The Shining Tree Mining District
The Shining Tree Mining District is a relatively new mining district that was opened up to exploration after a 20 year ban in 1996. Shining Tree lies between the Timmins and Sudburyregions of Ontario and is located along the westernmost extension of the Larder Lake-Cadillac Fault that plays host to world class deposits such as Malartic in Quebec and Kirkland Lake Gold in Ontario.
Gold was first discovered in the area in 1911 and led to massive gold rush to Shining Tree, the likes that North America hadn’t seen since the 1896 Klondike rush and the California 49’ers. By 1933, Shining Tree had 3 mines in operation and Shining Tree’s largest mine, The Rhonda Mine opened in 1939 with $6M invested. Most of the mines were shut down in 1942 due to the war and were never reopened. Today Shining Tree is mostly supported by tourism and forestry products.
Shining Tree Mining District was opened up to exploration in 1996 after 20 years of inactivity due to the Temagami Land Caution. This land caution was a 2 decade old land dispute between local native bands and the government. The ban had prevented systematic exploration in the area since 1976 which meant that Shining Tree missed the gold exploration booms in late 70’s on through to 90’s. The area has potential to host Kirkland Lake and Timmins Porcupine West type deposits.
Shining tree has such a rich history of vastly underexplored gold potential that when it was opened up to staking, more than 600 prospectors raced to stake land. On the day the government opened it up to exploration mining companies used every advantage they could, including recruiting local Timmins high school track athletes to run and stake claims and ferrying runners by boat and whatever means necessary to get the most prospective land available.
Shining Tree still remains vastly underexplored as excitement for gold waned into the late 90’s and early 00's until the last 5 years. It doesn’t mean companies haven’t been doing work over that time, but little money was spent on systematically exploring the area, paying attention to only the most prospective targets and being frugal on exploration dollars. Until last year, no one had heard of Shining Tree, but that all changed with Creso’s discovery on Minto.
Creso Exploration’s discovery is still relatively unkown, but over the last 5 months since Creso has been public, excitement has been growing in leaps and bounds and I believe that there is widespread gold throughout the district. Besides Creso’s high grade discovery, a major gold bearing shear zone lies across the extent of Goldeye’s property that extends east onto Creso’s Indian Lake option onto Temex’s 1.2M oz Juby deposit grading 1.25 g/t au and beyond.
When investing in a new area that could potentially spark a massive exploration rush… ALWAYS BUY THE DISCOVERY! That doesn’t mean others won’t find gold and that there won’t be an investing or trading opportunity with other explorers in the area, but it is always wise to stick with what drew you to the area. For me, it wasn’t Temex or Goldeye. It is Creso, on top of that, no other company’s results compare with CXT. I have watched enough discoveries to know to stick with the discovery until fairly valued or one knows the extent of the gold mineralization and then look to invest in the surrounding juniors. Many companies have just started new drill programs to capitalize on the interest generated by Creso’s discovery and are drilling right now including Platinex who is drilling 11,500 meters, Mineral Mountain who is drilling their 60% jv with Golden Harp and Goldeye and Temex are drilling close to Creso’s Minto border so any gold results from these holes will make Minto that much more prospective. Prominerals is another that will be drilling shortly, although they do not have a large land position to the others, although that doesn't mean they won't find gold.
Creso’s recent discovery of an entirely new high grade gold zone below the existing zone capped off a huge rally in Creso from .28 cent low in July to a high of a $1 in August. Creso intersected 82.5 meters grading 13.3 g/t in a hole that they extended at depth. This represents a very rich zone starting at 500 meters of depth on top of 65.7 m grading 18.2 g/t and 79.6 meters grading 4.61 g/t au between surface and 200 meters. This may not be it for hole #1 either as they drilled to 900+ meters at depth and are awaiting assays of the rest of the hole. Creso also reported recently that they hit 280 meters of mineralization in the 3rd hole of the project that targeted the new discovery at depth. 280 meters is a very extensive interval, even if it doesn’t represent the true width, the continuity of this zone will suggest that this deposit is much bigger than originally thought. Much, much bigger. When assays come back from this hole, Creso will be trading much higher than current price.
Gold is associated with pyrite at Minto and Creso announced the interval averaged between 1% and 2% pyrite so I would expect at least a 5 g/t average over the entire interval length. They also announced that they have intervals as high as 10% pyrite which would indicate some sections of bonanza gold within the interval. I am expecting good things from CXT and when the result hits the market...all the gold explorer investors are going to be comparing the interval to ARU. Could there be 14M oz's at Minto? I really have no clue because they keep needing to extend the deposit as well is define the irregular shape. What matters is that they keep hitting gold on Minto and keep growing the deposit in leaps and bounds. What is interesting is that Temex and Goldeye are drilling a jv property just metres away from the Creso property boundary. So you guys need to watch this drilling area to give hints as to the extent of the mineralization surrounding Minto. If Goldeye and Temex hit economical intervals on their side of Minto... It will be off to the races for all 3 companies and most likely will end up merging if there are multiple million ounce deposits in the area. Another clue that these guys are going to come up with the goods this winter and not just Creso... Is that some of these companies are already implementing shareholders rights plans to protect themselves from hostile takeovers.
I am telling you, Shining Tree is the next big thing in Ontario. It has the potential to be a large scale gold camp similar to other gold camps in the Timmins area. Obviously a lot of drilling needs to be done between now and then to prove up several multi-million oz deposits... But creso is on track for the first big discovery in Shining Tree since the gold rushes of the 1920's and 30's.
These are the companies in Shining Tree that I think are worth a look...
Goldeye Exploration GGY
Creso Exploration CXT
Temex TME
ProMinerals PRM
Golden Harp Resources GHR
Mineral Mountain Resources MMR
Benton Resources BTC
Platinex PTX
Below is a map of the Minto area... (They just might have to move the highway.)
