Junior miner eager to lead next wave of Red Lake exploration.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: SPECIAL REPORT: MINING

Prices for the precious yellow metal were pushing a 16-month high at $700 an ounce US in September as a Toronto junior miner is sinking close to $90 million into exploration on their high-grade Red Lake gold property.

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Gold Eagle Mines is among a handful of successful juniors with recent gold discoveries in the heart of one of the camps.

Earlier this year, the company announced it had raised $89.1 million to aggressively explore their Bruce Channel Discovery Zone within their Gold Eagle Project.

By mid-2008, contractors will begin work on a $65 million exploration shaft, driving down 1,450 metres to begin underground drilling on what Gold Eagle president and CEO Simon Lawrence says is a "mineralized envelope that's open in all directions" under the Bruce Channel waterway on Red Lake.

The company's property, six kilometres north of town of Red Lake, sits on a southeast-to-northwest trend that hosts a cluster of some of the richest and largest producing gold mines in the world, namely Goldcorp's Red Lake and Campbell Mines and the closed Cochenour-Willans Mine.

"It's a huge system with all the (geological) characteristics of the Campbell and Red Lake mine," says Lawrence. It's not one huge ore body, but a series of structures.

"Within this envelope, we've identified between seven and 11 of these high grade structures. But until you get underground and drill them closer, you're not sure how large they are and how continuous they are."

The company reported their mineralized envelope measured 1,100 metres vertically, with horizontal dimensions of 645 metres northeast-southwest by 450 metres.

Determining any kind of resource calculation "is some ways off," says Lawrence, with an 18-month shaft construction period followed by six months of underground drilling.

This summer, the company was studying a site near a former producing mine on the property.

J. S. Redpath is performing the engineering, site investigation and planning of the underground exploration program, while AMEC Earth & Environmental is pursuing the environmental permitting and approval work.

Former Dynatec co-founder Bill Shaver, one of Canada's most experienced shaft sinkers, has been added to the team as a consultant.

In August, five rigs were working under the Bruce Channel to expand their "regional exploration program" to test the mineral potential on the edges of their property.

"Hopefully it will prove up some mineable reserves within this very big...