LONDON, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Fortune Minerals Limited (TSX: FT) (OTCQB: FTMDF) (“Fortune” or the “Company”) (www.fortuneminerals.com) is announcing with deep sorrow that Carl Clouter, one of the Company’s founding directors, passed away on October 15, 2021, at the age of 78 after a brave fight with cancer. Carl was part of the great Canadian legacy of northern bush pilots who provided the transportation link to isolated communities and exploration camps, and enabled access to remote areas of the North using its distinctive geography and plethora of lakes and ice for landing strips. Carl had a unique amiable charm and care-free disposition that will be sadly missed by everyone who knew him, now that he has “filed his final flight plan”.
Carl Clouter was born in Catalina, Newfoundland, and raised in Gander, an important hub for trans-Atlantic aviation refueling. He started his career in the 2nd Battalion of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada, which he joined in 1962 and served for three years, including a deployment patrolling the Cold War border between East and West Germany. Self-admittedly feisty and a regimental boxer, he also had a gentle demeanor and was a talented singer. While on tour with the Canadian Tattoo, he met Elvis Presley and shared a stage with The Beatles.
Carl Clouter earned his pilot’s license and twin engine endorsement while working as a maintenance worker for Eastern Provincial Airways in Gander. He flew Canso water bombers and was a pilot for Premier Joey Smallwood. It was the smaller bush planes that captivated Carl’s love for flying and it was through flying these planes that he was introduced to the mining business, piloting charters for Noranda and other exploration companies. Water bombing took Carl to literally every corner of our vast country and after several trips to the Northwest Territories (“NWT”), he was offered a temporary position as the Chief Pilot for Air Dogrib in Fort Rae-Edzo (now “Behchoko”) west of Yellowknife. He stayed in Behchoko for more than two decades and eventually established his own charter airline, “Edzo Air”, where he could blend his passions for both flying and prospecting. In 1987, he piloted a charter flight for Robin Goad, who was in the process of starting Fortune. Carl vended one of his properties into the start-up and became a director and the Company’s northern representative. He subsequently staked the original NICO claims, which together with adjacent claims owned by Goad were transferred to Fortune and led to the discovery of the NICO Cobalt-Gold-Bismuth-Copper Deposit.
While living in Behchoko, Carl Clouter was approached by the RCMP to become a Sentencing Justice of the Peace. He studied law and blended this with his knowledge of Indigenous culture, performing one of the first circle sentences ever conducted under Canadian law.
In later years, Carl transitioned between Gander, Yellowknife and the NICO site, flying occasionally as a commercial pilot, but more typically at the controls of one of his own small airplanes, which included two rare Stinson float planes that he personally restored.
Fortune Minerals is profoundly saddened by Carl’s passing and this premature conclusion to an epic journey. The Company extends its most sincere and heartfelt condolences to Carl’s wife and family.
Drill Program Progressing
Fortune’s exploration drill program at the NICO project is continuing and the fifth hole is nearing completion. Assays are not anticipated to be received until several weeks after the conclusion of the program and will be reported when they become available.
The NICO project is comprised of a planned mine and concentrator in the Northwest Territories and a related hydrometallurgical refinery in southern Canada producing cobalt sulphate, gold dor, bismuth ingots and oxide, and a copper cement precipitate. NICO is a development stage project and one of the most advanced cobalt assets outside of the Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”) to meet the growing demand in lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles, portable electronics and stationary storage cells, and mitigate supply chain issues from geographic concentration of production in the DRC and China and associated policy risks. The unique Critical Minerals assemblage of the NICO Deposit includes Mineral Reserves with primary cobalt, 12% of global bismuth reserves, by-product copper, as well as a highly liquid 1.1 million ounce in-situ gold co-product.