Poet Susan Ioannou

IGNEOUS ROCK

Five kilometres under the ocean floor
deep in the upper mantle,
red, writhing magma
pushes high through denser rock
and over many thousands of years
cools into feldspar, mica, and quartz.

Or through neighbouring strata
fluids flood scalding chemistries
that over millennia mingle and harden
into more flickering minerals—
chloride, fluoride, sulphur,
silver and gold—

until, in an earthly cycle of desire,
magma rushes upward—again
to be transformed,
for no matter how solid, how old,
igneous means to set on fire,
to burn.

Paul Stothart - Mining Association of Canada

In a recent column, I noted that China remains the prime driver of world mineral prices. In building a domestic infrastructure for 1.3 billion people, while expanding its role as the world’s factory, China simply cannot meet its burgeoning demand for copper, zinc, nickel, and other raw materials. In response to this growing gap, China now imports $100 billion worth of base metals annually, buying 25 per cent of the world’s supply today versus a 5 per cent share in the 1980s. As a specific example, China’s share of world consumption of zinc has tripled from 10 to 28 per cent in a mere decade, while the US share has fallen from 16 to 10 per cent.

This dramatic growth in raw material demand is one of the central factors leading to a second, equally significant development; namely that China is becoming an important catalyst to the growth of Africa—a continent that offers untapped raw material supply and market demand potential. In decades past, few observers of global economic development would have envisioned the emergence of such a linkage. Few thought beyond the traditional model, where aid flows from the west would supposedly some day pull Africa to a more advanced state of development.

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This article was first published in Northern Ontario Business, a newspaper that has been providing northerners with relevant and insightful editorial content, business news and information for over 25 years.

First Nation approval was key in Canadian Arrow Mine’s gradual development of its highly-prospective Kenbridge nickel deposit in northwestern Ontario.

At a spring awards gala of the northwestern Ontario mining fraternity, a speaker at the podium described the rugged (and somewhat shadowy) individual freedom of the prospector.

“It happens in the bush, where no one knows what you’re doing, and you move from place to place.”
Secrecy, deception and pipe dreams have all been part of mining lore.

Yet Canadian Arrow Mines president Kim Tyler never could quite fathom over his 27-year mining career why the industry chooses to keep matters close to the vest.

“There’s more to be gained in sharing information than in being secretive.” says the former geologist for Inco, Teck-Cominco, Royal Oak Mines and Rio Tinto.

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Often ignored when our past is discussed, logging was a very significant part of our economy during the area’s formative years. Today, we’ll examine one logger’s account of what camp life was like in the Wahnapitae area before the dawn of this century.

The story begins with our logger leaving Toronto Union Station, bound for the North. From North bay, he traveled 87 miles to Wahnapitae on the CPR. Twelve miles northeast of Wahnapitae was his bush or camp and the site of his narration.

In the camp was to be found 75 men – all “jolly good -natured fellows, with well-filled ‘turkeys’ (bags containing their belongings).” Of the 75, about 30 were in charge of teams while the rest, with the exception of three waiters and one cook, were loaders.

Three main buildings constituted the camp – a long one-room log house, a cook house and a stable. A large wood stove heated the log house that was about 50 feet wide and 60 feet long. Down the centre of the room were two tables where everyone had his own place during meals. These places could not be changed without the permission of the “push” or foreman.

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Marilyn Scales - Canadian Mining Journal

The MINING ASSOCIATION OF CANADA (MAC) released its latest “Facts and Figures 2008″ publication at the recent Mines Ministers Conference in Saskatoon. In it are details about the production, reserves, exploration, trade and investment, innovation, tax and human resource aspects of our industry. That’s a lot of ground to cover in 65 pages, but MAC is once again the most comprehensive source of such numbers.

Here are a few of them:

VALUE: The contribution that the metals and minerals industry makes to Canada’s economy by value is relatively stable at 3.5% to 4.5%. Meanwhile, the gross domestic product (GDP) grew to $1.2 trillion in 2007. Of that amount, mineral extraction contributed $9.68 billion and mineral manufacturing $32.22 billion.

TOP TEN: Canada’s top ten minerals by value in 2007 were nickel ($9.90 billion), copper ($4.53 billion), potash ($3.14 billion), coal ($3.14 billion), uranium ($2.76 billion), iron ore ($2.51 billion), gold ($2.38 billion), Read the rest of this entry »

Northern Life, Greater Sudbury’s community newspaper, gave Republic of Mining.com permission to post Bill Bradley’s article. www.northernlife.ca

Sustainability was the word most used by Parviz Farsangi, Vale Inco’s executive vice-president, at a talk at Science North Thursday evening.

“We all want to succeed in the long term, in every aspect of our business, not just in the short term,” said Farsangi.

He was speaking to a standing-room-only crowd at a Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) Sudbury branch meeting in the Vale Inco Cavern.

“When it comes to (ore) reserves, no one can touch us. We have the world’s best nickel reserves in terms of sulphide and laterite deposits worldwide,” he said.

