Falls mine near Campbell River, Vancouver Island, and the 300 million tonne copper-cobalt-gold Windy Craggy deposit in B.C.’s extreme northwest. As the terranes pushed into the continent, gold-rich fluids were driven into parts of the Yukon, most notably at Goldcorp’s (TSX: G; NYSE: GG) Coffee project, where resources total 4.9 million oz. gold. Subduction beneath the continent picked up speed and the crust was injected with enormous volumes of granitic magma and active volcanism

SNAP SHOT

VICTORIA GOLD

SNAP SHOT

COPPER FOX SCHAFT CREEK Copper-goldmolybdenum-silver

COPPER FOX METALS (TSXV: CUU) is a 25% partner with major Teck Resources in advancing the Schaft Creek coppergold-molybdenum-silver project in northwestern British Columbia. The Schaft Creek deposit hosts proven and probable reserves totalling 940.8 million tonnes grading 0.27% copper, 0.19 gram gold per tonne, 0.018% molybdenum and 1.72 grams silver per tonne for 5,611.7 million lbs. of contained copper, 5.8 million oz. gold, 363.5 million lbs. molybdenum and 51.7 million oz. silver.

A 2013 feasibility study outlined annual production of 105,000 tonnes copper, 201,000 oz. gold, 1.2 million oz. silver and 10.2 million lbs. molybdenum. In 2017 Schaft Creek will see resource remodelling, desktop engineering and trade-off studies, environmental data collection and permitting work.

CANADIAN CORDILLERA TERRANES

10 0

100

200

300

Foreland and Omineca belts (ancestral North America) 1 Platform rocks (incl. Cassiar terrane) 2 Basinal rocks (incl. Kootenay terrane) 3 Yukon-Tanana terrane 4 Slide Mountain terrane

1 1 2

3 10

6 3 7 3

4 7 9

12 8

4 1 11

for 50 million years. During this period, pulses in magmatism farther inland created a range of porphyry copper-gold deposits, such as Imperial’s Huckleberry and Taseko Mines’ (TSX: TKO; NYSE-MKT: TGB)

VICTORIA GOLD (TSXV: VIT) has been developing its Dublin Gulch gold property in the central Yukon for years. The project contains the Eagle gold deposit, which stands as the leading candidate for Yukon’s next gold mine. In a very remote region, Dublin Gulch enjoys accessibility by road year-round and is connected to the electrical grid.

At last count, proven and probable reserves at the Eagle and Olive deposits totalled 2.7 million oz. gold in 123 million Gold tonnes grading 0.67 gram gold per tonne. In the measured and indicated categories (inclusive of the reserves), the two deposits contain 191 million tonnes at 0.65 gram gold for 4 million contained oz. gold. EAGLE

So far in 2017 Victoria arranged up to US$220 million of senior, secured debt to start building the Eagle mine. The junior has awarded an engineering contract and acquired a Cat mining fleet. It’s also spending at least $6.2 million on drilling Dublin Gulch in 2017.

Intermontane belt 5 Quesnellia terrane 6 Stikinia terrane 7 Cache Creek terrane 11 Okanagan terrane 12 Bridge River/Cadwallader/ Methow terranes 13 Chilliwak/Harrison terranes Coast belt 8 Coast Plutonic Suite Insular belt 9 Wrangellia terrane 10 Alexander terrane

Yukon Geological Survey/Lesley Stokes

whereas modern explorers, such as Barkerville Gold Mines (TSXV: BGM), have outlined over 4.8 million oz. gold in indicated and inferred resources from nearby bedrock sources. Mineralization in the Barkerville camp occurs as replacement pods and veins along the high-strain deformation corridors that bound the Kootenay terrane with the Slide Mountain terrane in the east. The Kootenay terrane is similar, if not identical, to the YukonTanana terrane.

Prosperity deposits in B.C., and Western Copper and Gold’s (TSX: WRN; NYSE-MKT: WRN) Casino project in the Yukon. This deformation event was also responsible for the many porphyry and related deposits across western U.S., Mexico and beyond. As time passed, the tops of the mountain chain that existed between Stikinia and Wrangellia eroded away, including any potential porphyry-style deposits, and the granitic core – known as the Coast belt – was exposed. The western margin today

In the last 50 million years, the structural regime off the coast of modern-day B.C. has transitioned more towards sideways-slipping faults than subduction, with earthquakes and erosion taking precedent over volcanism and mountain building. b

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2017-04-21 4:19 PM

FOC_ad pages.indd 25

2017-04-21 12:34 PM

Developing Canadaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Next Gold Camp

Indin Lake Gold Camp Northwest Territories, Canada

Nighthawk controls 90% of the Indin Lake Gold Camp Colomac Gold Project 2.1 million ounce inferred gold resource 97% of drillholes contain gold

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9km of underxplored host rock

Highly Prospective Regional Targets TSX-V: NHK www.NighthawkGold.com

FOC_ad pages.indd 26

2017-04-21 12:35 PM

NUNAVUT

NWT FACTS CAPITAL:

ACTIVE MINES 44,100

POPULATION:

AREA: 1,143,793

FACTS

PRIMARY PRODUCT

Yellowknife km2

CAPITAL:

ACTIVE MINES PRIMARY PRODUCT

Iqaluit

POPULATION:

DIAMOND: 3

AREA: 1,877,788

35,944 km2

GOLD: 1 IRON ORE: 1

POPULATION DENSITY:

0.04 persons per km2

0.02 persons per km2 Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

Source: StatCan 2016

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

MINERAL PRODUCTION GOLD

SILVER

$68M

$1.8B

$571M IRON ORE

DIAMONDS

TOTAL VALUE:

$1.8B

TOTAL VALUE:

Source: Mining Association of Canada, 2015

data dashboard

$4.5M

$644M

Source: Natural Resources Canada, 2015

EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS COBALT 3

OTHER 12 (Including uranium, rare earth elements, tungsten, silver, lead, zinc, tantalum, tin, coal)

OTHER/POLYMETALLIC 29 (Including coal, cobalt, copper, diamond, gold, iron ore, molybdenum, nickel, lead, PGM, silver, uranium, zinc)

NICKEL 3 LITHIUM 6

COPPER 16

DIAMOND 60

GOLD 29

IRON ORE 4 BASE METALS 4

DIAMOND 25

URANIUM 10

GOLD 25 TOTAL:

125

TOTAL:

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

101

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

EXPLORATION AND DEPOSIT EVALUATION EXPENDITURES DIAMOND $18M URANIUM $9.5M

PRECIOUS METALS

BASE METALS

$8.6M

DIAMOND

$85.4M

$5.5M

BASE METALS

PRECIOUS METALS

IRON ORE $3.5M

$173M

$5.5M OTHER $1.4M

TOTAL:

$100.9M

TOTAL:

