Detour Gold founder Gerald Panneto now with Gold Terra YGT.TGold Terra's Yellowknife City Project straddles two behemoth, historical, high-grade mines that produced 14 Moz of gold. Stockhouse Logo Search Companies, etc Opinion Independent Reports High-Potential Gold Project Lures Veteran... High-Potential Gold Project Lures Veteran Geologist to Small Cap's Northwest Territories Project Streetwise Reports, Streetwise Reports Gold Terra's Yellowknife City Project straddles two behemoth, historical, high-grade mines that produced 14 Moz of gold. Last fall, Gold Terra Resource Corp. (YGT:TSX.V; TRXXF:OTC; TXO:FSE) announced that veteran mining executive Gerald Panneton was joining the company as executive chairman. The geologist, who has more than 35 years of experience in gold exploration and mining development, founded Detour Gold. Over six years, he raised more than $2.6 billion in capital to bring the Detour Lake project to production and, in late 2019, Kirkland Lake bought the company for $4.9 billion. Prior to Detour Gold, for 12 years Panneton was with Barrick Gold, and was instrumental in advancing two gold projects in Tanzania toward production. So what did it take to bring Panneton to Gold Terra, which until February was known as TerraX? "It's not always easy to find very good projects. Sometimes you have to go very far around the world. Sometimes you find it in your backyard," Panneton told Streetwise Reports. "My 12 years with Barrick was like going to school; I was able to advance two projects toward production and I visited countless deposits around the world, doing due diligence. You know what it takes to make a project work or not work." Panneton saw lots of advantages in Gold Terra's Yellowknife City Project. "It's in town. It has location, infrastructure and people going for it. Everyone goes home at night; you don't have to work in a remote area or remote camp. We were able to do all our drill programs this winter without stopping despite what the world is going through," Panneton explained. "We have a tremendous project, of district-scale size (almost 800 sq km), so there's a lot of ground, thanks to all the people in the company before us who put this land package together." The Campbell Shear straddles the camp and covers more than 70 km of strike length on Gold Terra's property. "Gold was produced over approximately 8 km and produced 14 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 16 g/t Au. So you can imagine, a property that covers 70 km and only about 10% has been mined and the potential to find additional ounces is there," Panneton said. "It's a tremendous project that has a lot of upside. And it's up to us to raise the money, drill the project and find those million ounce deposits that have a good chance of being there." The Yellowknife mining camp dates back to 1934 and entered into production in 1938. "It produced gold on a relatively regular basis until early 2000, when, with gold at $250/ounce (1999), the mines shut down. And there's been very limited exploration done over the last 20 years at Yellowknife," Panneton stated. "Mining is a tough business and if you don't have the belief in staying in when gold prices go down, sometimes you shut down the mine and you think it's over. After the Detour Lake mine was closed in 1998, there had been very limited exploration. Following the property acquisition in 2007, the team under my leadership was able to find approximately 15 million ounces of reserves and put the project in production in just six years. The open-pit mine has been in production for the last six years and has produced 3.5 million ounces of gold." "So there remains potential in those old camps, and when I sat down about a year ago with the geologists working on the Yellowknife City project, I was hooked," Panneton explained. The large size of the Yellowknife City Project presents challenges. "When you have 800 sq km to digest, that means lots of work and lots of drilling. We wanted to increase our mineral resourcesyou have to realize that there had been no mineral resource estimate up until November 4, 2019. That was the first mineral resource released; the company had been working on the property for six years," Panneton said. "We defined an inferred resource of 735,000 ounces of gold, two-thirds mainly at Sam Otto, which is low-grade, with open-pit potential, and the remainder at Crestaurum, which is high grade, with underground potential, very similar to the Con Shear mineralization (quartz veins and alteration) that hosted a portion of the gold at the Con Mine. That is a good start: two very good gold deposits, a low grade and a high grade; they could be good synergy."