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New undertaking for historic district
Coppermine River project eyes high-grade copper showings

Walter Strong
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 28, 2014

KUGLUKTUK/COPPERMINE
It’s not called the Coppermine River for nothing.

nnsl file photo

Tundra Copper Corp. CEO Corwin (Cor) Coe looks at copper mineralization with a hand lens on the Coppermine River project near Kugluktuk. - photo courtesy Tundra Copper

Historical records going back to the eighteenth century show Hudson’s Bay explorers marvelling at rich copper surface outcrops, and Inuit able to take that copper directly from the ground and shape it into tools and weapons.

The rumours of high grade surface showings, including a five kilogram copper nugget, eventually led to a modern staking rush in the 1960s.

More than 40,000 claims were staked in the Coppermine district, a swathe of land stretching south and west of Coronation Gulf near Kugluktuk. The staking rush didn’t lead to any mines, thanks in no small part to exploration cost associated with the North – particularly during the 1970s oil crisis – and low copper prices.

“Hundreds of showings were found,” said geologist and president of Tundra Copper Corp. Don Penner. “But then the price of copper dropped.”

“It’s only seen sporadic activity over the years since then. Even people who have been persistent (in the area) have dropped most of their claims.”

After staking their own claims, Penner and partners in Tundra Copper travelled to the region last year to confirm for themselves some of the historical showings.

“When we staked this we thought we’d better go up there and make sure these showings exist, (that) we can find them, and (that) we can sample them ourselves,” said Penner.

“We did that at the end of August last year and we were just blown away by what we found.”

What they found were rock samples showing up to 50 per cent copper, with rich green veins of the mineral streaking through hammered-off chunks of surface stone outcrops.

In true prospecting spirit, Penner and colleagues kept their findings to themselves at the time, waiting for an additional block of claims to expire and become available. Those claims, which became available last November, included a 1967 drilled resource estimate showing high-grade copper.

“They blocked out about 90,000 tonnes of 8.78 per cent (grade) copper over 16-foot mining widths going for 3,200 feet as far as they traced it,” said Penner.

After picking up those additional claims, Tundra Copper now holds 311.6 square kilometres of property under the Coppermine River project.

According to Tundra Copper’s historic but non NI 43-101 compliant estimates, the total staked property, including the recently acquired parcel, shows 4 million tonnes of ore at 5 per cent grade, or potential for up to 400 million pounds of copper.

“Our next task is to prove-out this resource,” said Penner.

“We’d like to do something this summer, but we probably won’t get all our permits in order until at least the end of August which would make it likely too late to drill.”

“This year we had hoped to spend about $500,000,” said Penner. “We would put a camp close to the property and drill around 2,000 metres (of core sample for assay).”

If that spending doesn’t come together for this year, the company may just do an airborne survey of selected targets to further identify drilling targets for next year.

Although privately funded for initial work, the distance between initial drilling and a fully developed resource estimate is best measured in cash, not time.

Penner is counting on the market to have finally bottomed-out for junior exploration investment. He is hoping for a turn-around in the short term, maybe even before next summer.

“There are a few signs the market may turn around in the fall or maybe next spring,” Penner said, noting that projects east of Coppermine have had positive investor response over the past year, like TMAC Resources Inc.'s $77.8 million raised in May for its Hope Bay gold project.

Penner thinks it’s a good time to be considering a new copper project, particularly one with such a high grade potential.

“They’re mining between .3 and .4 per cent copper in B.C. and South America,” Penner noted. “We’re getting grades over mining grids of close to ten per cent and in grab samples up to 50 per cent.”

The advantage to Coppermine River’s high grade copper is twofold, Penner said. First, it means lower overall tonnage, helping to keep extraction and processing costs down.

Second, the nature of the deposits, at least as far as they are understood to this point, suggests underground mining which would leave less of an environmental scar compared to open-pit mining.

“They (the copper deposits) occur in vertically integrated shoots that aren’t very wide,” Penner said. “It would make more sense to go underground and mine out the width of the mineralization.”

Tundra Copper is a privately held company with no plans to rush to market to raise funds. Penner expects the company would need to eventually raise about $5 million to thoroughly develop their Coppermine targets.

“The public markets are still getting hammered,” Penner said. “It’s no use having a good story to tell and just having everybody dump on it.”

Instead, Penner would like to see the company put together a small drill program to firm up historical resources, and generate industry buzz, before looking for public investors.

“It’s got huge potential,” Penner said.

“It takes a lot of persistence and luck to put together a geological model,” he added.

“Nobody has really been patient enough with it, but we’re hoping to do it.”

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