"Gold is about $331 (US) right now. Anything below $375 precludes it from being back up again, says Rob Treneman, president of Treminco from his Vancouver office. "We'd still be operating if it weren't for the downturn in gold prices."

Rob Treneman's father started the company, and he's been president for the past two and a half years of the publicly-traded company, which listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

"Since 1985, we've been operating outside of Yellowknife -- the Ptarmigan mine is about 12 kilometres by road northeast of Yellowknife on the Ingraham Trail in the Cassidy Point area and the Tom is in the same vicinity -- the two mines are about half a mile (one kilometre) apart."

"Effectively they are one mine, but when we purchased them, they had two owners so we've treated them separately," says Treneman.

"We haven't had a profit at the mine since 1991.

The Ptarmigan mine's been winding down since 1992. There were eight employees. Until the end of August we'll keep four or five employees working on various components of the operation."

Optimism in the industry remains high, however.

"Everybody in the gold business is hoping the price of gold will rebound. It's tough for all mines (with) the price of gold now. Con, Giant and Colomac are all high-cost producers," says Mike Vaydik, general manager of the NWT Chamber of Mines.

The Ptarmigan mine had an operating loss of $370,000 at Treminco's fiscal year end July 31, 1996, says Treneman. The Ptarmigan mine operated for 240 days in 1996.

"We have a silver-lead-zinc mine in B.C. that is slowly starting back up and the Sulphurets -- we own 60 per cent of that project. But the bulk of our other activities are other exploration in the NWT -- so the main focus of our activities is the NWT," Treneman says.

"It's a land of opportunity in many respects. We believe there's another Giant or Con operation in Yellowknife area. We've used the Ptarmigan mine as a stepping stone," he says.

"We felt there was good potential in the area and wanted to have a mining presence in the area. We did make a bid on the Con mine in 1991. Unfortunately, we didn't get it."

Treneman says the company is exploring ground 30 kilometres north of Yellowknife. "We're doing more chip samples and trying to find anomalous zones. And hopefully we'll be (gold) exploration drilling this March, 1998."

Bill Iversen, head of corporate development for Treminco, says the underground Ptarmigan gold mine had been drilled to the 300-metre level.

"We're still exploring the Greenstone belt, 50 square kilometres," Iversen says. Exploration won't restart until January, 1998 and continue until early April, he adds, when the winter road is operational.

The company's focus is on precious metals and underground opportunities, says Treneman.