Just 50 km south of Goldcorp’s Éléonore mining project and just a few clicks away from EM-1 is Eastmain Resources Inc.’s Clearwater flagship, the Eau Claire deposit.
As President Don Robinson explains, the company was drawn to the area because it has the same mineral potential as that of Val-d’Or, Timmins and Red Lake regions but without the difficulty mining companies have faced in the past when it comes to obtaining land.
The disadvantage he said was that because it hasn’t been developed, very little is known about the area. Robinson and his company have been exploring their claim near EM-1 for around 17 years now and they have made discoveries.
“There are five gold deposits that have been found up there and then there are other elements. Of the five gold deposits, we own two and Goldcorp owns one. Goldcorp owns a deposit, which is likely to be a Canadian leader, if not ultimately a world leader, in terms of size and economics.
“We have the second largest there in our Clearwater flagship, which is becoming significant because of its size,” said Robinson.
Fortunately for Eastmain Resources, Hydro-Québec has already built a road to access EM-1 in this region so instead of going by floatplane like they did in the past, they can drive to the property.
Now, 17 years on, it seems that progress is about to happen for Eastmain Resources.
“We are approaching a pre-development stage. We have outlined a deposit and have what is called a 43-101 resource and so there is both an open-pit and an underground resource. It is extremely high grade, the third highest grade for undeveloped projects for an open pit, and we think it will ultimately make the difference,” explained Robinson.
While the Eau Claire deposit is still being explored, according to Robinson, there is more than a fair amount of gold in it, have 600,000 ounces that are “open pitable” and another 1 million ounces underground by the company’s estimates.
At present, Eastmain Resources’ goal is to keep going at it with a backhoe and a diamond drill to unearth what is there, trying to see the geometry and the limits of the deposit.
“Right now we are approaching the point where we change the threshold of the project. It was in the 0.3-to-3 million ounce category and we think it is now approaching the 3-5 million ounce category.
“In contrast, Goldcorp is in the 5-10 million ounce category on their project and it is my opinion that they are going to go north of that. And so worldwide, what we are looking at is that there are 41 gold deposits that are high grade, better than 3 million ounces and in North America there are not very many. This is why we think that ours is important enough to be of interest,” said Robinson.
This is not to say that they are trying to compete with Goldcorp as they are Eastmain’s largest stockholder and Robinson says that this is a very good thing as they are excellent at developing projects.
Comparing the two projects, Robinson said that by no means are they comparable size-wise, but when in production the Eau Claire deposit will be producing enough to make an impact to most, if not all of the gold companies in Canada and maybe elsewhere.
With all of the training going on in the region for those who will be working for Goldcorp in the near future, by the time Eastmain is ready to start building, a built-in local work force will be available to them.
For more info: www.eastmain.com