Those reserves, coupled with the company’s focus on investing in finding new mines and digging deeper into older ones, means the future for Greater Sudbury is bright, he said.

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This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.

Ontario´s fortuitous blessing of rich geology has provided this province with a mineral endowment that has supported human development for generations.  Over the decades, there has been a steady evolution of the legislative framework that governs mineral development in the province.  Currently, the Mining Act is going through another review and consultations on proposed changes in the legislation are taking place across the province. 

While some changes in the Mining Act may be welcome and necessary to reflect shifts in societal expectations, at the Ontario Mining Association, we hope they are completed reasonably quickly so the new rules are clarified and communicated to provide certainty to investors and companies developing mining projects.  This is crucial because it can take years, or even decades, to develop a mineral deposit into a producing mine and investment decisions are often made years in advance.  As a result, any period of uncertainty in the regulatory system can disrupt the investment cycle and have far-reaching consequences on our future prosperity. 

Minister of Northern Development and Mines Michael Gravelle has said the purpose of the Mining Act review at this time is to strike the right balance.  The balance between responsible and sustainable mineral development for the benefit of all Ontarians while updating the mineral tenure system and the security of investments, Aboriginal rights related to mining, exploration activity on Crown land, land use planning in the Far North and surface rights/mineral rights issues.   Read the rest of this entry »

The Women are back, and they’re walking (well, … just barely!).

We are referring to the nine-member team of the WOMEN IN MINING (WIM) Toronto Branch as they participated for the second time in the annual, 60-km Weekend To End Breast Cancer (WEBC) on September 6-7, 2008.

The walk benefits the Campbell Family Institute at the PRINCESS MARGARET HOSPITAL FOUNDATION in Toronto. The Princess Margaret is one of the top five comprehensive cancer research centres in the world. In total, 4,757 walkers supported by over 1,000 volunteers raised over $13 million this year for the fight to end breast cancer. The Foundation has raised $79 million since the inaugural walk in 2003.

The WIM Toronto Branch team trained over the summer and approached their friends, family and colleagues for donations. For the most part, the team only approached individuals this year, collecting just over $57,000 in about 300 donations. This included a major contribution of more than $20,000 from DE BEERS CANADA and its employees in honour of Faye Logan, a De Beers geologist who lost her life to cancer this summer. Other corporate donations came from SCOTT WILSON RPA, GOLDER ASSOCIATES, EXCELLON RESOURCES, SANDVIK and THE BEDFORD CONSULTING GROUP.

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Marilyn Scales - Canadian Mining Journal

I’ve let the daily press get under my skin again. Newspapers and the CBC are telling the public that mining companies are going to destroy pristine Canadian lakes by turning them into dump sites for toxic mine waste. Why does the popular press still think that everything coming from a mine operation is “toxic”? Has no one outside the mining industry ever heard of sub-aqueous deposition?

There are 16 projects for which mining companies have applied to use lakes as tailings repositories, claim the environmentalists. The list includes the following 15:

BRITISH COLUMBIA
- NORTHGATE MINERALS – Kemess North (Duncan Lake)
- SHERWOOD COPPER – Kutcho Creek (Andrea Creek)
- ADANAC MOLY – Ruby Creek (Ruby Creek)
- TASEKO MINES – Prosperity (Fish Lake)
- IMPERIAL METALS – Red Chris
- TERRANE METALS – Mount Milligan

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The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) represents the interests of the Canadian mineral exploration and development industry. The association was established in 1932 in response to a proposed government regulation that threatened the livelihood of Ontario prospectors. The William (Bill) W. Dennis Prospector of the Year Award is presented to individuals or groups who have made a significant mineral discovery, offered noteworthy contributions to the PDAC, or have been involved in some important service or technological invention or innovation that helped improve the Canadian prospecting and exploration industry. 

The world-class Hemlo deposit was the major gold discovery in Canada during the 1980s and is still responsible for a significant portion of Ontario’s gold production. The three individuals who were responsible for discovering one of the country’s richest gold camps were Don McKinnon, John Larche and David Bell.

John Larche first became involved in mining and exploration in 1943, when he worked on diamond drills and underground at the Preston East Dome Mine. In 1955, Larche became an independent prospector and mining exploration contractor. He has concentrated his prospecting in Ontario and Quebec with some work in Manitoba, Nova Scotia and the Northwest Territories.

Larche has been involved in a number of staking rushes, including Mattagami in the 1950s, Kidd Township in the 1960s – he staked the Windfall claims – and Hemlo.

Until 1964, Don McKinnon had only dabbled in prospecting. That year, along with John Larche and Fred Rousseau, they staked and sold the Windfall property and he has worked in prospecting ever since.

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The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) represents the interests of the Canadian mineral exploration and development industry. The association was established in 1932 in response to a proposed government regulation that threatened the livelihood of Ontario prospectors.

Today, 76 years after its founding, the association is a national organization with 6,000 individual members (including prospectors, developers, geoscientists, consultants, mining executives, and students, as well as those involved in the drilling, financial, investment, legal and other support fields) and 950 corporate members (including senior, mid-size and junior mining companies and organizations providing services to the mineral industry).

