Alexco Resource Corp. should have a pretty good idea by early spring about the work it will be doing this year at its Keno Hill Silver District, says the company’s president and CEO.

Clynt Nauman says there is a variety of options facing the company, particularly with the substantial increase in value of the Bermingham deposit, due largely to the persistence of a young geologist – who just wouldn’t let go.

It may be a decision by Alexco to simply continue along the path of exploration to firm up and bolster silver resources, he said in an interview earlier this month.

Nauman says it may be a combination of continuing exploration while moving into a phase of development in preparation for the next round of active mining that was suspended at the Bellekeno Mine in 2013.

Whatever the outcome, he says, Alexco will be more active in the district than it was last year.

“I think that is a reasonable assumption at this point.”

Nauman says the company is committed to updating its preliminary economic assessment of the Keno Hill district by the end of March. Not too long after that, decisions will follow, he says.

One way or other, Alexco has already announced more exploration drilling at Bermingham to confirm what it believes it has – another large and rich silver deposit in the district.

Nauman gives himself a lighthearted knock on the head when recalling how Bermingham came to be – or almost didn’t if not for the persistence of geologist Seymour Iles.

Alexco had drilled the deposit in 2009, the same year Iles began working for the company.

It did more drilling at Bermingham in 2012, but Nauman says the results were showing a complicated, low-grade silver resource. Alexco went on in 2013 to discover the Flame and Moth deposit, about a stone’s throw from the new mill in Keno City.

By the end of 2014, the Flame and Moth was featured in the company’s preliminary economic assessment as the flagship to the future. Bermingham was mentioned, but almost in passing.

All the while, though, the 34-year-old geologist didn’t lose sight of his belief that the heart of Bermingham had yet to be unlocked.

He toiled underground at the Bellekeno operation, believing there was a pattern to the geology that he could prove and apply elsewhere, including at the historically significant Hector-Calumet mine uphill from Elsa.

The Hector-Calumet mine has been the largest producing deposit in the history of the Keno Hill Silver District.

Records show that between 1913 and 1990, 214 million ounces of silver came out of the district, putting it among the richest silver districts in the world.

The Hector-Calumet produced almost half, or 96 million ounces in its mine life from 1950s to 1972.

Iles believed the geological patterns he was seeing at Bellekeno could be seen at Hector-Calumet. He believed they existed at Bermingham, less than a kilometre away from Hector-Calumet.

Nauman recalls as Alexco was winding down drilling at the Flame and Moth in 2014 – already knowing they had a robust deposit there – Iles’ persistence paid off.

“Seymour, to his credit, was coming back to me and saying, ‘Clynt, we have to go back to Bermingham.’

“So in 2014, we allowed him to drill one or two holes and he came back with several metres of grade that was in excess of anything we had drilled in Keno Hill so far.

“In 2015, we said, ‘OK Seymour, take this $1.5 million and show us what you got.’

“And that is what he did. So in 2016, we took everything we had and threw it at Bermingham and you see what we got. It was a game changer.”

Early this month, Alexco reported the silver resources at the Bermingham deposit are estimated at 17.3 million ounces, up from five million-plus estimated previously.

It pushed the deposit up to second place in terms of size, second only to the 26.7 million estimated for the Flame and Moth deposit.

But Bermingham is showing a substantially higher grade; less rock to move to retrieve the equivalent amount of silver.

Nauman notes with today’s price of silver ranging between $16 and $17 US an ounce, and with the exchange rate for the Canadian dollar trading at $0.76, the value of silver in Canadian dollars is about $22 an ounce.

It’s at about the same price silver was sitting at when Alexco suspended operations at Bellekeno in 2013, he says.

The big difference today, says the CEO, is the amount of silver they have available to put through the mill.

Alexco’s decision this spring on how to proceed might involve any number of combinations. Those include the option of beginning preparations to get back into production, however that might look, Nauman explains.

He acknowledges the Bellekeno mine is essentially in a turnkey position to fire back up.

Perhaps the company will decide to focus its time and money on the six months and estimated $20 million it would take to prepare the Flame and Moth for production.

Perhaps it will be a combination of mining Bellekeno while moving ahead simultaneously with preparing the Flame and Moth for production.

It may be a decision to stick to exploration for now.

Nauman says they’re all live options.

Continued exploration drilling at Bermingham is certain, however, says the CEO.

Nauman says Alexco needs to go underground with its drilling program to firm up the assessment of the deposit.

Last season, there were 20 to 25 people working the Bermingham property, he points out, noting the underground project would double that number.

“It is a significant discovery, and it will have a dramatic impact on what will happen at Keno Hill in the future – no question,” says Nauman.

“The lesson here is if you have a stupid CEO, you need to keep talking to him.”