 | Home page |  | Text size |  | E-mail this page |
Bedroom town or economic hub? Yellowknife should start preparing for developing projects, says mine Chamber
Lyndsay Herman
Northern News Services
Published Friday, June 21, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Six advanced projects amounting to upward of 1,600 jobs and $2 billion surround Yellowknife and the time is ripe to start getting ready to take advantage of the development, says the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines.
Joe Campbell, president of TerraX Minerals Inc., shows Yellowknife a drill core with thick ribbons of quartz. - Lyndsay Herman/NNSL photo
|
This message was the gist of Chamber executive director Tom Hoefer's presentation to city council last week.
"I appealed to them to not wait for opportunity, rather go and seek it out," Hoefer stated in an e-mail to Yellowknifer. "That means knowing what the opportunities are, meeting the proponents to learn what they need, and then determining how Yellowknife could help them in such a way that Yellowknife also benefits."
In Hoefer's presentation, he points to not only nearby NWT projects as potential opportunities, but projects in Nunavut's Kitikmeot region as well.
As the shopping centre of the NWT and the city with the most amenities, Yellowknife is uniquely situated to become both a economic hub for business and leisure, and the most attractive NWT location for southern businesses and workers looking to move North.
Mayor Mark Heyck said these projects are on the city's radar and the economic development strategy it has in the works will likely have an eye on these opportunities.
The key will be to foster responsible development, where industry is supported but insofar as it benefits Yellowknifers, he said.
Return of the gold mines
The projects nearest Yellowknife are two potential gold projects.
Tyhee Gold Corp.'s Yellowknife Gold Project is the farthest along the road to reality of the two and is located 50 km north of the city. The project is expected to create 200 jobs and is currently working through the permitting process with the Mackenzie Valley Review Board.
Brian Briggs, Tyhee's chief executive officer, said the project's proximity to Yellowknife reduces some development costs and increases the possibility of all-weather road construction. Additionally, the property is expected to turn into two mines, one at the Ormsby deposit and one at the Nicholas Lake deposit, which further supports the economic feasibility of an all-weather road.
TerraX Minerals Inc.'s Yellowknife Gold Project is closer to Yellowknife, 15 km north, but is approximately 10 years away from development.
Among the job opportunities and spending that would come with a project of its size setting up shop outside the city, TerraX also plans to set up its operations base in Yellowknife, meaning that activities like core logging and sampling would all take place in our capital city instead of to the south, said Joe Campbell, president of TerraX, in an interview with Yellowknifer in May.
Moreover, the nearby infrastructure will likely mean the project reaches development much faster than other more remote projects.
"A lot of the delay in projects is the fact that you have to build infrastructure to support your operation," said Campbell. "We have much less of that to do on this project so perhaps we can cut five years off (the standard) time. We have, in the back of our heads, a ten-year plan to get us to mine development."
| 