Source: NWT Bureau of Statistics, 2015

$215M

Source: StatsCan, 2015

– 27 –

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2017-04-21 1:39 PM

TSX:ROXG

HIGH GRADE LOW COST GOLD PRODUCER

105,000 - 115,000 oz Au* in Burkina Faso

*Production 2017e

roxgold.com

FOC_ad pages.indd 27

2017-04-21 12:35 PM

CANADA’S NORTHWEST TERRITORIES:

A rich history and bright future in mining BY PAM STRAND,

ASSISTANT DEPUTY MINISTER, MINERAL AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES BRANCH, INDUSTRY, TOURISM AND INVESTMENT, GOVERNMENT OF NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

or nearly a century, Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT) has grown and prospered from mining, exploration and prospecting. The capital city, Yellowknife, was a frontier town that quickly gave rise to highly productive gold mines. Diamond mines followed and in 2016, the NWT celebrated 25 years since the discovery of diamonds in the territory. Value of the territory’s mineral production surpasses $50 billion, largely due to diamond mines. There are three producing diamond mines in the NWT: Diavik, Ekati, and Gahcho Kué. The NWT also has several advanced metal projects that are working their way to production such as Canadian Zinc’s zinc-lead Prairie Creek Project, Fortune Minerals’ cobaltgold-bismuth-copper NICO Project and exploration successes at TerraX Minerals’ Yellowknife City Gold Project, Nighthawk Gold’s Colomac Project, Kennady Diamond Inc.’s Kennady North Project and Darnley Bay Resources’ zinc-lead Pine Point Project. The diamond mining and resource industry directly and indirectly accounts for about 34 percent of the NWT’s GDP. The resource industry is the anchor to the NWT economy and pivotal in the future development of the NWT. The Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) envisions a bright future for this industry for several reasons: mineral potential, geoscience expertise, incentives and support, investments in infrastructure, and a trained resident workforce. Mineral Potential

The NWT has a landmass of 1.3 million square kilometres. This geologically diverse landscape has proven mineral potential for diamonds, gold, cobalt, bismuth, tungsten, copper, iron, zinc, nickel, lead and rare earths metals and lithium. Geoscience Expertise

NWT has a broad range of modern geoscience information. NWT Geological Survey specializes in conducting geoscience research, analyzing mineral and petroleum resources and managing digital data. A core library is scheduled to open in the summer of 2017. It will house a large and diverse collection of mineral exploration drill core, rock samples and specimens that can help to significantly reduce costs for anyone looking to evaluate mineral prospects in the territory. NWT Incentives and Support

The GNWT’s Mineral Development Strategy guides the actions, investments and programs available to strengthen the territory’s mining and exploration industry. The Mining Incentive Program (MIP) is one of the most popular programs and funding was increased from $400,000 to $1 million annually in March 2017. As a result of Devolution in 2014, the GNWT now is in

control of NWT land, water and resource management. The GNWT has begun work on the Mineral Resources Act with the goal to establish modern, leading-edge legislation that will protect our territory’s future, address the realities of modern mineral development and provide for sustainable, accountable and responsible resource development. NWT Aboriginal governments continue to play a key role in advancing and supporting resource development in the territory. In addition to support from Aboriginal governments, the NWT also has impressive public support for mining. A 2016 public opinion survey by NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines and Mining Association of Canada found that 80 percent of respondents favour mining and exploration companies operating in the NWT. Investing in Infrastructure

The GNWT has identified three priority transportation corridors that will connect communities, provide more reliable and resilient infrastructure that reduces the impacts of climate change, and support mineral development activities. The Tłįcho All-Season Road will provide year-round access to the community of Whati and open up new areas for mineral exploration and development. The Mackenzie Valley Highway will replace the existing winter road in the valley, increasing the window of reliable access to areas of known mineral and petroleum resources in the Sahtu Region. Construction of the northernmost section of this highway, known as the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway, will be completed in November 2017. An all-weather road through the Slave Geological Province will provide a significant boost to the NWT’s existing diamond industry. There is also the potential of linking the Slave Geological Province Access Corridor to an all-weather road and port in Nunavut, supporting industry activity in the mineral-rich region from both territories. Trained Resident Workforce

The NWT’s long history of mining means there is significant local experience and knowledge. The NWT Mine Training Society has provided services to over 1,900 individuals and directly placed more than 800 since 2004. The GNWT works in partnership with Aboriginal governments and others to discuss decisions, share information about resource industries, and ultimately build a stronger foundation for NWT mineral development. The GNWT has also committed to resolving outstanding lands claims during the term of the 18th Legislative Assembly. The NWT’s mining future looks bright and we’d like you to be a part of it. For more information: Mineral Resources Division, mining@gov.nt.ca – www.iti.gov.nt.ca; NWT Geological Survey, ntgs@gov.nt.ca www.nwtgeoscience.ca. – 29 –

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NORTHWEST TERRITORIES & NUNAVUT

Canada’s final frontier Diverse geological framework and lack of detailed exploration speaks to huge mineral potential

geology & projects

eneath the glacier-scoured lakes and barren tundra of the Northwest Territories (N.W.T.) and Nunavut is a collection of disparate Archean- to Proterozoic-aged crust that was stitched together along vast mountain ranges during the assembly of the supercontinent Columbia about 2 billion years ago. One of the first collisions occurred when metamorphosed crust belonging to the Hottah terrane in the N.W.T. collided with the Slave craton, an Archean-aged package of weakly metamorphosed, volcano-sedimentary terranes called greenstone belts. The collision triggered subduction along the western margin of the Hottah, and the crust was either injected with locally uranium-enriched magmas or metal-rich fluids driven by underlying iron-oxide copper-gold (IOCG) systems. This mineral-rich tectonic margin, known as the Great Bear magmatic zone, hosts the historic Port Radium uranium-silver mine and Fortune

SNAP SHOT

CANADIAN ZINC PRAIRIE CREEK

Zinc-lead-silver

Minerals’ (TSX: FT) Nico gold-bismuthcobalt-copper IOCG deposit. The combined rock package is known as the Wopmay orogen. All that glitters is not gold: Diamonds

The accretion of the Wopmay to the Slave thickened the crust to a depth where immense pressures transformed carbon-rich material into diamonds. The diamonds remained undisturbed until 55 million years ago, when volatile, rich magmas drove up through the crust, moving the precious stones to surface. These diamond-bearing kimberlites were later uncovered by explorers in the Lac de Gras region of the N.W.T., most notably at Dominion Diamond (TSX: DDC; NYSE: DDC) and Rio Tinto’s (NYSE: RIO; LON: RIO) Diavik, Dominion’s Ekati and De Beers’ Gahcho Kué diamond mines. Farther north, the former Jericho diamond mine is hosted within Nunavut’s portion of the Slave.

CANADIAN ZINC (TSX: CZN) has recently announced it will be completing a bankable feasibility study to support the financing it needs to get into production at its advanced Prairie Creek zinc-lead-silver project in the Northwest Territories. The Prairie Creek deposit holds measured and indicated resources of 8.7 million tonnes grading 9.5% zinc, 8.9% lead and 127.58 grams silver per tonne. There is also an inferred resource of 7.05 million tonnes of 11.3% zinc, 7.7% zinc and 166 grams silver.

