Placer industry has yielded 80,000-plus ounces of gold
The Yukon placer mining industry produced 80,165 crude ounces of gold up to November, with a reported production value of $150 million.
The Yukon placer mining industry produced 80,165 crude ounces of gold up to November, with a reported production value of $150 million.
The figures were presented to the recent Yukon Geoscience Forum by representatives of the Yukon Geological Survey.
This year’s production number is 319 ounces shy of last year’s total of 80,484 ounces, although there is still time left on this year’s calendar to report production figures.
Most of the gold, some 37,000 ounces or 47 per cent of the total, was produced in the Indian River watershed south of Dawson City.
Production in that watershed was the highest since 2018, and was up approximately 11,000 ounces compared to 2021.
Of the seven gold-yielding rivers and creeks in the watershed, the Indian River yielded the most at well over 14,000 ounces followed by approximately 6,500 ounces coming from the Eureka Creek.
Production in the Klondike River was just under 12,000 ounces, down just over 4,000 ounces from last year.
Most of the gold in the Klondike watershed came from Lovett Hill.
The area between Dawson City and Alaska known as West Dawson produced just shy of 9,000 ounces, up about a 1,000 ounces from last year.
The top producer in the West Dawson drainage was the Sixtymile River.
Production on the Lower Stewart River was just shy of 12,000 ounces, on par with last year. Henderson Creek was the top producer at 6,000 ounces.
Production on Clear Creek fell to just under 4,000 ounces, down more than 6,000 ounces compared to last year.
The Mayo/Keno area saw about 3,800 ounces produced, down from approximately 7,000 ounces last year. Clear Creek was the largest producer at 1,800 ounces.
Approximately 2,200 ounces was produced in the Dawson Range west of Carmacks, up from 1,500 in 2021.
Production in the Kluane/Gladstone area was almost non-existent at about 100 ounces, compared to approximately 1,100 last year.
Comments (18)
Up 4 Down 0
Groucho d'North on Dec 12, 2022 at 3:24 pm
@Politico
Industry & government discussions prior to the permit approvals result in the mine's future, and in some cases over the past few decades, clean up costs were traded for jobs, jobs, jobs. Further, when some of these mines were originally developed our view of the world, pollution and prevention were not the same as they are today. History has also demonstrated why tighter regulations are important to apply to some operations and the changes to the numerous regulations reflect the need to do better.
Up 4 Down 2
Anue on Dec 12, 2022 at 3:09 pm
Politico - after watching the Faro situation since 1989, I think that the mine cleanup is the greatest boondoggle to ever hit the Canadian taxpayer. Governments spent outrageous amounts of money navel gazing the various options for abandonment - when everyone knew "flood the pit" would be the answer. "Faro mine abandonment" was well known as the graveyard for ineffectual fed employees, and a way to increase the pensions for those favoured few good old boys (before 1989 they had to send them to Ottawa on special projects, on travel status of course, to boost those retirement benefits.). Contractors lamented loudly in every Whitehorse drinking establishment about the "spend it all this year so we can get more next year" DIAND mantra and nothing changed with de okution
Up 6 Down 3
Politico on Dec 11, 2022 at 7:08 pm
@ Northerner Did you read how much the continued cleanup of Cypris Anvil will cost? ( $2BILLION DOLLARS OVER 20 YEARS, https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/faro-yukon-growth-mining-reclamation).
How about Giant Mine? ( $4.38 Billion Dollars, https://www.burnslakelakesdistrictnews.com/news/canadas-top-5-federal-contaminated-sites-to-cost-taxpayers-billions-to-clean-up/).
Did the Federal and Territorial governments get all that in back royalties or is the clean up purely paid by the taxpayers?
Up 4 Down 0
Charlie's Aunt on Dec 10, 2022 at 1:51 pm
@ Jack;
Can't believe no-one has answered your question and number of ups you received. A crude ounce is before it is purified. Although miners remove a lot of extra contaminants, that teaspoon of gold, weighing approximately 1 oz, that a placer miner sends to be smelted, contains impurities e.g may be silver, copper, quartz etc. That crude ounce is not pure gold, some is only 70% proof and some can be in high 90%.
