By IAN ROSS
A Sudbury junior took home top honours for its discovery of a nickel-copper discovery in northwestern Ontario.
Canadian Arrow Mines was selected Developer of the Year at the Northwestern Ontario Mines and Mineral Symposium in Thunder Bay, April 10.
Enthusiasm for the upcoming exploration season was high as 420 participants attended the event at the Valhalla Inn.
Canadian Arrow is close to bringing its Kenbridge deposit, east of Sioux Narrows, into open pit production by 2009, having just published a preliminary economic assessment.
"We're going forward with all guns blazing," says president Kim Tyler. A feasibility study should be done by year's end. With a 10-year mine life, a combined open pit-underground mine could yield 9.7 million tonnes at 0.46 per cent nickel and 0.25 per cent copper diluted. The company picked up the property just two years ago from Falconbridge, which explored extensively there since the 1950s, even sinking a 2,000-foot exploration shaft.
Canadian Arrow CEO Dean MacEachern, was well familiar with the ground having been a Falconbridge senior vice-president of exploration.
The junior is dewatering the shaft, has bought hoist equipment, and is embarking on advanced exploration at depth this year.
"It was never in production," says Tyler, "it was truly an exploration play. They (Falconbridge) sank a shaft and spent six years drilling all over the place and only took out a small bulk sample.
"Nobody has really done anything with it in all those years."
This year will be spent raising financing for the $108 million mine-mill complex and following up nickel-copper occurrences in a regional exploration program.
The company was also lauded for its early consultation with the Anishinawbe Nation communities in Treaty 3 to explore on its traditional lands. They seek authorization through the Treaty 3 resource law.
Tyler says the project could provide active Native involvement in employment, business opportunities and education.
Two other juniors were recognized for their highly prospective exploration plays.
Gold Eagle Mines and Kodiak Exploration shared the Bernie Schnieders Discovery of the Year Award.
Gold Eagle is in the midst of a $65 million gold exploration program on at its Bruce Channel project in the heart of the Red Lake camp. J.S. Redpath is helping sink a 1,460-metre shaft to pursue significant gold grades at depth.
Kodiak's multiple high grade gold finds at its Hercules project has prompted a flurry of activity from other juniors to accelerate their exploration efforts in a largely-forgotten gold camp.
The company is the dominant junior in the area with more than 1,400-square-kilometres. The Northwest Prospectors also handed out Lifetime Achievement Awards to prospectors John Ternowesky, Bill Miron and the brothers Ray and Louis Cousineau, the latter two having staked more than 1,200 mining claims in the Kenora mining district over 60 years.
Also honoured was Carter Nelson of Nelson Granite, a family-owned stone quarry west of the hamlet of Vermillion Bay.
The event was shrouded with some controversy. The jailing of six community leaders of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwig First Nation (Big Trout Lake) sparked a small Native protest outside the hotel.
The leaders of the remote community 600 km north of Thunder Bay were cited for contempt of court in March for blocking exploration efforts by junior miner Platinex on claims near the community.
