After the customary bell tinkle, the District Land Acknowledgement Statement, and the singing of O Canada by the Women’s Soccer team during the Gold Medal Ceremony at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, President Doug presented the following thought of the week, in keeping with the month of August being Rotary’s “Membership Month”: “Every Rotary club needs new, qualified members. They bring fresh ideas, new interests, increased energy and provide for future leadership. Each qualified new member increases Rotary’s capacity for Service, and ensures the future of our organization.”
SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENT – Brock Nykoluk
Iain introduced Brock, and thanked him for attending the meeting. Brock graduated from St Paul’s High School in June 2020 with an academic average of 98.3%!!! Brock was very active in the school’s debate team (and a co-recipient of the senior debate award). He will be pursuing the second year of an Arts degree (joint Honours in Philosophy and Political Science) at McGill University this fall. In the first year, classes were a mixture of in-person and virtual, depending on the status of COVID restrictions. He anticipates that in the coming year the first term will have 4 of his 5 classes in person and the second term will have all 5 classes in-person. McGill requires that all students live in Montreal. Brock stayed with family members living in Montreal. Asked about his post-graduation plans, Brock figures it will probably include a degree in Law (either at McGill or at U of Toronto) or maybe a PhD in Philosophy or Political Science. President Doug thanked Brock for visiting our club and wished him the best in his studies.
ROTARY MOMENTS
Report on club Board Meeting of Aug 3:
1. Cathy Skene has agreed to fill the vacant Grant Writing position. She will be working with Elaine and Lloyd in that capacity for the club.
2. Our Club Treasurer advised that about ½ of the membership have paid their annual club dues as of Aug. 3rd. (Please drop off your payment to Dave at Morris Insurance or mail in a cheque to Morris Insurance, 5250 Roblin Blvd, Winnipeg, MB R3R 0H1, ATTN: Dave Morris. If need be, an e-transfer could be arranged through Ed Thompson (204-771-6665), then that money transferred to Dave. Contact Dave at 204-885-7582 for any clarification on your dues payment).
3.D.G. Dan Sutton advised that most club visits outside of Winnipeg will be via Zoom this year. He is working on a few last details to determine the feasibility of in-person visits for the Winnipeg clubs. He will get back on that in the near future.
4. Breezy Bend has offered Sept 20th as the first availability for our return to the country club for dinner meetings. They are booked solid with golf tournaments. There was an attempt by a few Rotary club members to have an in-person dinner meeting at Breezy Bend next week, however, it turned out that they have not hired enough dining room serving staff yet.
5. There is no confirmation yet on the possibility of an in-person meeting next week at the Varsity View Community Centre (315 Laxdal Road) – a “bring your own meal” meeting meant to provide members an insight on the VVCC facilities for the club’s pick-up lobster dinner event taking place there on September 24th.
6. Lobster Fest – With the lobster dinner being only six and a half weeks away, PDG Jim encouraged members to get in touch with those faithful customers of our annual Lobsterfest to explain that the event this year will be a drive-up event on Friday, September 24th at Varsity View on Laxdal Road between 3 PM and 7 PM. Customers will pick up take-away bags containing fully cooked lobster, baked potato, all the trimmings dessert and a 200 ml bottle of white wine to enjoy by reheating (or eating cold) at home or at their cottage, either indoors or outdoors, with friends or family members. Also included in each ticket price is entry to the door prizes. Door prize winners (announced on Thursday. September 23rd) will be able to pick up their prizes with their dinner. Ticket sales deadline is September 16th. If you need more tickets, call Jack Wilson at 204-792-5346. Lobster dinner tickets can also be purchased online.
5. Chase the Ace: The winner of the draw on Thursday for Raffle Week 17 was Peter Tonge - $46.00. (Please buy your tickets early in the week. The higher the weekly sales indicated, potentially the more additional sales to be made.)
