Another site visithttps://business.financialpost.com/commodities/mining/small-cap-news/yukon-gold-and-silver-copper-nickel-platinum-too/wcm/ba36ef09-7b79-4995-9779-0632a3db902f To round out the South Western side of the Yukon we went to the polymetallic Wellgreen Platinum (T.WG) project not far from Burwash Landing along the Alaska Highway.
Wellgreen holds an 18 kilometre stretch of ground and its principal exploration site at Wellgreen Mountain hosts 2 billion pounds of nickel, 1 billion pounds of copper and 6 million ounces of PGMs and gold in the measured and indicated categories in a 2.8 km section.
We were driven into the mountain by Michael Johnson of the Kluane First Nation in a bus owned by the Elders and, I suspect, more used to taking seniors sightseeing. It was a rough road with creeks to ford and on the steep slopes, 100 yard wide land slips had fallen off the mountains. None of which seemed to faze Mike.
Wellgreen had been mined before with Hudbay Minerals operating underground to pull massive sulphide rock in the 1970s. The portal still exists and the sheer weight of the waste rock demonstrates the high metal content.
A tour colleague coined the phrase, “steep and deep”. Which is stunningly obvious as you stand at the base of the mountain. The challenge, which has defeated many, is to come up with a feasible mine plan which can effectively exploit the currently stranded resource.
The new management at Wellgreen, led by ex-Romarco Minerals CEO Diane Garrett, has done significant metallurgical work leading to the idea that it may make more sense to produce separate nickel and copper concentrates. This, in turn, changes some of the details of mine construction. Pit mining the side of a mountain efficiently is a huge challenge and Wellgreen wants to get it right the first time.
Wellgreen is blessed with easy access to the Alaskan seaport of Skagway for effective transportation of the concentrate. And the company enjoys an excellent relationship with the Kluane First Nation on whose settled claim the proposed mine is located. At the Wallgreen hosted barbeque the night we saw the site, Chief Bob Dickson and his wife, as well as Colin Asselstine, the GM of the Kluane Community Development Corporation, joined us for dinner.
A sense of community pervaded the dinner. At the moment, the First Nation is pleased to have a new grocery store in operation. Now they are looking for ways to create a school for ten or so kids so that their children do not have to go 276km to Whitehorse in order to attend highschool.