In 2016 the company completed a prefeasibility study that pegged pre-production costs at $244 million to build a mine with average annual production of 86 million lbs. zinc, 82 million lbs. lead and 1.7 million oz. silver in concentrate, for an initial 17 year mine life. The coming definitive feasibility study will incorporate opportunities for optimization identified in the earlier report, which could help pave the way for financing and construction.

The untapped gold potential in the Slave

The greenstone belts that occupy the Slave craton are similar, if not identical, to those of the Superior craton in the gold-prolific regions of Ontario and Quebec, but are relatively unexplored. Most of the gold exploration work in the Slave craton has focused on the Yellowknife Gold greenstone belt, which hosts the historic 7.6 million oz. Con and 5.5 million oz. Giant gold mines, located outside the capital city of Yellowknife, N.W.T. TerraX Minerals (TSXV: TXR) is exploring the rest of the belt whereas 200 km north, Nighthawk Gold (TSXV: NHK) is uncovering a gold-rich greenstone belt at its Colomac property. In Nunavut’s portion of the Slave craton, major gold projects include TMAC Resources’ (TSX: TMR) 4.5 million oz. gold Hope Bay project and Sabina Gold & Silver’s (TSX: SBB) 5.3 million oz. gold Back River project. WPC Resources (TSXV: WPQ) is also working to restart operations at the shuttered 3.4 million oz. Lupin gold mine. While most explorers focus on gold and diamonds in the Slave, volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) base metal deposits are also known to occur, such as Glencore Canada’s Hackett River in Nunavut.

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Rio Tinto and Dominion Diamond’s Diavik diamond mine in the Northwest Territories. CREDIT: RIO TINTO Geologists in the field at Auryn Resources’ Committee Bay gold property in Nunavut. CREDIT:AURYN RESOURCES

The Mackenzie Mountains hold 55% of the world’s known reserves of tungsten and significant reserves of lead-zinc. Kilometres

SELECT DEPOSITS, DISTRICTS AND GEOLOGY IN NORTHWEST TERRITORIES AND NUNAVUT

1 2 3 4 5 6

Prairie Creek Cantung Howards Pass Redstone Pine Point YCG

17 2 3

4 1

8 7

15 16 11 12

6 13

23 18 20 21

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

NICO Colomac Jericho Lupin Ekati Diavik Gahcho Kue Kennady North Hackett River Back River Hope Bay Meadowbank Kiggavik North Rankin Inlet Meliadine Pistol Bay Amaruq Committee Bay Polaris Mary River Chidliak

Churchill’s overlooked greenstone belts

The eastern side of Slave is sutured against the Churchill province, a geological domain divided into two cratons: Rae and Hearne. Rae and Hearne are separated by the enigmatic, 1.9-billionyear-old Snowbird tectonic zone, which stretches northeast for 2,800 km from the Canadian Cordillera, before disappearing beneath Hudson Bay. Geologists believe that the RaeHearne cratons are geologically similar to the Slave craton – being composed

of a mix of greenstone belts and intrusives – but are slightly younger in age, and covered more extensively with Proterozoic-aged sedimentary rocks. The Rae craton is more deformed than the Hearne, having been hit repeatedly on both sides by cratons from 2.6 billion to 1.9 billion years ago. These events intensely metamorphosed parts of the crust, and any pre-existing metal deposits that are common in greenstone belts would have been obliterated by the immense pressures and temperatures. Most of the known gold occurrences

in the Churchill occurred during deformation related to the assembly of the supercontinent, 1.9 to 1.8 billion years ago – almost 1 billion years after the main gold mineralizing events in the Slave or Superior craton. In this younger event, gold-rich fluids – drawn from the partial melting of crust during metamorphism, or remobilized from older deposits – circulated through structures until it found chemical traps, such as banded-iron formations (BIF), and deposited the metals. The most significant examples of

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SNAP SHOT

SABINA GOLD & SILVER

SABINA GOLD & SILVER’s (TSX: SBB) 100% owned Back River gold project is one of the most advanced exploration projects in Nunavut. The property hosts resources totalling 28.2 million tonnes grading 5.87 grams gold per tonne for 5.3 million oz. contained gold.

Sabina released two positive feasibility studies for its proposed Goose mine on the property in 2015. The Gold latter, optimized study envisioned a 3,000 tonne per day operation producing about 200,000 oz. gold annually for 11.8 years at cash costs of $534 per oz. Initial capital costs are estimated at $415 million, with $185 million in sustaining capital. BACK RIVER

The company has $40 million in cash (as of the end of 2016), and has budgeted $8.5 million for exploration this year. Throughout the spring and summer Sabina will drill 7,000 metres at priority targets in the Goose footprint in hopes of expanding potential mine life and improving economics.

Proterozoic-aged, BIF-hosted gold deposits are found where the Snowbird slices through the Rae craton. These deposits include Agnico Eagle Mines’ (TSX: AEM; NYSE: AEM) 3.5 million oz. Meadowbank mine in south-central Nunavut, its 3.7 million oz. Amaruq exploration project, 55 km north of Meadowbank, and its 3.4 million oz.

Meliadine deposit in southeastern Nunavut. Aside from Amaruq, the most advanced exploration project in the Rae craton is Auryn Resources’ (TSX: AUG) Committee Bay, 180 km northeast of Meadowbank. The project occurs within a weakly metamorphosed section of the 300 km long Committee Bay

greenstone belt, home to the 1.3 million oz. gold Three Bluffs BIF-hosted deposit. In some parts of Nunavut, the BIF is a minable resource of iron. Baffinland Iron Mines’ Mary River in northern Baffin Island is home to one of the highest-grade iron mines in the world, with reserves of 365 million tonnes of 65% iron. Compared to the Rae craton, Hearn hosts few known gold occurrences, despite its greenstone belts being well-preserved and sheltered from intense metamorphism. The most advanced project is Nordgold’s (LON: NORD) 739,000 oz. gold Pistol Bay project along the coast in southern Nunavut, nearby the historic North Rankin Inlet magmatic nickel-copper deposit. A new generation of deposits

Once deformation came to a halt, sediments were eroded off the mountain peaks and deposited into deep basins, preserved today as the Athabasca basin in Saskatchewan and the Thelon basin that spans the N.W.T. and Nunavut

BUILDING CANADA’S

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border. About 1.5 billion years ago, uranium-rich fluids flushed into the Snowbird tectonic zone and deposited plumes of the metal into the Athabasca and Thelon basins. In Nunavut, the Thelon hosts Areva’s 134 million lb. U3O8 Kiggavik project. Through the Paleozoic to about 70 million years ago, shallow seas inundated the lowlands, depositing blankets of carbonates, shales and sandstones. During a resurgence of deformation in the north, called the Innuitian orogen, immense pressures squeezed metal-rich fluids out of the shales and flushed them into the carbonates. The deformation created two Mississippi Valley Type lead-zinc deposits: Polaris in northern Nunavut and Pine Point in southern N.W.T, which both formed about 360 million years ago. During the onset of deformation of the Canadian Cordillera, 180 million years ago, some of the sediments and ancient crust in the west were uplifted into a vast mountain range. Today, an arc-shaped segment of that range, known as the Mackenzie Mountains, straddles the Yukon and N.W.T. border.