PDG Nancy introduced our speaker as the President of the Manitoba Prospectors and Developers Association (MPDA). While their website indicates that MPDA’s “purpose is to act as an advocacy group for the concerns and interest of our members and to inform the public of the value of mining in Manitoba”, the introduction indicated that MPDA is a not-for-profit organization promoting sustainable mineral exploration and metal extraction in Manitoba.Tom is a retired geological engineer who worked in the mineral exploration business across Canada and abroad for over 40 years. His presentation was about the history, discovery and geology of the Musselwhite gold mine located in NW Ontario. He worked on the project before it was a producing gold mine (from 1989 to 1996). Since then it has produced more that four million ounces of gold. In addition, Tom will provide an overview of the Musselwhite agreement with the local First Nations communities.
Tom indicated that his presentation, titled “History and Geology of the Musselwhite BIF Deposit (1962-2021), is going to be about rocks that are some of the oldest in the planet – they were formed 3 billion years ago.
Mineral deposits, which have evolved over millions or billions of years, are not easy to find. Mineral deposits are a freak of nature resulting from rocks that have been heated, deformed, and changed chemically. In the early years, between 1900-1903, prospectors found deposits because they had come to the surface (aka ‘low hanging fruit”). This is no longer the case. As an example, the top of a copper/zinc/gold deposit found in Snow Lake, Manitoba in 2008, lies 650 metres below the surface. This makes such deposits expensive and difficult to find. Early prospectors relied on picks, shovels, gold pans, dynamite, back sack drills and canoes as they travelled through boreal forests infested with mosquitoes, blackflies and many other biting insects. Modern geologists will use some of those tools, too, but will rely on chemistry, physics, general geological know-how and powerful computers to look for hidden and deeply buried deposits. Fracking (fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid) is not used for hardrock mineral exploration.
Economic parameters used in 1996 when the deposit (discovered in 1962 by brothers Allen and Harold Musselwhite - who were funded by a “grubstake” of 10 mining companies) got the green light for a gold mine to proceed included an assessment of the resource (11.5 million tonnes), its grade (7.3g/tonne), minimum grade cutoff (3.6 g/tonne), capital expenditure ($190m), gold price ($370/oz), estimated contained ounces (6 million oz) and mining rate (5000 tonne/day). Production to 2021 was 4 million oz of gold. When Tom began working with the project the 10-company group had dwindled to 3 companies. Tom and fellow geologist Paul Brown were invited to take part in the opening of the mine in 1997, where their contributions were acknowledged.
Viewed from the air by magnetics (since the Musselwhite gold appears in bands of sedimentary rock associated with an iron sulfite compound called pyrrhotite, which is a magnetic material), it appears that the rocks had been geologically arched around, folded at least 3 times, flipped over and squeezed. Examining cross-sections of these very rich ore deposits shows grades ranging from 6.9 to 17.0 grams of gold per tonne of ore.
When drilling took place from the ice on a lake in 1994-1995, there were several environmental concerns. The diamond drills operated using diesel fuel that was delivered to them on the ice. As the drills went through the rocks, filings (mainly quartz and clay) were produced and needed to be removed from the water and taken off-site.
Musselwhite was one of the first companies to work with First Nations communities prior to 1989. They negotiated with four First Nations communities. The agreements in 1986 set targets for employment, business opportunities and environmental protection. There were also separate agreements activated for First Nation trappers impacted by the mine site. In addition, Musselwhite shared part of their profits with the local First Nation. They also set up committees to acknowledge traditional knowledge from the First Nation on socio-economic and environmental matters. In 2014, the community received $7 million in revenue sharing for environmental monitoring and community development. Of the 690 employees at Musselwhite, about 19% of the work force are First Nations. Mining has the proud reputation of being the largest employer of First Nations in Canada. In 2014 the mine purchased about $16 million worth of goods and services from companies owned by First Nations.
Mining is becoming more important in our “new green environment” because of the need for cobalt and lithium for batteries, copper and nickel for building and charging cars. Canada has some of the best environmental, safety, health and human rights laws in the world, so it’s good to produce these metals in Canada. The mining industry in Manitoba has the best safety record of all industries in the province.
In the discussion that followed Tom’s presentation, we learned the following:
Hiring First Nations – when qualifications asked for a Grade 12 education, there were very few applicants. This qualification was removed and they hired people who wanted to work. The workers were then trained on their job and in the areas of health and safety. Because they wanted their contractors to hire First Nations workers as well, these trained individuals were recommended to contractors working on the site. When these employees went back to their community, they went back as ambassadors of the company.
