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Midway through his master’s degree in geology in the 1980s, Brian Christie trekked to the Red Lake gold mine in Northwestern Ontario as part of a research project. About 930 metres deep, more than one and a half times the CN Tower’s height, the remote mining project was a treat for a geology student eager to make his mark in the industry.
At the time, Red Lake was near the top of the list of the world’s most important gold mines in terms of grade and volume. Even today, after decades of production, some areas of the mine produce 57 grams of the gold per tonne – many multiples ahead of the industry average.
Yet the enthusiasm for projects such as that once drew Mr. Christie to research Red Lake has been undercut by a 10-month slide in gold prices and at least $23-billion worth of writedowns by Canadian gold miners over the past year and a half.
Today, Red Lake’s high-grade gold is found as far down as 2,350 metres, about four times the CN Tower’s height, which shows the difficulty gold miners face in trying to boost their stock valuations even if prices for the precious metal rebound.