Northwest Territories Mineral Exploration Overview 2021

Despite the challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, mining and exploration continued in the Northwest Territories (NWT), though at a slowed pace. The NWT 2020 projections from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) stated exploration spending was projected to fall to $36.6 million, a 54% decrease from 2019.

Diamond mining continued at the Diavik Diamond Mine and Gahcho Kué Mine. The Ekati Diamond Mine was placed on care and maintenance for much of the year but resumed operations in January 2021. Diamond sales and prices were significantly curtailed by COVID-19 restrictions but showed signs of recovery in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Gold Terra Resource Corp. (formerly TerraX) continued to generate results from the drilling programs at Sam Otto and Crestaurum as part of their Yellowknife City Gold Project.

Nighthawk Gold Corp. expanded known areas of mineralization on their Indin Lake Gold Property.

Osisko Metals Inc. advanced the Pine Point Project with the release of a new National Instrument (NI) 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects technical report and drill holes with an intersection greater than 20 metres of high-grade lead-zinc mineralization.

NorZinc Ltd. received the final permits for the Prairie Creek zinc-lead-silver mine and associated all-season road.

Vital Metals Ltd. of Australia filed a Joint Ore Reserves Committee Code (JORC) 2012 compliant resource update for the Nechalacho Rare Earth Element Project, targeting production by mid-2021.

Fortune Minerals Ltd. completed an updated resource model and initiated a geophysical program on the NICO Project to assist future drilling between two areas of known mineralization (Figure 1).

Several exploration programs were carried out in a modified or reduced form.

The following projects saw limited exploration activity this year: Kennady North Project (Mountain Province Diamonds Inc.), Loki Project (North Arrow Minerals Inc.), Lac de Gras Joint Venture (Dominion Diamond Mines and North Arrow
Minerals Inc.), Seahorse Project (Olivut Resources Ltd. and Talmora Diamond Inc.), Cabin Lake Gold Project (Rover Metals Corp.), Clan Lake Project (Dave Webb and Coulter Hess), and Stratus Project (Brayden St. Pierre). Sixty North Gold Ltd. began preparations to restart mining on the Mon Property.

A total of 100 new claims were staked in 2020, with a total area of 75,440.50 hectares (Figure 2). New claims were staked near Walmsley Lake, Margaret Lake, Gordon Lake, and Point Lake. Ten claims were cancelled with a combined area of 7084 hectares. No claims lapsed in 2020 due to the Mining Recorder’s
COVID-19 relief measures. There are currently 21 active prospecting permits with a total area just under 332,000 hectares.

In 2019-2020 fiscal year, the Government of Northwest Territories (GNWT) invested nearly $1 million in grassroots mineral exploration through the Mining Incentive Program (MIP). This funding was dispersed to 17 exploration projects comprising nine prospectors and eight companies.

Several of the MIP funded projects were negatively affected by the COVID-19 restrictions, and by way of support, the GNWT extended the MIP reporting requirements for the affected projects to 2021.