Queenston Mining Inc QNMNF

Wildcat Mike Sutton, not a Tragically Hip Hit Song

[rbsanitation]

Persistence, curiosity and risk capital fuel rebirth of gold camp -edited-

The closing of Macassa Mine in 1999 was a dark day for the town of Kirkland Lake, but no one took the news as personally as the mine’s Chief Geologist Mike Sutton.

Kinross Gold, Macassa’s owner at the time, had only recently approved a $3 million drilling program when low gold prices and a disagreement with the union led to an order to shut down the mine.

Five holes probing a suspected extension of a known structure had already been drilled, but Sutton had let one of the holes go “way past” the intended distance and intersected a new sulphide zone grading .76 ounces per ton over 13 feet. He wanted to extend the other holes to test the continuity of the mineralization, but was told to cease and desist.

“I pleaded with (the mine manager). I begged him. I said we still have the drill set up right where we found this big hit off to One thing Sutton hadn’t figured on was the discovery of north-south trending zones.

“We were up on 38 Level drilling the Main Zone at the time,” recalled Sutton. “We had to move the drill and despite the fact that I’d been told not to drill any the south. Why don’t we just extend those other holes? And he said ‘No, get the drill off the property.’

“It nearly drove me insane because when you get gold in an intersection in Kirkland Lake, it’s never a little pod. When you get gold, it goes for thousands of feet, so everything was telling me there was something significant out there.”

Sutton had to wait four years to follow up on the discovery, but follow it up he did, giving Kirkland Lake a new lease on life in the process. Citing his persistence, curiosity and creativity, the Ontario Prospectors Association recently honoured him and fellow geologist Stewart Carmichael with its Prospector of the Year Award.

Sutton accepted a transfer to Kinross’s Hoyle Pond Mine in Timmins, but the lost opportunity at Macassa grated on him, especially when he learned that Kinross had shut off the pumps and was letting the mine flood. He complained to management and almost got fired. “I said what are you doing? You’re letting a good asset go.”

In 2000, Kinross sold Macassa and four adjoining properties to mining veterans Harry Dobson and Brian Hinchcliffe for $5 million. They rolled the assets into a new company, Kirkland Lake Gold, and immediately offered Sutton his old job back.

Dewatering

The first thing they did was to turn the pumps on. “But it was a slow process,” said Sutton. “There was five times the amount of water we thought there was because (the mine workings are) all interconnected over a distance of five miles. Not only did it cost a lot of money, but it also took a long time, and a lot of the timber underground had rotted.”

In October 2003, the company committed to a three-year, $21 million exploration program.

Sutton was finally given the green light to test his theory of a new east-west trending zone south of the Main Break.

“I think there were five holes across thousands and thousands of feet that had all hit something at the same distance away from the workings, so that’s significant because it tells you there could be something going all the way across the camp, and in each case there were good gold values.”

The legendary Sir Harry Oakes, founder of the Lakeshore Mine had also mined an ore zone south of the Main Break to the boundary of the Teck-Hughes property. However, it was the Main Break that everyone was focused on over the years and Teck-Hughes never mined its extension.

One thing Sutton hadn’t figured on was the discovery of north-south trending zones. “We were up on 38 Level drilling the Main Zone at the time,” recalled Sutton. “We had to move the drill and despite the fact that I’d been told not to drill any Wildcat holes, we turned it around and drilled a hole off to the south. That’s when we intersected the D Zone. It’s a north- south structure, so it’s going at a totally different angle to everything else in the camp. That opened up people’s minds to the possibility that there’s a lot out there that hasn’t been discovered yet.”

As dewatering continued, Sutton and Carmichael found themselves back on the 4,700-foot level, where the Kinross drill program from 1999 was abruptly terminated.

“We started testing one of the holes that went out approximately 1,000 feet and decided to let the hole go as far as we could, which was clear out to 3,000 feet,” recalled Carmichael, Macassa’s chief exploration geologist. “That hole intersected the Lower D Zone, another north-south trending system.”

Slow-going

Delineating the east-west trending South zone from the existing mine workings was slow-going, but the results were spectacular, with one hole returning 2.3 ounces of gold per ton over 90.4 feet and another returning 1.43 ounces over 124.5 feet – two of the best holes in the history of the camp, noted Sutton.

“We had been drilling these really, really long holes - 2,000 to 3,000 footers - with these electric-hydraulic machines and they were taking up to a month to complete,” said Carmichael. “The zones were getting larger, but it was like pulling teeth. We knew we had something substantial out there, so my suggestion was to get out there as fast as we could and bring in smaller air machines.”

The board approved the excavation of a cross cut on 53 Level out toward the South zone and by May 2006, the drift extended out to a distance of 1,452 feet. Holes were being drilled at a rate of two per week, and proven and probable reserves ballooned to more than one million ounces, a threefold increase since December 2002.

“We don’t know how big it’s going to get,” said Sutton. “It’s going to make a big difference to Kirkland Lake, and that’s the important thing. A lot of years of production are going to come out of this.”

The recent success in Kirkland Lake reinforces the notion that the best place to look for a new orebody is in the shadow of an existing headframe, he remarked. Equally significant is the fact that it was a junior mining company that made it all possible.

“Some fairly big companies (including Barrick, Lac Minerals and Kinross) owned the camp over time, but it took a junior to make theses new discoveries - a couple of guys with a lot of faith and money to invest in a few good theories.

"Harry Dobson and Brian Hinchcliffe bankrolled this company from the start. They participated in all the financings with their own money. It’s guys like that who made Northern Ontario and Northern Canada the way it is,” said Sutton.

Luck

A bit of luck and a supportive community are equally important factors in making a big discovery, he added.

“We were drilling in people’s backyards around the clock right in town and nobody complained. I don’t think you’d find that in other countries.

“Last but not least, you need an openness to new ideas. It doesn’t matter if it’s diamonds in Archean conglomerates or the new ideas that FNX brought along. In our case, we had north-south structures nobody would have thought to look for. You have to dispel the idea that things are all mined out. If Red Lake and Kirkland Lake are any example, it bodes well for all of the other mining towns.”

Wright Hargreaves, Lakeshore, Teck- Hughes, Kirkland Minerals and Macassa (all part of thee Kirkland Lake land package) together produced some 22 million ounces of gold over 80 plus years of mining. Including properties to the east along the Larder Lake Break, the region as a whole qualifies as Canada’s second most prolific historical gold mining camp, accounting for total gold production of approximately 40 million ounces. With the 1999 closure of Macassa - the town’s last operating mine - the demise of a once proud community seemed inevitable.

Today, Kirkland Lake Gold is producing 60,000 ounces a year and plans to step up production to 150,000 ounces. With 16 new mineralized zones discovered by Sutton, Carmichael and their team of young geologists, and no sign of any slackening, the Kirkland Lake story has more than a few chapters left to be written.

KGI are ready to produce more gold with the SMC while quite likely the real big gold has yet to be mined just beyond KL Gold holdings where the Queenston claims begin...

https://www.northernminer.com/press-releases/story.aspx?id=1001813229