Up 11 Down 2
Groucho d'North on Dec 8, 2022 at 2:13 pm
@Jack
I believe crude in this context refers to gold that has not yet been refined. It has other minerals in it naturally, Once refined it should be 99.something % pure gold.
Up 11 Down 2
Ok ok on Dec 8, 2022 at 12:54 pm
We should know here that there are ZERO royalties on placer gold. What people are referring to when they talk about placer royalties is an export tax. So, as long as gold doesn't leave the territory in raw form nothing is paid.
Up 17 Down 12
Groucho d'North on Dec 8, 2022 at 9:13 am
All this chatter about the values of royalties being too low is just noise compared to how much real money is being pissed away by the government. Focus on what is real and not some distractive topic created by the anti-mining lobby. Does anybody know what other Yukon resources have low or zero royallties?
Up 17 Down 14
bonanzajoe on Dec 7, 2022 at 8:14 pm
And as usual, most of that gold will leave the territory and enrich some other province or country. And of course, Yukon will be left with a piddling royalty.
Up 22 Down 7
Yukoner on Dec 7, 2022 at 7:27 pm
@Northerner why is seeking adequate royalties a small potatoes idea? Why do you think places like Alberta and Alaska are in the positions they are, it's not because they gave their oil away for free.. it's royalties.
Up 20 Down 11
Oya on Dec 7, 2022 at 4:12 pm
@ modernize royalties
I so agree with you. I'm not against mining, but I am against the environmental mess left behind. There should be reclamation fees or bonds or whatever they call them on placer mines, too, as supposedly are in place for mines like Wolverine. And those fees should be collected UP FRONT, before even one shovelful of dirt gets moved, and put into trust until reclamation time. Definitely not enough paid as royalties for OUR resources!
Up 37 Down 28
Modernize royalties on Dec 7, 2022 at 9:23 am
Those royalties amount to $30k in the public coffers for OUR resources. AND were left holding the bag on reclamation of hundreds of sites.
$30k wouldn’t cover a single day of reclamation work.
Before it’s yours it’s mined. After it’s mined it’s yours to clean up.
Up 15 Down 3
jack on Dec 6, 2022 at 7:38 pm
What is a 'crude ounce' and how is different from a regular ounce? I can't find any references to 'crude ounce' on the internet.
Up 36 Down 12
Northerner on Dec 6, 2022 at 6:06 pm
Hey Yukoner and Politico! Did you happen to read the other story in tonight's paper?
"The mineral exploration and mine development industry has spent $731 million in the territory so far this year".
I believe that the money the placer mining industry injected into the territory would be on top of that figure.
Not small potatoes, even though some opinions expressed on this forum seem to be.
Up 33 Down 21
Naturelover on Dec 6, 2022 at 5:39 pm
Hats off !
to the hard working Yukon placer mining families that have produced hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue over the years for the Yukon people.
Sure the gold royalty is very low, but so what?
Don’t our Marxist “comrades “know that there are hundreds of other taxes, licence and permit fees that miners pay?
What about just the payroll income tax of the thousands of employees and suppliers?
That money comes from wealth generated by selling minerals.
What wealth is generated by our marxist “comrades “who oppose everything?
Up 15 Down 9
Juniper Jackson on Dec 6, 2022 at 5:15 pm
80.000 oz of reported gold!! Would the Star kindly print the days the gold is being moved, from where to where, how many guards are employed? Asking for a friend.
Up 25 Down 32
Richard Smith on Dec 6, 2022 at 4:57 pm
Now total the cost of the massive environmental damages.
Up 47 Down 32
Politico on Dec 6, 2022 at 3:47 pm
This is only the officially reported amount that is actually declared by the miners. They still pay only $0.375 per ounce of declared gold, current price today according to Google is $1777.00/oz. A mere pittance which hasn't changed in over a century.
Up 46 Down 30
Yukoner on Dec 6, 2022 at 3:23 pm
And how much were the royalties on that.. maybe $1.25?