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The Story of the Golden Triangle in British Columbia

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Golden Triangle in British Columbia

The Golden Triangle

In a hidden corner of Northwestern Canada lies some of the world’s most significant mineral potential.

Billions of dollars of undiscovered gold, silver, and copper still sit within an unexplored area that was once remote. However, only now can these world-class deposits be finally tapped.

Skeena Resources has generously helped us to put together the story of the famed Golden Triangle.

The History of the Golden Triangle

Even before Canada was officially a country, the area now known as the Golden Triangle was a hub for prospectors looking to strike it rich.

In 1861, Alexander “Buck” Choquette struck gold at the confluence of the Stikine and Anuk Rivers, kickstarting the Stikine Gold Rush. More than 800 prospectors left Victoria to go to the Stikine in search of gold.

A few short years later, an even more significant rush would occur just to the north in the Cassiar region – it’s where British Columbia’s biggest ever gold nugget, weighing in at 73 ounces, would be found. The Atlin Gold Rush, an offshoot of the world-famous Klondike Gold Rush, would also occur just north of the Triangle.

The First Discoveries

The companies that first worked in the Golden Triangle balanced its richness against the costs of its remote location.

1. Premier Gold Mine
The first big discovery in the Golden Triangle was at the Premier Gold Mine, which started operations in 1918.
The company that first owned it, Premier Gold Mining Company, returned as much as 200% on the stock market between 1921 and 1923. At the time the Christian Science Monitor called it “One of the greatest silver and gold mines in the world.”

2. Snip Mine
Discovered in 1964 by Cominco, the deposit stayed dormant until 1986, when it was drilled in a joint venture with Delaware Resources. Murray Pezim’s Prime Resources bought out Delaware after the stock ran from a dollar to $28 a share.

The high-grade Snip mine produced approximately one million ounces of gold from 1991 until 1999 at an average gold grade of 27.5 g/t.

3. Eskay Creek
In 1988, after a 109 drill holes, tiny exploration companies Stikine Resources and Calpine Resources finally hit the hole they needed at Eskay Creek: 27.2 g/t Au and 30.2 g/t Ag over 208m.

Eskay would go on to become Canada’s highest-grade gold mine and the world’s fifth largest silver producer, with production well in excess of 3 million ounces of gold and 160 million ounces of silver.

Grades:
Gold: 49 g/t
Silver: 2,406 g/t
Lead: 3.2%
Zinc: 5.2%

By the time it was all said and done, the stock price of Stikine Resources would go from $1 to $67, after it was bought by International Corona.

Why did these three rich mines shut down?

Despite the gold in the Triangle being extremely high grade, lower gold prices in the late 90s made the economics challenging. Meanwhile, the lack of infrastructure in this remote area of Canada meant that power, labor, and logistics costs were sky high.

Both of these things have changed today, and activity at the Golden Triangle is now fast and furious.

Gaining Access to the Triangle

The Golden Triangle is a hot area for exploration again. This is for three main reasons: higher gold prices, new infrastructure, and modern discoveries.

Higher gold prices

Average gold price (1999): $279 (Adjusted for inflation: $398)
Average gold price (2016): $1202

Gold prices are more than 3x as high today, even after adjusting for inflation. Combined with the Golden Triangle’s high grades, this becomes even more attractive.

New Infrastructure:

Today, road access to the area is easier than ever, and a new transmission line will dramatically reduce the cost of power for companies operating in the Triangle.

Recent improvements:

  • Completion of a $700 million high-voltage transmission line to the Golden Triangle. The Northwest Transmission Line goes 335km from Terrace to Bob Quinn Lake, and north to the Red Chris mine
  • Paving of the Stewart-Cassiar highway north from Smithers (Hwy 37)
  • Opening of ocean port facilities for export of concentrate in Stewart
  • Completion of a three dam, 277 MW hydroelectric facility located 70km northwest of Stewart

With new infrastructure in tow, the Golden Triangle is now open for business.

Modern Discoveries

The next gold rush at the Golden Triangle has already started.

Just some of the new discoveries in the area include Seabridge’s KSM project, Pretium’s Valley of the Kings deposit, and Imperial Metal’s Red Chris mine.

Yet, despite this track record of new discoveries and mines being built in the area, a British Columbia government report estimates that only 0.0006% of the Golden Triangle has been mined to date.

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Uranium

Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country

We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium reserves by country, with 3 countries accounting for more than half of total reserves.

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A cropped chart visualizing the distribution of the global uranium reserves, by country.

Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

There can be a tendency to believe that uranium deposits are scarce from the critical role it plays in generating nuclear energy, along with all the costs and consequences related to the field.

But uranium is actually fairly plentiful: it’s more abundant than gold and silver, for example, and about as present as tin in the Earth’s crust.

We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium resources by country, as of 2021. Figures come from the World Nuclear Association, last updated on August 2023.

Ranked: Uranium Reserves By Country (2021)

Australia, Kazakhstan, and Canada have the largest shares of available uranium resources—accounting for more than 50% of total global reserves.

But within these three, Australia is the clear standout, with more than 1.7 million tonnes of uranium discovered (28% of the world’s reserves) currently. Its Olympic Dam mine, located about 600 kilometers north of Adelaide, is the the largest single deposit of uranium in the world—and also, interestingly, the fourth largest copper deposit.

Despite this, Australia is only the fourth biggest uranium producer currently, and ranks fifth for all-time uranium production.

CountryShare of Global
Reserves
Uranium Reserves (Tonnes)
🇦🇺 Australia28%1.7M
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan13%815K
🇨🇦 Canada10%589K
🇷🇺 Russia8%481K
🇳🇦 Namibia8%470K
🇿🇦 South Africa5%321K
🇧🇷 Brazil5%311K
🇳🇪 Niger5%277K
🇨🇳 China4%224K
🇲🇳 Mongolia2%145K
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan2%131K
🇺🇦 Ukraine2%107K
🌍 Rest of World9%524K
Total100%6M

Figures are rounded.

Outside the top three, Russia and Namibia both have roughly the same amount of uranium reserves: about 8% each, which works out to roughly 470,000 tonnes.

South Africa, Brazil, and Niger all have 5% each of the world’s total deposits as well.

China completes the top 10, with a 3% share of uranium reserves, or about 224,000 tonnes.

A caveat to this is that current data is based on known uranium reserves that are capable of being mined economically. The total amount of the world’s uranium is not known exactly—and new deposits can be found all the time. In fact the world’s known uranium reserves increased by about 25% in the last decade alone, thanks to better technology that improves exploration efforts.

Meanwhile, not all uranium deposits are equal. For example, in the aforementioned Olympic Dam, uranium is recovered as a byproduct of copper mining occurring at the same site. In South Africa, it emerges as a byproduct during treatment of ores in the gold mining process. Orebodies with high concentrations of two substances can increase margins, as costs can be shared for two different products.

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