Gold is where you find it, and the best place to look is where it’s been found before.

Evans Dick has subscribed to that theory for 15 years. It has made him a regular visitor to Yellowknife.

But his most recent, which ends today, was for prospecting of a different sort ‹he’s trying to save a Yellowknife area mining camp from impending doom.

Dick is president of Ardic Exploration and Development Ltd., a New Jersey company with mineral rights to the old Thompson Lundmark mine.

Nature has slowly reclaimed the mine site since production stopped, but the stout bunkhouses, gold mill, workshop and other small buildings are not giving up easily.

Mining machinery, technical manuals and bills of lading serve as reminders of a working camp and a temporary home for 85 men.

While Ardic owns subsurface leases to the property and 1300 acres surrounding it, the surface lease expired Dec. 31, 1994.

“The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND) put it into suspended animation to allow us to come up with a plan that’s acceptable to them,” explained Dick.

The deadline for that plan is Sept. 1. After that, DIAND may come up with its own and charge Ardic for its implementation.

“As a businessman, the surface lease is almost entirely irrelevant to me,” said Dick, because any new mining is not likely to be done from the same site.

Dick is willing to spend the estimated $150,000 required to perform the clean-up necessary to preserve the camp.

Under the Arctic Environmental Strategy, DIAND has levelled 417 abandoned mining, recreational and military facilities.

Vicki Swan hopes Thompson Lundmark does not suffer the same fate. “The first time I went to the site I was with a friend, and I said how beautiful it was. He said, `Oh they’re going to burn that down next year.’”

Swan has visited the mine several times since and hopes to paddle and hike there this year. She said it is worth preserving for recreational and historical purposes.

“This is a huge mining centre. We don’t have anything like that, something that gives people the opportunity to see what mining was like when it started here.”

Swan suggested the buildings would make an ideal overnight camp for cross-country skiers and snowmobilers, and a winter camp for education purposes.

That’s the type of interest Dick is trying to generate from the rest of the Yellowknife community. He has met a host of people with an interest in local heritage, including representatives of the Old Stope Association, Spirit YK, and Mayor Dave Lovell.

One ray of hope emerged. Chuck Arnold, director of the culture and heritage for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, says there is an initiative that could help such heritage projects.

The GNWT is contemplating legislation to allow government to make partnerships with other organizations to preserve such sites, explained Arnold.

Either way, the slow, steady progress of nature at the camp will not go uninterrupted much longer.