Stockhouse.com: Taking
it to the street |
|
The North American Gold Rush Is On
It pays to be ahead of the pack, especially when the price of gold is breaking previous records, and hundreds of junior mining companies are scouring North America in the hopes to finding new discoveries.
It is a mantra that is driving mineral exploration from the Yukon to Elko, Nevada, prompting the leading players to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in some of the continent’s fabled mining camps.
With so many companies involved in the search for new discoveries, some veteran mining executives are resorting to tried and trusted methods of exploration, while others are making headlines by trying something new.
In northwestern Ontario, for example, Goldcorp. Inc. (TSX: T.G, Stock Forum) and (NYSE: GG, Stock Forum) will be drilling in the streets beside its 62-year-old Red Lake mine again this summer as it bids to find low grade ore that could extend the life of what is still one of the world’s richest gold mines.
Further north, in the Canadian Yukon, Vancouver-based Golden Predator Corp. (TSX: T.GPD, Stock Forum) raised eyebrows in January by buying up the government’s entire supply of 70,000 claim tags.
“We are in a new area where there is a real premium attached to getting the best properties the quickest,’’ explained Bill Sheriff, chief executive officer of Golden Predator, which has staked roughly 10% of the Yukon’s available mineral claims.
Getting ahead of the pack has already rewarded Underworld Resources and its investors after the junior was scooped up in a $136 million deal last year by Kinross Gold Corp. (TSX: K.T, Stock Forum).
More recently, Mexican gold explorer Newstrike Capital Inc. (TSX: V.NES, Stock Forum) has emerged on investor radar screens after releasing spectacular-looking drill results from the Guerrero gold belt.
Even in Nevada, where the known mineral trends have already yielded 200 million ounces of gold, prospectors say there is no reason to suspect that there won’t be more gold out there.
It was that type of thinking that drove prospector Shawn Ryan to begin his search for Yukon gold in the late 1980s, a time when most of his colleagues were going home. He had a hunch that the placer gold that triggered the 1890s Klondike gold rush must have come from local sources.
His persistence paid off in 2004 when he found the anomaly that six years later triggered the takeover of Underworld by Kinross Gold. Subsequent discoveries have ignited a staking rush that will draw 140 mineral exploration companies to the Yukon this summer.
This is proof, if any is needed, that the lure of gold remains a stronger than ever, and that there are bound to be new discoveries in all of the major mining camps across North America.
Stay tuned for what could be another epic year on the exploration scene.
BISON GOLD - is a Canadian public company focused on exploring for high grade gold with property assets in Manitoba.
