Yukon MiningFor those concerned that the Yukon is a difficult territory to get permitting to build a mine, consider the Brewery Creek Mine. The following is a quote from Yukon Energy, Mines, and Resources
"The Brewery Creek mine was operated from 1997 to 2001 and was the largest lode gold mine ever constructed in the Yukon. The Brewery Creek mine property consists of 801 claims and leases covering 16,160 hectares located 55km east of Dawson City, Yukon. It was a year round heap leach operation with a seasonal open-pit mining capacity of 11,000 tonnes of ore per day.
Alexco Resources Incorporated took over ownership of the Brewery Creek mine in 2005. The company is now responsible for completing the reclamation and closure activities for the mine. The majority of these activities are near completion and reclamation efforts have been very successful to date."
My point being, if in the past a large gold mine was built in the recent past in the Yukon, and reclamation efforts have been very successful, then it's very possible that the Yukon will allow permitting for future mining.
Alexco have plans to get the Keno silver mine into production, which is in the Yukon. ATAC's RAU property could very well be looking very attractive already to the majors, as the Yukon's next large gold mine.
As a side note, I personally believe ATAC has a more exciting and potentially larger resource property than Ventana. I bought Ventana gold at .15 cents and it is now trading over 10.00. I'm still holding shares of VEN. I continue to follow Ventana very closely as a result, but the more I compare the two companies in terms of drill assays, infrastructure, share structure, management, location, and size of property staked, I honestly think ATAC's market cap should be about half of what Ventana's is presently.
What I like the most about ATC vs Ventana, the fact that ATC's high grade oxide gold is a lot closer to the surface than Ventana's. With very little overburden, the cost of open pit mining should be very economic. Let's hope the step out drilling continues to bring more high grade oxide gold over similar widths.
All in my honest opinion.
goldwill