Following the shadows of headframes.

• Author: Smith, Jessica
• Position: SPECIAL REPORT: MINING

Q Gold Resources Ltd. has recently amassed a total of five historic gold mines and is now conducting the most comprehensive exploration program of gold properties ever conducted in Mine Centre in Northwestern Ontario.

Last year, the company completed an airborne survey of its property five kilometres south of the township, which includes two past-producing gold mines developed in the 1890s and most of the gold lands in that area. A $1.5 million exploration program includes draining water and conducting underground sampling of the largest-producer, the Foley Mine, and a 5,000-metre drilling program of areas across the 32,000 acre Archean Greenstone Belt gold property, located 110 km east of Fort Frances.

With two diamond drills running, "we're going to be quite, quite busy," said vice president of exploration Jack Bolen.

"Now we're doing an exploration program on the whole area, which never happened before because there were so many individual claims and patents, etc. For the first time we can do a comprehensive program, where no one was ever able to do that before."

It's been a 20-year process for Fort Frances area native Bolen. He staked his first claim in 1985 and continued acquiring mining claims and leases until a private Flagstaff, Arizona company funded $1 million in additional area gold property acquisitions six years ago. In 2005, Q Gold became a public company with Bolen as one of four Canadian directors working from the Fort Frances field office. The head office is located in Flagstaff.

The very name, Mine Centre, indicates the community's long mining history. Foley and Golden Star mines yielded 16,025 ounces of gold from the 1893 to 1934. Considering the small labour force, old-fashioned equipment and the under-reported potential, those totals are a positive signs, says Bolen.

The 400-acre Foley Mine is one of the most prolific mines, with an 850-foot shaft and 2.5 km of underground drift development. In modern dollars, this previous development is equivalent to around $12 million worth of exploratory work.

Canadian British Mines began mill construction in 1926, but the stock market crash, ensuing Depression and Second World War brought work to a grinding halt.

"They did a huge amount of work, but before the equipment was...