SNAP SHOT

NIGHTHAWK GOLD COLOMAC

Gold

Junior explorer NIGHTHAWK GOLD (TSXV: NHK) has kicked off its most ambitious exploration program this year at its 809 sq. km Indin Lake gold property in the Northwest Territories. The firm plans to drill at least 25,000 metres at the Colomac deposit and priority targets throughout the land package. Nighthawk looks to expand Colomac and deliver an updated resource estimate by the end of the year. Right now the deposit has an inferred resource of 39.8 million tonnes grading 1.64 grams gold per tonne, for 2.1 million oz. contained gold.

Colomac Zone 1.5 is a top drilling priority, following up on last year’s impressive drill results — including 72.65 metres grading 5.58 grams gold — which point to the potential for higher-grade domains within the deposit. The company is also planning prospecting and mapping programs for the summer, with an eye to generating new prospective drill targets.

The Mackenzie Mountains hold 55% of the world’s known reserves of tungsten and significant reserves of leadzinc, with major deposits including the skarn-related Cantung tungsten deposit and Canadian Zinc’s (TSX: CZN) vein-hosted and Mississippi Valley Type Prairie Creek deposit in the N.W.T., and Selwyn-Chihong Mining’s sedimentaryexhalative (Sedex) Howard’s Pass zinclead deposit on the border.

Diamonds punch through the Trans-Hudson

About 150 million years ago, entangled blocks of undeformed Archean crust – found within the remnants of an ancient mountain chain called the Trans-Hudson orogen – provided a pathway for diamond-bearing kimberlites. Examples of which are found at Peregrine Diamonds (TSX: PGD) Chidliak project in southern Baffin Island. b

Making the complex seem simple. We combine technical expertise with the courage to challenge conventional thinking. We’re inspired to build positive change, always thinking about how to make the world a better place. Building smarter solutions to ignite your vision. Contact us at hatch.com

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CANADA

Continued from page 9

A helicopter at the Lost Valley area, 4 km from IDM Mining’s Red Mountain gold deposit in

This deformation produced a Himalayan-scale mountain range – called the Grenville orogeny – that extends across a significant portion of the North American continent, from Labrador to Mexico, as well as to Scotland. The Grenville range eroded down to its metamorphosed core, and was partly covered with sandstones and limestones by encroaching seas. Rodinia was eventually disassembled, only to reassemble again, 350 million years ago, to form the supercontinent Pangaea. Pangaea transforms the east coast

During the assembly of Pangaea, the African continent collided with the eastern coast of ancestral North America and thrusted up a belt of rocks – rich with pre-existing VMS deposits – known as the Appalachians. World-class copper-lead-zinc deposits that were exposed by this tectonic event are clustered in the Bathurst camp in New Brunswick and the Buchans camp in Newfoundland. As the Appalachian orogen ensued, gold-rich fluids funneled into the many structural corridors across the eastern provinces, while lower-temperature fluids laden with lead-zinc were squeezed out of shales and into brecciated carbonate rocks to form Mississippi Valley Type (MVT) lead-zinc deposits. MVT deposits from this deformation event can be seen within the Gays River district in Nova Scotia, whereas a similar event much farther north, called the Innuitian orogen, drove fluids into the Polaris and Pine Point deposits of Nunavut and Northwest Territories. Canada’s west coast

When the North Atlantic Ocean rifted open 180 million years ago, the African continent broke away – albeit leaving behind continental fragments on the east coast of Newfoundland – and North America was pushed westwards. The shift in movement ignited subduction beneath the western margin of the continent, and a number of offshore volcanic island chains and sedimentary rocks in the west were docked and thrusted onto the edge of the landmass. The first volcanic terranes that arrived, 150 million years ago, were teeming with

northwest British Columbia. CREDIT: MATTHEW KEEVIL

porphyry copper-gold and epithermal gold deposits, such as those seen today within the Valley of the Kings and Red Chris deposits in northwest B.C., and the Highland Valley Copper deposit in southcentral British Columbia. These deposits formed between 220 and 175 million years ago in a setting similar to the present-day Philippine and Indonesian island arcs. As the metal-rich island chain pushed into the continent, basins of intervening sediments – up to 1.6 billion years old – were thrusted onto the landmass. The event exhumed a number of world-class sedex deposits that had formed along the edges of the ancient cratons, with examples including the Howard’s Pass and Sullivan lead-zinc deposits, located in the Yukon and southern British Columbia. This tectonic event also sliced up the crust and injected it with gold, most notably at the 20 million oz. Klondike placer goldfields in the Yukon, and central B.C.’s Barkerville camp, which saw 3.1 million oz. historical placer gold production and has 4.8 million oz. gold in resources from nearby bedrock sources. The next volcanic terrane that arrived on Canada’s western margin, at 100 million years ago, created a massive wave of deformation that drove gold-rich fluids into parts of the Yukon, most notably at the 4.9 million oz. gold Coffee deposit. Subduction beneath the towering landmass eventually picked up speed, and the accreted margin of Western Canada was injected with enormous volumes of granitic magma for 50 million years, generating a number of porphyry copper-gold deposits, such as Casino in the Yukon and Huckleberry in British Columbia. Around 55 million years ago, diamond-bearing magmas punched up rapidly through the Archean-age crust in the Northwest Territories’ Lac de

Gras region. Geologists believe that Archean crust favours diamonds because the cratons have bulged to enormous depths over its geological history, which provided high enough pressure and temperature to compress carbon into a precious stone. An older diamond-bearing kimberlite event occurred between 180 and 155 million years ago, as recorded in northern Ontario’s Victor mine, and another at 640 million years ago at Quebec’s Renard mine. Less commercially significant kimberlites up to 1.1 billion years in age have also been uncovered in other parts of Canada. The future of Canada

Over time, the seas that once covered much of Western Canada began to evaporate, having been partly cut off from the ocean by the Canadian Cordillera. The sediments eroded off the leeward side of the mountains were buried up to 5 km deep, and any carbon matter was in time converted into oil by the elevated pressures and temperatures. Even to this day, oil is being generated at the toe of the mountains – across much of Alberta and the Northwest Territories – and migrates for hundreds of kilometres until caught by impermeable traps or quartz-rich sands. In the last 50 million years, the structural regime off the western coast of modern-day B.C. and the Yukon has transitioned more towards sideway faults than subduction, with tremors and earthquakes taking precedent over volcanism and mountain building. On the East Coast, the Atlantic Ocean continues to rift open, pushing the North American continent westwards. Geologists predict that in the next 250 million years, plate tectonics will likely drive the continents on earth together once again, into a supercontinent called Pangaea Ultima. b

