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Long live the sault and District Prospectors association
By Delio tortosa
Wawa Gold field trip, 2016. Overlooking Wawa Lake.
The Sault and District Prospectors Association (SDPA) has been around for over 50 years. It’s hard for me to recall the first time I attended an SDPA meeting; it likely was in the mid-1980s while working on contract for the Ontario Geological Survey based out of the Sault Ste. Marie resident geologist’s office.
Prior to the year 2000, the Sault and District Prospectors Association was loosely tied to the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), but a significant change took place in the early 2000s when the Ontario Prospectors Association (OPA) was formed and a vote in favour of joining the new OPA was approved by the SDPA membership.
The SDPA then became one of the six Ontario prospectors associations that supported the establishment of a single voice to express concerns of mineral explorers and lobby the government on behalf of the membership. Vivienne Burns became the first president elected by the SDPA, who along with the vice-president represented two directors on the OPA board of directors. The OPA and each local association represented a federated system of governance.
Throughout the last two decades the SDPA has been actively involved representing local prospectors, geologists and mineral exploration companies. This has been done in part through the OPA board of directors and various sub-committees, Ontario government committees, through close liaison with the Sault Ste. Marie District Geology Office, Local Citizens Committee (LCC), and by participating in various OPA symposia in Northern Ontario.
The SDPA also hosted the Northeast Ontario Mines and Minerals Symposium in 2007, 2010 and 2013, which brought prospectors and mineral explorers from Northern Ontario to Sault Ste. Marie. Sault Ste. Marie is an important gateway to Northern Ontario, specifically to the Wawa, Chapleau, White River and Marathon areas which provide access to high mineral potential areas (gold, iron ore, platinum group elements). Our District also extends to the east covering the Elliot Lake area, which was the hub for uranium exploration and mining since the 1950s.
As part of the benefits that the SDPA provides its members, we regularly have geological and mineral deposit field trips that are well-attended. These field trips have included visits to the Eagle River Mine (Wesdome Gold Mines), the Island
Elliot Lake field trip, 2005. Probe Mines Borden Lake field trip, 2014. Mike Tremblay.
Gold Mine (Alamos Gold), the Magino Mine (Argonaut Gold) and the Williams (Hemlo) Mine (Barrick-Rand Gold Mines).
Other interesting geological field trips have included a geological transect across the Huronian SuperGroup and the Mamainse geological transect across the Mid-Continental Rift (MCR). The geology across our district is quite varied ranging from Archean Granite-Greenstone Belts, early to mid-Proterozoic rocks, Paleozoic rock cover and a variety of Quaternary (Glacial) sediments.
The SDPA has had a variety of speakers attend our meetings to give presentations on their mineral exploration properties, mineral exploration service providers (i.e. geophysics) and presentations by our own members on mineral properties and other activities.
Over the years, we have had a number of prospecting courses, which were always well-attended. In more recent years, with changes to claim acquisition using online applications, we had three workshops in order to understand the use of claim maps followed by two workshops on using the new Mining Lands Administration System (MLAS). This has allowed our members to better understand the changes to the new Mining Act, policies and regulations, but also provided hands-on exercises in the use of the online staking and the claim management system (MLAS).
Many of our long-time members come from a variety of backgrounds:
Vivienne Burns is a retired teacher that took an interest in prospecting. She not only became the first president of the SDPA in 2000 under the new OPA organization, but also went on to become the president of the OPA.
Delio Tortosa is a geologist that has been employed in mineral exploration both in the private and public sector and was elected president of the SDPA in 2007.
Jim Ralph is vice-president of the SDPA and a long-time member that got into prospecting through his work as a commercial bush pilot transporting people and supplies to remote exploration camps.
Cliff Hicks is our treasurer and hails from a mining and exploration background and has been a prospector for many years.
George Lucuik is a long-time member and director of the SDPA and has been prospecting throughout the District for many years.
Bob MacGregor is a long-time member and a geologist/mining engineer who continues to be quite active with a number of properties across Ontario.
John Conrad is one of our newer members of the SDPA. He recently retired from Algoma Steel and is looking forward to getting out into the field on a more regular basis.
Richard Bain is a long-time member of the SDPA and a director. He also represents the SDPA on the Local Citizens Committee (LCC). He is keenly interested in attending field trips and can claim to have travelled more bush roads than anyone in the area.
Suzanne Butorac is a geologist and long-time member of the SDPA, and our newly elected director. She has been employed by government (OGS) and is currently employed by Alamos Gold at the Island Gold Mine.
Although we are a small association compared to Timmins, Thunder Bay and Sudbury, we still pack a pretty good punch when it comes to lobbying the government for realistic changes to policies and regulations. The key to the continued existence of the SDPA is the great camaraderie between the core members, even where there are differing points of view (as one might expect from prospectors and geologists).
We hope to still be around 10 years from now, but there is a bit too much gray hair showing and we need more young people to take greater interest in the exploration and discovery of much needed minerals in the future. l
