Houston lake's next step in West Cedartree.

• Author: Louiseize, Kelly
• Position: MINING

Finding a mine is like winning the lottery, E.Grayme Anthony says.

Once you find it, you want to access the windfall, but there are bureaucratic hoops to go through first.

He wouldn't mind jumping through them if the drill results and mapping tests indicate large reserves worthy of an open pit. That is his aim: to quantify and qualify gold resources at the West Cedartree property located near Kenora.

As president of Sudbury-based Houston Lake Mining Inc., Anthony usually likes to work quietly under the radar, showing up in obscure remote places before it is popular to be there.

They were the first to stake claims beside Canada's only platinum-palladium deposit outside Thunder Bay, one of the first to anticipate a gold spike and therefore, the first to officially document any resources in West Cedartree where three portions of the property have piqued their interest.

Anthony says Houston Lake invests every cent they can into exploration. They are not trying to keep up with the Jones', nor do they squander invested dollars in Rembrandts for office walls.

"We are an exploration company and that means putting exploration in the ground."

He says the cost of one drill hole being allocated to office frills from the field could be their success story.

The office is as basic as it comes. Driving into Val Caron's industrial section, located north of Sudbury proper, is where one will find Anthony and his assistant, Christine. They make, up head office.

The walls are not lined with fashioned mineral plaques, tapestries or statues. In fact, for the most part, the rooms and walls are pretty bare, with the exception of a quote on a piece of printed paper taped to the wall above Anthony's computer.

"Great people are ordinary people with extraordinary amounts of determination."

It does appear to describe the loyalty, the hard work and the smarts this company has garnered since their inception in 1995.

Anthony, a geologist who obtained his masters in business administration was relocated from Vancouver to Sudbury some 11 years ago to lead this publicly-traded company into becoming a producing mining house.

Each year they seem to be getting closer to that mark, particularly since acquiring the West Cedartree property in 2002.

Houston acquired it from local residents and one in particular known prospector, John Larch, the man famous for discovering the Hemlo Deposit. But the resource numbers on all three don't comply with the national instrument 43-101...