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TSX: BAR OTCQX: BALMF

BAR_NMiner_Fullpage_20Mar2017.indd 9 FOC_ad pages.indd 35

3/29/2017 10:25:53 AM 2017-04-21 12:36 PM

PRAIRIE PROVINCES FACTS PROVINCES:

ACTIVE MINES | PRIMARY PRODUCT Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan

POPULATION:

6,443,892

AREA: 1,780,651

COAL: 11 POTASH: 9 GOLD: 4 URANIUM: 2 NICKEL: 2 ZINC: 2 COPPER: 1

km2

POPULATION DENSITY:

3.62 persons per km

Source: StatCan 2016

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

MINERAL PRODUCTION COAL

POTASH

KCI

COPPER

$1,609M

$377M

$6,100M

ZINC

$266M

$449M

$20M

NICKEL

$207M GOLD

TOTAL VALUE:

$281M

URANIUM

COBALT

Co $10M

SILVER

$9.3B

data dashboard

Source: Natural Resources Canada, Saskatchewan Ministry of the Economy, 2015

EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS OTHER/POLYMETALLIC 80 (Including cobalt, copper, diamond, gold, graphite, iron ore, nickel, lead, lithium, magnesium, molybdenum, potash, niobium, PGM, REE, silver, tantalum, uranium, zinc)

URANIUM 143

POTASH 20 DIAMOND 20 COAL 14 GOLD 70

BASE METALS 42 TOTAL:

389

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

EXPLORATION AND DEPOSIT EVALUATION EXPENDITURES PRECIOUS METALS $23.8M BASE METALS $22M IRON ORE $0.1M DIAMOND $8.6M PHOSPHATE $5.3M URANIUM $157M OTHER $109.1M (Including potash)

TOTAL:

$320.6M

Source: Natural Resources Canada, 2015

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PRAIRIE PROVINCES

Canada’s promising prairie provinces From Thompson and Flin Flon to the Athabasca basin and beyond

BY LESLEY STOKES

geology & projects

eneath the rolling prairie landscape of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba is a juncture point between three of earth’s earliest cratons – Superior, Rae and Hearne – brought together some 1.9 billion years ago during the assembly of the supercontinent Columbia. As the cratons collided, the deformation was so intense that it produced a 3,000 km long, Himalayan-scale mountain chain – known as the TransHudson orogen – that has since been eroded down to its core. Many of the world-class metal districts in the Prairies stem from the events surrounding the Trans-Hudson orogen, but others were formed long before, when the cratons were just disparate fragments of some of earth’s oldest continental crust. Setting the stage

The Superior craton dates back 4 billion years ago in the Archean eon, when immense volcanism began to dot the earth’s surface with chains of volcanic islands. Once plate tectonics emerged 3 billion years ago, the islands were driven together into massive blocks of continental crust, and the rocks were deformed and variably metamorphosed into what’s known as “greenstone belts.” Some of the world’s largest and oldest accumulations of greenstone belts are found in the Superior craton, which extends across Ontario and Quebec before terminating in eastern Manitoba. The belts are rich with Archean-aged orogenic gold, base-metal rich volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) and magmatic nickel-copper and chromium deposits, with notable examples found

within the 150 million oz. gold Abitibi greenstone belt across Ontario and Quebec. Another world class district, the 31.4 million oz. Red Lake greenstone belt in Ontario, extends for 100 km along geological strike to Klondex Mines’ (TSX: KDX; NYSE-MKT: KLDX) True North gold mine in Manitoba (formerly named Rice Lake), where past production and current resources amount to 5.6 million oz. gold. In northeast Manitoba, a lesser known greenstone belt named Oxford-Stull is mostly recognized for Yamana Gold’s (TSX: YRI; NYSE: AUY) 3.6 million oz. gold Monument Bay deposit, but also has granitic pegmatites that are rich with technology metals, such as beryllium, lithium, tantalum and niobium. Magmatic nickel-copper deposits, formed out of metal-rich sills and dikes that once fed Superior’s ancient volcanoes, are prolific in the Bird River greenstone belt in southern Manitoba. The belt hosts the past-producing Dumbarton and Maskwa West nickel

-copper deposits, which produced 2.7 million tonnes of 1.02% nickel. Before the Trans-Hudson

Sitting between the Superior and the Hearne craton, some 2 billion years ago, was a vast ocean called Manikewan that contained extensive belts of submarine volcanoes. The volcanic activity spewed metal-rich fluids from deep-sea hydrothermal vents, which in turn peppered the seafloor with VMS deposits. Just before the onset of the TransHudson orogen, sedimentary rocks that were deposited along Superior’s northwestern coastal shelf began to rift open. The extension triggered a surge in nickel-copper rich dikes and sills into a 400 km long, 10 to 35 km wide belt known today as Manitoba’s world class Thomspon Nickel Belt (TNB). The top three deposits in the TNB – Thompson, Birchtree and Pipe – have produced more than 150 million tonnes of 2.3% nickel, 0.2% copper, 0.1% cobalt and 0.83 gram per tonne platinum group metals since 1961.

SNAP SHOT

FISSION URANIUM (TSX: FCU) has spent the winter drilling its

FISSION URANIUM

The deposit sits just outside of the prolific Athabasca basin in northern Saskatchewan and contains 2.01 million indicated tonnes grading 1.83% uranium oxide for 36,790 contained tonnes, plus an inferred resource of 785,000 tonnes grading 1.57% for 12,250 tonnes uranium oxide.

PATTERSON LAKE SOUTH

advanced Patterson Lake South (PLS) uranium project, which hosts the shallow Triple R deposit.

Since the latest resource estimate and a positive PEA 2015 the junior has been drilling to expand the deposit, which remains open, and better define newly identified zones to be added to a future resource estimate.

Uranium

This year the company doubled its planned winter exploration program to drill 19,000 metres following encouraging results. – 38 –

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The headframe at the past-producing MacLellan gold mine, part of Alamos Gold’s Lynn Lake property in Manitoba.

CREDIT: ALAMOS GOLD

2 1

SELECT DEPOSITS, DISTRICTS AND GEOLOGY IN ALBERTA, SASKATCHEWAN AND MANITOBA 7

Kilometres

8 4

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Buffalo Head Hills Athabasca Basin Glennie-La Ronge Flin Flon Candle Lake Fort a la Corne Lynn Lake Thompson Nickel Belt Fox River Monument Bay Rice Lake Bird River

11 12

The prolific package of rocks – called the Superior Boundary Zone – extends northeastwards in north-central Manitoba, under Hudson Bay, and skylights at the Raglan nickel-copper camp

SNAP SHOT

WESTERN POTASH

in northern Quebec. Similar rocks are also found in northeastern Manitoba’s Fox River belt, but explorers have yet to define an economic nickel-copper deposit.

