CANADIAN MINING PERSPECTIVES: Many good reasons to love Red Lake

The best place to find gold is in a gold mine. And if you are trying to find a high-grade deposit, look to Red Lake...
The best place to find gold is in a gold mine. And if you are trying to find a high-grade deposit, look to Red Lake, Ontario. The area was the site of the last great North American gold rush in 1926. Since then, the Red Lake mining camp has produced gold, gold and more gold, over 22 million oz, and is today home to the world's richest gold mineor gold mines, depending on who is counting. Vancouver-based GOLDCORP owns Red Lake Mining Ltd., the operating company that has brought both the Campbell and Red Lake gold mines under one roof. Together the two adjacent mining complexes produced 700,600 oz of gold in 2007 from only 721,000 tonnes of ore. Yes, that is close to an ounce per ton - 31 g/t Au, to be precise. (www.Goldcorp.com)

With its prolific production and promise of bonanza grades, the Red Lake camp remains prime hunting ground for the next generation of gold mines. Here are some of the exploration projects underway.

As mentioned here a week ago, CLAUDE RESOURCES of Saskatoon has received assays as high as 185.62 g/t (5.97 opt) from a new discovery at Starrat-Olsen, which is part of the company's Madsen project. (www.ClaudeResources.com)

PREMIER GOLD MINES (49%) of Thunder Bay, Ont., has teamed up with Goldcorp (51%) to test the Rahill-Bonanza joint venture properties. The project includes the Bonanza, Follansbee, Marathon McNeely, Rahill-Wilmar and Kostynuk properties. The latest resource estimate outlines an inferred resource of 2.28 million tonnes averaging 6.98 g/t Au or over 500,000 oz of gold. Goldcorp has several drills turning in the area.

Vancouver's RUBICON MINERALS has also had promising assays from its Phoenix project. Hole F2-08 returned 42.4 g/t Au over 11.0 metres, and F2-07 cut 24.4 g/t Au over 17.0 metres. The company believes these intercepts indicate lenses or shoots within a structure that also hosts thick, low-grade mineralization such as 28.0 metres that averaged 3.3 g/t Au from hole F2-02. And if it is bonanza grades that get your blood moving, there was even one short (0.55-metre) intersection that graded 166.5 g/t Au. The NI-43-101-compliant inferred resource is 303,000 tonnes at a grade of 6.9 g/t Au. (www.RubiconMinerals.com)

As if gold were not enough reason to explore the Red Lake camp, there is also the potential of finding minable zinc-copper deposits.

SKYHARBOUR RESOURCES of Vancouver is investigating an area of VMS mineralization 500 metres southwest of the former South Bay mine. Assays are pending. (www.SkyHarbourLtd.com)

TRIBUTE MINERALS of Toronto has partial results from its Copperlode and Garnet Lake projects. The longest intersection from the Copperlode zone was 4.6 metres grading 2.28% Zn, and the richest was 9.60% Zn over 1.7 metres. At Garnet Lake, the longest intersection so far was 8.7 metres at 0.95% Zn, and the best grade was 2.73% Zn over 0.9 metre. Tribute holds a host of other claims in the area, many of which may be promising.

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