How the Musselwhite brothers would have discovered the gold in 1962: They would have used a geological pick, a shovel, and likely some dynamite. They would have dug some dirt along the north side of the lake. When gold deposits are near the surface, the gold would have worked its way up to the surface. A shovel full or two of this dirt that was placed into a gold pan then walked over to the edge of the lake where the gold pan was worked properly would cause the gold “colors” to collect at the bottom of that pan. They could also have crushed rock samples in a mortice and pestle, roasted them over a fire, put them in a gold pan and use the pan to detect the gold. They had the results in the field the same day (versus waiting 6 weeks for an assay of a rock sent for analysis these days).
The expected life of a mine is about the same as the life of the equipment first bought by the mine – typically 20 years. Another factor is that as the depth needed to get to the ore deposit increases, the cost of getting the ore processed increases and eventually the operation is no longer profitable.
The only place in Canada where robotics is used in a mine is in Saskatchewan, where uranium (a radioactive material) is mined.
Open-pit mining in Canada occurs only on the west coast. The shape of the deposit and the concentration of the metal in the deposit would determine if it’s suitable for open-pit mining. The cost of open-pit mining is about a tenth of the cost of underground mining.
In Tom’s opinion, the Bissett goldmine has two problems – one is the depth of the deposit and the other is the materials handling problem with shafts going down, then horizontal drifts, then down again and across again, etc. The more times one has to handle the ore, the higher the costs. Initially, this was handled by having drifts being wider, but when the price of the gold went down, mining had to be more focussed on the higher yield areas, with the result that equipment for the wider drifts had to be replaced with smaller equipment.
The best gold-producing area in North America is Timmins, Ontario.
Nuggets of gold found in the Yukon area are the result of gold (embedded in quartz that was being worn away by flowing downstream in the water) being hammered together with other gold bits in the stream to form nuggets which deposit in areas where water flow rate drops.
One of the ways to separate gold from iron is to crush the rock and wash the mixture down an angled rippled tray with water – the gold will collect in the ripples.
In the 1960s, one of the ways to separate gold from the ore was to dissolve it in mercury then heat the mixture on the stove to evaporate the mercury. Results – gold - yes, but many deaths as observed by Jagdish while living on the Ivory Coast. This would not be done by a reputable mining company due to concerns of personal safety and environmental impact.
Arsenopyrites are combined with gold in Yellowknife ores. Processing the mixture produces arsenic, a poison.
The Mussellwhite mine goes down about 1500 to 2000 feet.
PDG Ed thanked Tom for his presentation to the club.
Sarge Mike welcomed three guests to our meeting -Barish Yilmaz, scholarship recipient Brock Nykoluk and our speaker Tom Lewis – then asked for Happy Bucks.
Happy Bucks PDG Ed claimed that his wife Elaine had a Happy Buck because today was their 53rd wedding anniversary
Jagdish was joyful because “IT RAINED!!” and his lawn is growing! He went on to explain that the rain had been sent by his sister in Calcutta, India, where a monsoon was creating havoc. In a telephone conversation this morning, Jagdish’s wife asked the sister “Why don’t you send it (meaning the monsoon rain) here?” Ten minutes later, there was “thunder and storm!” PDG Ed recalled that 53 years ago, on the night of August 9th, there was a killing frost in Manitoba.
Rod started the Great Cycle Challenge this week and has cycled 355 km already and will continue to ride all month to raise funds for research in childhood cancer. All donations made on Wednesday will be matched, so it would be a good day to make one’s donation - https://greatcyclechallenge.ca/Riders/RodDelisle.
PDG Nancy was pleased that member Ed Toews had volunteered to pick up the “awful lot of” beer bottles and beer cans in their garage and deposit them to provide $31.50 for Polio Plus. She learned that unfortunately, the COVID recovery of Ed’s son is proceeding more slowly than expected.
Birthdays and Anniversaries
Bob Eilers celebrated a wedding anniversary last week. Asked “how many years?”, he responded with “I’m not good with big numbers!”
NEXT MEETING We will meet again – somehow – somewhere – on Monday, August 16th, likely around 5:30 or 5:45 pm. Lorraine will let us know the details when they have been confirmed.