WESTERN POTASH (TSX: WPX) has been advancing its Milestone potash project near Regina, Saskatchewan since 2009. The project contains proven and probable reserves of 137.3 million tonnes grading 26.85% potassium chloride for 36.9 million tonnes of contained potash.

The company is pushing to develop a pilot operation which would produce 146,000 tonnes of potash annually MILESTONE for 12 years. A technical report released in late 2016 Potash estimated the pilot plant would cost $88.3 million from design to commissioning, with operating costs of $82.39 per tonne of product. Western Potash is working towards derisking an optimizing the pilot plant plan this year.

The Flin Flon camp daylights

As deformation of the Trans-Hudson ensued, the ocean between them began to close and the volcanic crust was either subducted or squeezed into a mountainous belt, giving way to a variety of Proterozoic-aged greenstone belts riddled with intrusives. Remnants of Manikewan’s VMS deposits are seen today in the Flin Flon-Snow Lake belt along the border of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The world-class district produced 180 million tonnes of copper-zinc ore from 31 mines, including the Flin Flon mine, where resources exceeded 62.4 million tonnes of 2.2% copper, 4.1% zinc and 2.7 grams gold per tonne. The Flin Flon-Snow Lake greenstone belt extends southwestwards into

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Advancing Prairie Creek Zn-Pb-Ag Project in the Northwest Territories towards production • PFS completed in 2016 • Reserves support 17 year mine life • Average annual production of 86 M lbs. zinc, 82 M lbs. lead and 1.7 M oz. silver expected • Feasibility Study underway • Examining financing options Exploring and developing a 450 km2 land package in Newfoundland with base metal deposits and exploration targets • Successful drill programs to expand deposits and test for new mineralization concluded • Metallurgical studies completed with positive results LISTING:

TSX: CZN

www.canadianzinc.com TOLL FREE

Canadian Zinc Corp_ad FOC_ad pages.indd 40.indd 1

1 866 688 2001 | EMAIL invest@canadianzinc.com

2017-04-25 2017-04-25 10:02 10:03 AM AM

Saskatchewan, where it’s called the Glennie and La Ronge. It then bends northwards back onto itself, and trends into the Lynn Lake district in Manitoba. The Glennie and La Ronge belts in Saskatchewan are popular stops for gold hunters. Small historical mines straddling the highway have together produced 600,000 oz. gold over the past 30 years. Silver Standard Resources’ (TSX: SSO; NASDAQ: SSRI) Seabee and Santoy mining complex is the largest gold-only mine in the province, having produced over 1 million oz. gold since 1991. In the Lynn Lake camp, the most productive VMS deposits include the Fox Lake and Ruttan deposits, which produced 12 million and 55 million tonnes ore at 1.4-2% copper and zinc, and up to 0.5 gram gold per tonne. The camp also has 5 million oz. in untapped gold resources, with the biggest deposits to date including Alamos Gold’s (TSX: AGI; NYSE: AGI) 4.7 million oz. gold MacLellan and Farley Lake deposits. The historic Lynn Lake mine was the third-largest nickel producer in Canada before being surpassed by Vale’s (NYSE: VALE) Voisey’s Bay nickel-copper mine in 2005. Between 1953 and 1976, Lynn Lake produced over 22 million tonnes of 1.02% nickel and 0.5% copper. Uranium in the Athabascan basin

Erosion off the Trans-Hudson landmass deposited basins of Proterozoic-aged sediments seen today in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin. The basin overlies a suture zone between the Rae and Hearne cratons, whereby structures became a conduit for uranium-rich fluids some 1.5 billion years ago. The basement-hosted

SNAP SHOT

ALAMOS GOLD LYNN LAKE

Gold

structures, and where they pierce the overlying sediments, created a plethora of uranium deposits that today accounts for 20% of global supply. The Prairies since the Paleozoic

The core of ancestral North America continued to erode through the Paleozoic until the ancient mountain chains were eventually levelled. Erosion picked up again 180 million years ago as terranes began to accrete onto Canada’s western margin, producing the current-day Canadian Cordillera. Blankets of sediments, coupled with deposition from ancient seas, buried parts of Alberta and beyond with sediments up to 5 km thick. Even to this day, the deep burial transforms any organic layers into oil, which is then moved along with vast groundwater brines for hundreds of kilometres before being caught in impervious traps. In northern Alberta, extremely permeable quartz-rich sand – sourced from a Ganges-sized river system that spanned Canada 90 million years ago – eventually became today’s prolific oilsands deposits, which are the third-largest oil reserve on the planet. CAN D AvolatileAbout 55 million yearsAago, rich magmas punched up rapidly through the thick Archean to Proterozoic-aged cratons, and erupted at surface in the shape of cylindrical pipes. Some of the kimberlites picked up diamonds during their ascent,Udepositing them S in the more established AFort de la Corne, Sturgeon Lake and Candle Lake kimberlite fields in the central parts of Saskatchewan. Some diamond-bearing kimberlites are also found in the Buffalo Head hills region of Alberta. b

Intermediate producer ALAMOS GOLD (TSX: AGI; NYSE: AGI) acquired the past-producing Lynn Lake gold project in northwest Manitoba when it bought junior Carlisle Goldfields in 2015 for $28.5 million. The 350 sq. km project contains five near surface deposits, and an open pit compliant resource totalling 40.3 million tonnes grading 2.03 grams gold, for 2.63 million oz. gold, in the measured and indicated categories, plus 50.7 million inferred tonnes of 1.28 grams gold, for another 2.09 million oz. gold.

Last year Alamos spent $9.1 million at Lynn Lake, drilling 12,000 metres and completing environmental baseline studies. All that work was in support up an upcoming feasibility study for Lynn Lake, focused on deposits at the historic MacLellan and Farley Lake mine sites. The study is scheduled for release in Q3 2017. – 41 –

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EAST COAST PROVINCES ACTIVE MINES | PRIMARY PRODUCT

FACTS PROVINCES:

New Brunswick, Newfoundland and

Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island POPULATION:

COAL: 3 COPPER: 1 NICKEL: 1 POTASH: 1

2,333,322

AREA: 500,513

km2

POPULATION DENSITY:

4.66 persons per km2

SOURCE: StatCan, 2016

GOLD: 1 ZINC: 1 IRON ORE: 1

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

MINERAL PRODUCTION COPPER

IRON ORE

$806M

$1,462M

COBALT

$155M

GOLD

$46M

KOH

$320M

$50M

$10M

ZINC

TOTAL VALUE:

$35M

POTASH

NICKEL

LEAD

Pb $8M

SILVER

$2.9B

data dashboard

Source: Natural Resources Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Natural Resources, excludes PGMs, 2015

EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS BASE METALS 40 IRON ORE 29 GOLD 63 URANIUM 12 REE 11

OTHER/POLYMETALLIC 111

(Including antimony, cobalt, copper, diamond, gold, graphite, iron ore, nickel, lead, lithium, molybdenum, potash, niobium, PGM, REE, silver, tantalum, tin, tungsten, uranium, zinc)

