Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 28/02) - A Baker Lake gold mine is looking more like a reality. It will mean jobs for the people in the area.

Charlene Mannik prospects close to her home of Baker Lake. Nunavut's next gold mine could be in the region if Cumberland's feasibility study pans out. - photo courtesy of Cumberland Resources Ltd.

Cumberland Resources Ltd. is studying its Meadowbank gold project for feasibility and so far things are looking pretty good.

The company held community meetings with Baker Lake residents during the last few years. About 30 per cent of the exploration camp employees are Inuit from the region.

"In the construction stage it might employ about 100 people or so," said Cumberland's Gord Davidson.

But the company wants to know for sure if the project will be economically feasible. One of the things it will look at is transportation. There is no road into Baker Lake.

"The feasibility study means that we are going to be getting into and continuing advanced engineering studies," said Davidson. "If we do get a mine going, how will we get all the material in and out of there," he said referring to fuel, construction material and a possible air-strip. The costs have to be balanced against the cash-value of the gold.

The Meadowbank 40-person camp is in the middle of a move right now because it is the end of the summer exploration season. The new camp will be expanded and opened in March.

"We just constructed a fairly large building which comprises kitchen, office and dry facility," said Davidson, who added the rest of the camp is in tents. "If we do make the decision to go ahead, that camp will get a lot bigger and be a more permanent camp."

The project's 2002 budget was about $6.5 million. The new dollars haven't been calculated yet but, "I would imagine there will be at least as much spent this coming year," said Davidson.

There is another gold project on-going in Nunavut -- Miramar Mining's Hope Bay project close to Bathurst Inlet. Both mines could be coming on at the same time but Meadowbank is expected to be much bigger.

"According to the pre-feasibility study, it looks like we will have at least eight years of production and it looks like we are going to be extending that to 10 years," said Davidson.

One of Meadowbank's advantages is the gold is located close to the earth's surface -- within 150 metres -- so it can be open-pit mined. And gold will be struck practically the first day of mining. The mine would be a fly-in, fly-out operation allowing Baker Lake residents to work at the mine and then live at home for time off. Davidson said local hiring is a priority.

"Obviously that's going to be our main focus. We are going to try to have as many local people on-site as we can," said Davidson.