Aboriginal mining makes strides
Denendeh Investments CEO Darrell Beaulieu shares thoughts on opportunities
Walter Strong
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 1, 2014
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
The Denendeh Investments CEO talked up the future of the Northern economy at the Yellowknife Geoscience Forum.
Darrell Beaulieu, CEO Denendeh Investments Ltd. in Yellowknife accepting an award on behalf of the company for Aboriginal-Owned Business of the Year on Oct. 24. Denendeh Investments Ltd. created DEMCo limited partnership last year, creating a wholly aboriginal-owned mineral exploration and mining company. - NNSL file photo |
"We're all aware that our Northern economy is based on resource extraction, weather it's mining, oil and gas, forestry or fishing," said Darrell Beaulieu during this year's forum.
"We have to create our own sources of revenue," Beaulieu said. "We can't be in a dependency mode."
DEMCo has three projects: the Terra silver project, the Bugow gold project and diamond portfolio of claims near existing NWT diamond mines.
DEMCo limited partnership is a wholly aboriginal-owned mining exploration and development company formed in 2013 to promote aboriginal participation in Northern resource development.
At Terra, DEMCo has 12 mineral claims that include 22,731 acres at the former Terra Mine site on the Camsell River. The property, located at Conjuror Bay on Great Bear Lake, contains four former producing silver mines.
In the long run, Terra is expected to produce high grade silver, with iron, copper, and gold targets identified for exploration.
"This summer we used at least 10 aboriginal businesses, and that's not including Northern and southern suppliers," Beaulieu said of work on the project this summer.
This past summer saw DEMCo bring four aboriginal prospectors, two Northern prospectors and three geologists from other Canadian jurisdictions to the project.
Most of the work this summer was focused on compiling, re-logging and re-assaying existing data and
core samples.
On the diamond front, DEMCo owns claims to seven kimberlite pipes formerly owned by DeBeers. The pipes are all in close vicinity to the Snap Lake diamond mine and the Gahcho Kue mine project.
DEMCo holds the Bugow gold project, located directly north of Behchoko, northwest of Yellowknife by approximately 110 km.
The property has been explored since the 1940s. DEMCo reports drilling results to date to indicate a current resource of approximately 233,000 ounces gold.
"There's good potential in terms of gold resource," Beaulieu said. "It's an opportunity for the Dehcho."
It is early days for DEMCo's projects, but Beaulieu said the time is right for DEMCo to be picking up properties when the market is in what may be its basement days.
"We believe this is the right time to enter the mining sector," Beaulieu said. "The current (commodity) cycle is at a low point."
Beyond being in what DEMCo sees as a good time to buy, Beaulieu anticipates synergies to flow from the development of a wholly aboriginal-owned mining company in the North.
"Creating this (company) creates certainty and improved investor confidence in the mineral sector," Beaulieu said.
"That will benefit not only the Dene, but our partners, the territorial economy and the Canadian economy."
Beaulieu drew a connection between traditional ways of life on the land, and the possibility that resource exploration could rekindle or preserve that connection with the land for future generations.
"The aboriginal population in the NWT is a large, young and fast-growing population," Beaulieu said.
"Their parents and grandparents know the land. They trap and hunt. Here is an opportunity for the youth of today and tomorrow to be able to go out on the land, make a living on the land, and be able to make a connection with their forefathers."