TOTAL:

266

Source: IntelligenceMine, 2017

EXPLORATION AND DEPOSIT EVALUATION EXPENDITURES IRON ORE $9.4M

PRECIOUS METALS $14.9M

URANIUM $157M

BASE METALS $21.7M

OTHER $16.9M

TOTAL:

$66.1M

Source: StatCan, 2015

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TSX.V:AGC

NEAR PRODUCTION GOLD RESERVES IN

Brazil

RESERVES

Approaching 1 million Au ounces in open-pit reserves

PERMITTED

Received preliminary license on Mara Rosa project

ROBUST PFS

Mara Rosa pre-feasibility study complete

UNDERVALUED HIGH-GRADE OPEN PIT BLUE SKY EXPLORATION

Trading at 0.16X NAV versus peer average of 0.4X Proven and Probably mill head-grade of 1.63 g/t Lavras do Sul high-grade drill results: 120m @ 3.23 g/t (second project) EXCELLENT INFRASTRUCTURE

www.amarillogold.com Scott Eldridge CFO & VP Finance (604) 722-5381 | scott@amarillogold.com

Amarillo Gold_ad_2.indd FOC_ad pages.indd 43 1

2017-04-21 2017-04-13 12:37 1:01 PM

EAST COAST PROVINCES

The geology underlying the quest for minerals on Canada’s East Coast Continental collision set the stage for rich deposits in the Atlantic Canada

BY LESLEY STOKES

SELECT DEPOSITS, DISTRICTS AND GEOLOGY IN NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR, NOVA SCOTIA & NEW BRUNSWICK 2

4 5 6

Kilometres

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Voisey’s Bay Michelin Carol Lake Point Rousse Ming Moosehead Buchans Duck Pond Valentine Lake Staghorn Hope Brook Bathurst Sisson Fire tower Clarence Stream

7 8

Gays River Touquoy Mooseland Dufferin Goldboro Jubilee Mindamar

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

10 11 Geological Survey of Canada/Lesley Stokes

geology & projects

he geology of eastern Canada largely owes itself to a series of events that began 350 million years ago, when the Iapetus Ocean (analogous to today’s Atlantic Ocean) closed and ancestral North America collided with the North African craton to make the supercontinent Pangaea. The deformation triggered the birth of the Appalachian orogen, a 3,000 km-long Himalayan-scale mountain belt that stretched from northern Alabama in the U.S., to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, southern Quebec and beyond. Over its more than 100 million year tectonic history, volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits that once peppered the ocean floor of Iapatus were thrusted upwards, and erosion off the towering land mass supplied enough sediments to basins to generate metal-rich brines that would later deposit lead and zinc within carbonate rocks. At the root of the mountain range, melting of crust created large volumes of granitic magma – some of which carried tungsten and molybdenum – and goldrich hydrothermal fluids. The fluids travelled upwards through the crust and deposited metals in chemically or structurally-favourable rocks, forming a plethora of orogenic-style gold deposits. Deformation eventually came to a halt, and about 180 million years ago, the present-day North Atlantic Ocean rifted open and the African continent broke away – albeit leaving behind some continental fragments on the east coast of Newfoundland. Over time, the Appalachians were levelled by erosion, and a number of world-class metal districts were exposed across eastern Canada.

21 22 12 20 16 17

19 18

Treasures at the bottom of the ocean

The vestiges of Iapetus’ oceanic crust are where eastern explorers like to hunt for VMS deposits. The most significant camps discovered to date include the Buchan’s VMS camp in west-central Newfoundand and the Bathurst mining camp in New Brunswick. The Bathurst camp is New Brunswick’s flagship metal and mining

district, having generated over $27.5 billion from zinc production for over half a century. The camp hosts 45 VMS deposits, but most historical production came from Glencore’s (LSE: GLEN) Brunswick No. 12 mine, which produced 136.6 million tonnes of 8.7% zinc, 3.4% lead, 0.4% copper and 102 grams silver per tonne between 1964 and 2013. In comparison, the cluster of deposits

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The Bathurst camp is New Brunswick’s flagship metal and mining district, having generated over $27.5 billion from zinc production for over half a century.

SNAP SHOT

TREVALI MINING CARIBOU

Zinc-lead-silvercopper-gold

Uniquely positioned as a fledgling mid-tier zinc producer, TREVALI MINING (TSX: TV) has been riding the excitement that has re-entered the zinc space, and its stock hit 52-week highs in the first quarter of 2017. Its 3,000-tonne-per-day Caribou underground mine, 50 km west of Bathurst in northern New Brunswick, reached the commercial production milestone in July 2016. In 2016, Trevali mined 449,4888 tonnes ore at Caribou, with average head grades of 5.97% zinc, 2.66% lead and 2.29 oz. silver per tonne. Payable production totalled 36,707,653 lbs. zinc, 13,791,772 lbs. lead and 402,067 oz. silver.

For 2017 the firm expects the mine to yield 90 to 93 million lbs. payable zinc and 30 to 32 million lbs. lead in concentrate, plus 800 to 900,000 oz. silver. Cash costs are pegged at US$55 to US$60 per tonne milled. The mine life extends to 2022, and the company has been exploring just outside the existing defined resource, with encouraging results.

in Newfoundland’s Buchan’s camp produced 16.2 million tonnes of 14.5% zinc, 7.6% lead, 1.3% copper, 1.4 grams gold per tonne and 126 grams silver between 1927 and 1983. Other notable VMS deposits in Newfoundland include Teck Resources’ (TSX: TCK.B; NYSE: TCK) recently closed Duck Pond copper-zinc mine and Rambler Metals and Mining’s (TSXV: RAB) Ming copper-gold mine, whereas the only genuine example of VMS in Nova Scotia is the Stirling deposit in southeast Cape Breton Island, also known as the Mindamar mine. When metal-rich basinal brines meet carbonates

Basins of sedimentary rocks deposited along the edge of ancestral North

America served as favourable traps for metal-rich brines that flushed along basin-bounding structures during the Appalachian orogen. Although a plethora of carbonate-hosted lead-zinc deposits are seen across eastern Canada, the most significant district occurs in the Gays River area of central Nova Scotia. The district hosts ScoZinc Mining (TSXV: SZM) Scotia mine, formerly known as Gays River, which hosts measured and indicated resources of 7.9 million tonnes at 3.3% zinc and 1.7% lead, and an inferred resource of 3.7 million tonnes at 2.4% zinc and 1.5% lead. Emerging gold camps

In eastern Canada, gold is largely mined as a by-product in VMS operations, but the yellow metal is also found along