The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada did not give out awards for most of its first 50 years of existence. That was to change, during the presidency of Ed Thompson (1977-78). Mr. Thompson got the idea of setting up the PDAC’s awards, when he attended the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum awards ceremony, in 1977.

“It’s important to acknowledge the special contributions of people and nobody was really honoring prospectors or people who were developing mines,” he said.

The first award was the Bill Dennis Prospector of the Year Award. Other awards have been added over the years including the Viola R. MacMillan Developer’s Award, the Distinguished Service Award, The E3 Environmental Award, the Special Achievement Award and more recently the Mary-Claire Ward GeoScience Award, Thayer Lindsley International Discovery Award.

Over the next few months, I will be posting profiles of the many winners over the past quarter century in random order. The first posting will be about the three individuals who discovered the enormously rich Hemlo gold deposit in northern Ontario.

The world-class Hemlo deposit was the major gold discovery in Canada during the 1980s. The three individuals who were responsible for discovering one of the country’s richest gold camps were Don McKinnon, John Larche and David Bell. Don McKinnon is still an active Timmins-based prospector.

It was a farce.

That is the only way to describe the so-called public consultation session on changes to the Ontario Mining Act (OMA) held in Timmins Aug.11.

The 70 people who turned out were told they could not:

1-ask questions;

2-make any statements to the room;

3-have any other material other than a government handout; and

4-question Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle as he broke his promise to attend.

Any changes to the OMA will have an important bearing, either a negative or positive impact, on a $10.7 billion Ontario industry.

Premier Dalton McGuinty wants “focused discussions” with municipalities, the mineral industry, Aboriginals, prospectors and the public. He certainly went about it in a strange way. Read the rest of this entry »

Honourable Michael Gravelle - Ontario Minister of Northern Development and Mines

September 8, 2008

CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and thank you.

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this consultation.

And thank you for your interest in helping my ministry undertake this next important, indeed historic stage in our government’s commitment to modernize Ontario’s Mining Act.

Historic because together we have the opportunity to ensure this legislation promotes sustainable development that benefits all Ontarians.

As Canada’s largest producer of minerals, Ontario accounted for 28 per cent of the national total in 2007, at an approximate value of $10.7 billion. 

The fact is our mineral sector is a powerhouse that employs tens of thousands of people and pumps millions into the economy.

Our government understands this and we’re proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s leading mining jurisdictions.
   
We also believe that mining holds tremendous potential, especially for the province’s northern, rural and Aboriginal communities. 

We want the industry to be competitive, vibrant and prosperous.

But we want to ensure this potential and this prosperity is developed in a way that respects communities.

In short, our task is to find a balance – and this is where we need your help.

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Poet Susan Ioannou

WORKING THE MINES:ENGINEERS

How far mining has come,
from a Stone Age cobblestoned stick
to the drill rig’s 40-kilogram tricone bit,
its bullet-shaped tungsten carbide teeth
ripping straight down through rock
100 rotations per minute;
how far, from bonfires lit overnight
to explosives remotely controlled
blasting whole walls of ore,
too massive for piling into slave’s baskets
but not for a 10-tonne Load-Haul-Dump
12-metre-long steel mucker.

Gold is explored no longer solely
by a lone man scouring a stream
and tilting a simple pan,
nor more subtly by Geiger counter
or a bush plane low overhead
swinging a magnetometer aft.

Even farther above,*
a satellite now probes Earth,
imaging hectares of lonely terrain
and beeping data to a computer
to e-mail prospectors on the ground
co-ordinates where to mallet in stakes.

Far below,
in near darkness,
through GPS-gizmos on shovels and dozers
to surface computers
a satellite diagrams every move,
every hazard throughout the mine,
and fixes precision crosshairs
on where next to trigger
a blast in a seam.
Even the drill bit houses a delicate sensor
tracking each rock, stratum, and ore
it chews a hole through.

Once every drift is emptied,
and all the miners have gone,
a satellite plans and scans through time
the angles, cuts, cleaning, and seeding
for hills, valleys, wetlands, and bush
reclaimed, again to be green.

* The Mining Automation Program in Canada

Paul Stothart - Mining Association of Canada

Few industry sectors are subject to as much scrutiny from environmental and social groups as the mining industry. Mineral extraction and processing, virtually by definition, involve intrusion upon the landscape — whether to conduct open pit or underground mining, to build access roads and power lines, to remove exploration samples, or to treat and manage waste products. These actions represent encounters between humans and the surrounding environment — and the attendant need to manage and minimize the risk that accompanies these encounters.

In the Canadian context, mining can involve accessing lands situated within the Boreal Forest. Accessing land and resources in northern Canada can frequently raise issues of aboriginal rights and relationships. Comparable issues, though on a greater scale, face the mining industry in its international operations, which often occur in countries with less developed infrastructure and with thinner environmental protection and community consultation capacities.

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