I just had the opportunity to read a story in the Globe and Mail concerning new gold discoveries made in the Klondike. It seems that gold prospecting may have finally located at least one of the elusive mother lodes that thousands of fortune hunters and would be prospectors searched for over 100 years ago.
I think this shows that prospecting is a very useful profession and it can be rewarding, but it takes time to do it right!
Here are some parts of the full story.
"We've finally found the first one that actually shows enough gold in one spot to say, 'Ahh, this is the type of deposit that could have produced the Klondike,' " said Shawn Ryan of Dawson, Yukon.
Mr. Ryan has combined 10 years of old-fashioned bushwhacking with the latest high-tech data gathering to find a gold belt nine kilometres long. The prospector's find is in the so-called White Gold area, south of Dawson, near where the White and Yukon rivers meet.
The area isn't new to gold seekers. In the late 1890s, it was part of the Klondike Gold Rush, which saw tens of thousands of hopeful "cheechakos," or newcomers, flood into the Yukon hoping to pan and sluice their way to riches.
Dawson swelled to 30,000 as creeks and gravel bars yielded millions of dollars of gold. Much of it was spent in bars such as Diamond-Tooth Gertie's, which provided Mr. Service with rich material for his oft-quoted odes such as The Cremation of Sam McGee.
The sources of that gold were never found. But Maurice Colpron of the Yukon Geological Survey says the White Gold find could be one of them
"The motherlode is still out there and that's the hype around the White Gold area."
Plenty of miners seem to think so. There are at least 29 junior mining companies active in the area. About 7,900 claims have been staked since late 2006.
Mineral exploration spending in the Yukon has risen from $7-million in 2002 to over $100-million in 2007 and 2008. Even in recessionary 2009, government figures suggest mining companies will spend up to $60-million.
Early drilling results explain the rush. Many operating mines exploit deposits that yield one gram of gold per tonne of ore. White Gold-area miners report 100-metre stretches of claim that yield three or four times that.
One company says a small section of its claim contains 410 grams of gold a tonne.
"People are really starting to realize this is a great place to explore," said Susan Craig, director of the Yukon Chamber of Mines and president of Northern Freegold Resources, one of the region's main players.
Link to Globe and Mail Story
As Been Webber the author of the article says " Somewhere, the ghost of Robert W. Service is smiling."
Let us keep on prospecting! Have a great and rewarding day.
