It was another record year for attendance at this year’s 46th Annual Yukon Geoscience Forum, as the Yukon continues to heat up as a destination for investment.

Executive director Samson Hartland of the Yukon Chamber of Mines said last weekend there were 700 delegates registered, up from the previous record of 600-plus last year.

In fact, said Hartland, since the bottom fell out on the industry a few years back, when the number of registered guests was just 325, attendance has been on an upward trajectory.

“I would say there is a lot of interest in this jurisdiction,” he said.

Hartland pointed out the top five of the world’s largest producers of gold have investments in the Yukon now, including Goldcorp, which is pushing to get its Coffee Gold Project south of Dawson City into production.

Victoria Gold’s Eagle Gold Project is under construction near Mayo, and BMC Minerals is advancing its Kudz Ze Kayak project southeast of Ross River, he noted.

Glenn Mullen is the president of the Prospector’s and Developer’s Association of Canada.

He told the audience the Yukon has gone from one of the best-kept secrets to one of the top three jurisdictions in Canada in terms of attracting investment.

Mullen credited some of the attention being paid to the territory as a product of effort by territorial government officials and the Yukon Mining Alliance, a local alliance of companies which promotes investment in the territory.

The annual conference hosted by the association in Toronto every March now attracting upwards of 25,000 delegates from 135 countries, he said.

Judging from the buzz generated at the conference by representatives of the alliance an government officials, Mullen said, you’d think the Yukon is as big as Russia.

As it normally does, the geoscience forum hosted a variety of guest speakers, including former CBC personality Rex Murphy and Ken Coates, a university professor and historian who was raised in Whitehorse from Grade 3 through high school.

Chief executive officer Janet Lee-Sheriff of Golden Predator Mining hosted two elder Kaska women who told the audience of the strengthening relationship with the mining company and its Three Aces Project near the Hyland River in southeast Yukon.

Representatives of various companies provided updates on their projects, as they normally do.

Paul West-Sells, president of Western Copper and Gold Corp., told the audience they hope to have their Casino project fully permitted in three years. They continue to prepare for the first panel review in the 13-year history of the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board, he said.

The Casino open-pit project between Carmacks and Dawson would be the largest mine in the Yukon’s history, by far. It would dwarf the Faro lead- zinc mine.

West-Sells said the $2.5-billion price tag is not out of line with the size of investment required for the Casino project, which is primarily a copper and gold mine.

Currently, he said, the world produces 20 million tonnes of copper annually.

It’s predicted there will be a shortfall of five million tonnes in the next decade, he said.

West-Sells told the audience the world will need 15 Casino mines to come on-line to keep up with the anticipated growth in copper demand, particularly with the transition to electric vehicles.

China, for instance, is currently replacing diesel transit buses with electric buses at a rate equivalent to replacing the entire transit fleet in London, England every six weeks.

The geoscience forum wrapped up Tuesday after four days.

See related coverage and in Friday’s Star.