To: Graystone who wrote (935 ) 11/11/1997 12:45:00 PM From: Walt Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 11676
As a prospector who has spent most of his life living and working in the NWT I feel I have to throw a little perspective into things here. I just cannt drill when ever or where ever I want. First I need a land use permit which in the NWT could take 30-90 days then one has to mobilize the drill and drill grew into the site. Right now we are going through freeze up so unless I wanted the added expense of helicoptering everything in, depending where I wanted to drill etc, it could take weeks to get in and get set up. to drill the hole and get the core out, logged split and sampled could take another couple of weeks AND then it depends how busy the lab is. Assays often take 2-4 weeks. Variables such as weather, break downs frozen holes etc also come into play. Now that is assuming I get a land use permit. Sometimes various government departments wildlife, parks, tourism etc or local native groups can drag things out forever and several projects in the past have been moth balled because getting the permits was either impossible or the conditions impossed upon work to onerous. The NWT is one third of canada so it is a vast area with a population of 60,000 people the vast majority of whom live in settlements so once you get outside the settlement areas you can spend alot of time in the bush or on the barrens and see no one. True you occasionally come across old camps or evidence of past prospectors or hunters in the area but (while you could say the area has the once over there is still lots that hasnt been looked at. Alot of exploration dends to be very focused to the HOT COMMODITY of the day so an area could have been looked at for gold but not diamonds, base metals or uranium, rare earths platinum etc. Or versa visa. Conditions in Labrador are quite similar to the NWT in many ways. So still lots to explore and find as is also true for ontario etc. Exploration methodes are always improving and any area needs a second, third look. DFR was looking for gold and found base metals, one could be looking for base metals and find platinum or gold one just never knows. Thats part of the fun of prospecting you just never know what you are going to find. Sometimes someone gets lucky and finds a mine or great deposit with the first drill hole but other times it is a long slog. How many holes did it take to find Hemlo. How many holes does it take to find a diamondiferous kimberlite that is worth mining. There are alot of variables to consider. regards Walt Humphries