Phillip Walford, president and CEO of Marathon Gold, collects a sample from the Valentine Lake gold property in Newfoundland and Labrador. CREDIT: MARATHON GOLD

regional-trending structures that pierce through the sedimentary or volcanic terranes. At the time of writing, Anaconda Mining (TSX: ANX) is the only active gold miner in eastern Canada, exploiting just under 100,000 oz. gold at its Point Rousse project, 6 km northeast of Baie Verte, Newfoundland. As for exploration, a number of gold projects through central Newfoundland is showing promise, including Marathon Gold (TSX: MOZ) at its 1.3 million oz. gold Valentine Lake project and First Mining Finance (TSXV: FF) at its 954,000 oz. gold Hope Brook project and former mine. Nova Scotia’s gold inventory, from existing resource estimates, totals 1.8 million oz. gold as measured and indicated, and 2.5 million oz. gold as inferred. Major projects include the former producing Dufferin gold mine, and Atlantic Gold’s (TSX: SVU) fully permitted 557,000 oz. gold Touquoy gold project, 110 km from Halifax. Atlantic Gold also holds the 507,900 oz. gold Beaver Dam gold project near Touquoy. In New Brunswick, intrusions drove gold-rich fluids along a number of structural corridors, such as the Annidale gold belt where Wolfden Resources’ (TSXV: WLF) is exploring its 432,000 oz. gold Clarence Stream deposit. »

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erty, which produced 2,000 tonnes of 70% tungsten concentrate between 1983 and 1985. Similar tungsten-molybdenum mineralization styles also occur in west-central New Brunswick at Northcliff Resources’ (TSE: NCF) Sisson Brook deposit.

U.K.-based RAMBLER METALS & MINING (TSXV: RAB; LON: RMM) has crossed the Atlantic to become a mid-tier mining company, and has been producing at its flagship Ming underground copper-gold mine in Newfoundland’s Baie Verte mineral district since 2011.

SNAP SHOT

RAMBLER METALS & MINING

Labrador: the remains of an ancient continent

MING

In 2016 the company milled 241,080 tonnes ore at its Nugget Pond mill, 40 km from the mine site. The ore had an average grade of 2.12% copper and 1.4 grams gold per tonne, which produced 4,580 tonnes saleable copper and 7,549 oz. gold for $30.4 million in revenue.

Gold

By mid 2017 the firm plans to ramp up from 850 to 1,250 tonnes per day at Ming as part of its second-phase expansion at the mine, after which mine life will extend for 21 years.

Metal-rich magma takes precedence

The complexity of volcanic arc and continental plate interactions during the Appalachian orogen also generated a variety of structurally controlled, intrusion-related ore deposits in New Brunswick. Early exploration targeted tungsten-molybdenum and tin-indium-zinc mineralization in the province’s southwest. The region is known for the Fire Tower molybdenum-tungsten deposit at Adex Mining’s (TSXV: ADE) Mount Pleasant prop-

The geology of Labrador is much older than the Appalachian orogen, with rocks dating back to 4 billion years – some of the oldest on earth. Labrador is part of the much larger Churchill province that extends into Quebec, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and represents a piece of continental crust belonging to ancestral North America. Exploration in Labrador has mostly focused on two main areas: the Labrador Trough in western Labrador, and around Vale’s (NYSE: VALE) world-class Voisey’s Bay nickel-coppercobalt deposit in the north. The Labrador Trough is a 1,100 km long sedimentary basin spanning the Labrador-Quebec border that formed 2.3 billion years ago, when the oceans began to teem with oxygenproducing bacteria. The oxygen combined with iron-rich sediments on the seafloor and created vast iron deposits that today account for over 80 million tonnes of iron ore resources. The world-class Voisey’s Bay magmatic nickel-coppercobalt deposit in Labrador started out as deep-seated magma 1.3 billion years ago, and squeezed through a suture zone between the Churchill province and another craton called the Nain. The melts, which contained a high amount of dissolved metals, devoured sulphur-rich country rocks during its ascent and pooled in quiescent magma chambers, allowing time for the sulphur to scavenge the metals. The melt eventually cooled, precipitating layers of massive sulphides that today account for 36.1 million tonnes at 1.1% copper and 2.2% nickel in proven and probable reserves and 382,800 tonnes copper and 548,000 tonnes nickel of production since 2005. b

SNAP SHOT Miller Thomson’s Aboriginal Law Group provides a national platform for strategic advice to industry, Indigenous peoples, crown entities and governments on a full suite of legal services, including:

NEW MILLENNIUM IRON

• Aboriginal and treaty rights and the duty to consult • Consultation and Accommodation • Facilitation and negotiation of Resource Development Agreements on Aboriginal lands • Specific and Comprehensive Land Claims • Environmental Assessments, Regulatory Approvals and Interventions • Financing and Taxation

TACONITE PROJECTS

Iron ore

Sandra Gogal 416.595.8574 sgogal@millerthomson.com

The study pegged capital costs at $3.2 billion, which would build a mining operation to produce 8.7 million tonnes concentrate annually for 25 years. Operating costs would average $60.46 per tonne loaded at the Port of Sept-Îles. The project would have a $1.3-billion pre-tax net present value using an 8% discount rate and a 12.2% internal rate of return, with payback in 7.1 years.

millerthomSon.com

vancouver

calgary

edmonton

guelph

toronto

saskatoon vaughan

regina

london

markham

New Millennium’s assets include the LabMag deposit in Labrador and KéMag deposit in Quebec. The deposits contain a combined 6.3 billion tonnes proven and probable reserves.

In 2016 the company completed its NuTac initiative, aimed at re-examining its development options in the current macroeconomic environment. NuTac eventually yielded an updated prefeasibility study for developing the KéMag deposit.

For more information, please contact:

kitchener-waterloo

Despite depressed iron ore prices, NEW MILLENNIUM IRON (TSX: NML) is staying focused on its core assets in the 210 km long Millennium Iron Range in the famed Labrador Trough, straddling the Quebec-Labrador border.

montréal

– 46 – NorthernMiner_3.375x4.875.indd 1

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2017-04-21 4:37 PM

NWT RESIDENTS WANT

NEW MINES

Results from a territory-wide survey conducted by a national research company show that NWT residents favour more mining activity.

86% believe a strong mining sector is vital to the long-term health of the NWT economy 83% say regulation of the mining sector works well 82% would like to see more mining projects in the NWT

8 in 10 people have positive feeling about mining and mineral exploration companies operating in the NWT. To learn more about the NWT's world-class resources visit: nwtmining.com • nwt petroleum.com • nwtgeoscience.ca THE SURVEY WAS CONDUCTED BY ABACUS DATA AND COMMISSIONED BY THE NWT AND NUNAVUT CHAMBER OF MINES AND THE MINING ASSOCIATION OF CANADA.

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www.pwc.com/ca/mining

Shaping the mine of the future

How can the decisions of today help build the mine of tomorrow? At PwC, we’re focused on helping mining companies navigate the challenges the industry is facing over the next 10 to 20 years and how their businesses can evolve to overcome these challenges. We believe there are options for every mining company in today’s market. We’ll help you explore and evaluate these options— from tax structuring to transaction evaluation and business integration, all focused on optimizing asset value.

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2017-04-21 12:38 PM