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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Attendance was down by more than 50 delegates at this year's Geoscience Forum, hosted by the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines.

A total of 840 delegates walked the aisles of the trade show at Weledeh Catholic school and listened to technical presentations at Capitol Theatre.

Donald Vigue, sales representative with Prince George-based IRL Supplies, said orders for products like camp stoves are down, meaning sales in 2008 will easily trail 2007, which was a banner year for his company. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

But attendance fell short of 2007's show, when 893 visitors took part.

Yellowknifers accounted for nearly half of attendees. Among the 108 exhibitors at the trade show, 15 participated for the first time.

Some past exhibitors were notably absent. Stornoway Diamond Corporation, which had exhibited at the forum in the last two years, pulled out this year.

Despite the weaker turnout, the Chamber's executive director, Mike Vaydik, was nonetheless impressed by the crowds.

"I'm really gratified by the amount of people who are here," said Vaydik, speaking from the boisterous lobby of the Capital, on the forum's first day.

"We're pretty close to being where we were and that's quite gratifying. I think it shows that, even at this early stage of this economic downturn, people are still interested in what we've got to sell - our geology."

The annual convention, where mining companies, suppliers and service providers converge to discuss developments within the industry, took place not only in the shadow of not only the current worldwide economic crisis - which is putting junior exploration companies in an especially precarious position- but also the announcement earlier in the week that De Beers will layoff 105 contract miners by the end of the year.

Returning attendee Donald Vigue, a sales representative for Prince George-based IRL Supplies, which sells diesel-powered camp stoves and samples bags to companies like Aurora Geosciences Ltd. and Discovery Mining, said his company has definitely taken a hit this year as the result of companies tightening their belts.

"In 2007 we had a banner year," said Vigue. "I'd say 2008 is certainly not a banner year. Our sales are down and we see a further erosion of that for 2009 just by talking to people and going to different trade shows.

"People are quite worried," he continued. "People that do have funding in place already are going to continue on with their programs. But people that don't have funding are probably going to be gone (from the field)."

Junior exploration companies are really feeling the brunt of the current economy, said Vaydik.

"Junior companies are incredibly dependent on the stock market," he said. "They don't have a revenue stream other than that. They sell shares to people who are interested in investing in their exploration project."

"You can look at companies whose stock is down so much that they can't raise money without diluting themselves hugely," said Bill Mercer, vice-president of exploration for Avalon Ventures, currently waiting on a resource estimate for its Thor Lake property outside of Yellowknife.

"And if they don't have a lot of cash around, they've got to be careful about spending what cash they have."

While Avalon is not pulling the plug on any of its plans, it is proceeding cautiously, he added.

"Normally by now we would probably be signing a contract with somebody for drilling" in the summer, said Mercer. "What we're doing is going a bit slow about how we make our decisions. We're not stopping anything but we're not rushing anything, either."