Exploration boom revives Kirkland Lake.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Special Report: Timiskaming & Region - Kirkland Lake diamond drilling company

Grenville Whyte harkens back to the 1960s to draw comparison to today's level of exploration activity in the Kirkland Lake gold camp.

The manager of Heath & Sherwood, a Kirkland Lake diamond drilling company, has 50 employees and 12 diamond drill rigs, roughly about one-third of their equipment, committed to the Kirkland Lake Gold project, the area's flagship mining operation.

"That's the biggest concentration of drills we've had with one company for a long time," says Whyte, remembering when his company operated 45 drills for Inco in the Sudbury basin four decades ago.

While the international driller has other projects on the go in Kirkland Lake, Attawapiskat, Timmins and overseas in Greenland, Liberia and Cuba, Whyte says they could easily put more equipment locally into the field if not for a shortage of skilled drill operators.

Exploration has rejuvenated the once-dormant northeastern Ontario mining town, known to be the second-most productive and highest-grade gold camp in Canada after Red Lake.

The leap in gold prices from $280 (US) per ounce to $400 within a year has been a driving factor in its resurgence. The arrival of Kirkland Lake Gold two years ago (formerly known as Foxpoint Resources), headed by some savvy operators with a track record of success in Latin America, has restored faith in the mining district.

Company geologists' reinterpretation of the Kirkland Lake Main and '04 Breaks with the subsequent discovery of the D Zone has helped put the town of 8,600 back on the map.

"There's a whole new different outlook in town," says Whyte, in mentioning the economic spinoffs for local mining suppliers, contractors, hardware stores, realtors, accommodations and new retailers.

It has many in town wondering if the new discoveries could match the area's historical output of 22 million ounces of gold, and may rival a similar story in the Red Lake gold camp in northwestern Ontario.

"We know deep down below 7,000 feet there's mineralization down there and we're only at 4,500," says Whyte.

Since the company purchased five old gold mines, Macassa, Lakeshore, Wright Hargreaves, Teck Hughes and the Kirkland Lake Gold Property, from Kinross Gold in late 2001, they have embarked on an aggressive exploration program.

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Last October, the company pumped a fresh infusion of cash into the community when they launched the largest exploration program the Kirkland Lake camp had ever seen--a three-year, $21-million program of both...