Good news for my home town

The small town where I was born and raised used to be booming with several gold mines back in the 50s and 60s. They eventually all closed though lots of gold remained in the ground.

For years we've been hearing that a mine was set to reopen there. 15+ years ago, the word on the street was 5 years and we'd see an open pit mine. We heard that for years. Eventually it became 2 years. Many environmental studies and testing slowed progress along with the fact that the main hydro line going there was about 70 years old and at maximum capacity. The hydro company was reluctant to upgrade as it was a branch off the main line coming to a dead end. Power failures were long and frequent due to the poor lines.

Well, they just announced that everything is a go for 2020 for an open pit mine with a 14 year life span. This is good news for me personally despite the fact that I don't live there anymore. I still own 2 houses there. With the official mine opening in 2020, the housing market will boom. I'm actually planning to go there to prepare and list one of the houses for sale as it just became empty this week.

https://www.northernontariobusiness...345936?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Canadian eh!!!

All the water up around Geraldton looks awesome. Is open pit mining the same type as they do on Gold Rush? I had no idea so many permits were involved. The show does not cover that side of mining.

Yes. Lots of small lakes around there. Geraldton is on kenogamisis lake which is roughly 20 miles in diameter.

The mines that were there around the 60s were all deep underground shafts. When I was young there were 3 head frames like in the news article that acted like elevators lowering miners down to the actual mine and bringing the ore up to be processed in a mill. The picture below is the type of mine they hope to build. I believe the ones shown on gold rush are surface mines with the gold loosely mixed in with gravel. What they're doing in geraldton is iron ore mining where they get down to the gold veins in the rock and blast to break up the rock then process it through a mill to further crush the ore and extract the gold.

Canadian eh!!!

That being said, the hole will be probably a mile in diameter and a few hundred feet down which means that the existing highway along with 70+ houses, a couple businesses and a new police station will have to be torn down and relocated as well as half of an 18 hole golf course and hydro station. Not chump change. Big dollars and years of planning including rerouting one of the two highways that connect the eastern and western parts of the country. Anything traveling by transport either has to go along the north shore of lake superior which is very hilly and twisty or along hwy 11 which is more flat.

Lots of permits and studies required to do something on this scale as you're buying homes and tearing them down, rerouting a highway, creeks have to be rerouted. A little more involved than just cutting trees down and doing a surface mine.

Once up and running, they hope to employ 450 people. When the mill I worked at shut down in 2009, roughly that same amount were laid off just from our two mills.

Geraldton is part of a group of small towns in a 200km square area called the municipality of greenstone which consists of 6 communities and 5 native reservations. A population of roughly 5000 people. In 2008/2009, the area was hit hard. It previously depended on the logging industry with 6 mills in the area. Almost overnight, all the mills shut down which not only affected the mill workers but also the logging industry. Almost overnight, the entire community saw a 60% unemployment rate. The area has been a ghost town since just trying to survive. A couple of the lumber mills have also reopened but it'll never be like it was back in the 70s and 80s.

Canadian eh!!!

I was a wondering where Todd Hoffman had gotten off to. :th_lmao: and it reads as if he'll have on heck of a big money pit to play gold miner in..

Here's an article showing the mine.

http://www.mining.com/centerra-prem...w7-o_4FqumrA7a0CKZd5pAJUmUCxNo4FYsZz1hQ8kPdus

Canadian eh!!!

Here's a link with a clearer map of the mine.
http://www.greenstonegoldmines.com/upload/documents/160961111_ansi_d_fig_x_final_ea_master_s.pdf