With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1222419
"Vancouver has amazing and, I believe, durable competitive advantages in the min- ing business," he told the intimate gathering. "You have a centre of excellence. You don't have to build it; B.C., as a terrain, is geologi- cally well endowed. There has been and is a history of mining in B.C. And there is a promise for the future." Just over 10 years ago, such optimism might have seemed misplaced. Debates raged about land use across B.C., weak commodity prices were hobbling explo- ration, and the economic crisis was throttling global demand for one of the province's biggest exports. The mood was grim: over 1,000 miners had lost their jobs between the fall of 2008 and January 2009 alone, with a Fraser Institute survey of mining executives, released in Febru- ary 2009, indicating "at least 30 percent of exploration companies" expected to go out of business. At the turn of this decade, things look markedly brighter. A March 2019 report by Ernst & Young—produced with B.C.'s Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources—drove home the boom-times narrative. Money spent on exploration in B.C., across all major commodities, topped $330 million in 2018, up 34 percent over 2017 and a 62-percent gain from 2016. Half of that amount ($165 million) occurred in the northwestern part of the province—a 66-percent increase from 2017 and almost double 2016 levels. The EY report on 2019 activity was expected to be released this March, but numbers previewed at Roundup indicate the growing importance of the Northwest— specifically, the area known as the Golden Triangle, home to most of the major gold, silver and copper deposits. Across B.C., exploration held steady last year, with just under $328 million in spending; the North- west, by contrast, continued its upward march, with $179.5 million in exploration spending (up 9 percent from 2018). Many, including the EY authors, refer to what's happening in the Northwest now as a "modern- day gold rush." Anybody who has worked in mining knows of the ups and downs, and that what's golden today may not be tomorrow. There are concerns about labour shortages and ques- tions about what recent changes to envi- ronmental regulations and Indigenous consultation might mean to mining opera- tions. And then there's the big uncontrol- lable variable—commodity prices—which historically has driven the cyclical nature of B.C. mining. But as Rick Rule reminded the Roundup audience, the booms and busts are an essential part of what it means to be a miner—a truth that goes back to the gold rush days: "The truth is that that is one of your strengths: the freedom to fail, the freedom to succeed, the relative ease with which you start." From an abundant resource base to an "incredible web of community"—including legal, accounting, engineering and environmental expertise— B.C. is in an enviable position on the global stage, he said. "You've got it. It works for you. It works for us. Just don't wreck it." Logistical challenges While the Golden Triangle has been the focus of so much B.C. activity in recent years, interest in the reg ion—which SOURCES: VISUAL CAPITALIST, DISTRICT OF STEWART, ASCOT RESOURCES, SKEENA RESOURCES, BUSINESS IN VANCOUVER, TERRACE STANDARD, MININGFEEDS.COM, THE NORTHERN MINER, PRETIUM RESOURCES WITH SOME DRY SPELLS ALONG THE WAY, THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE HAS BEEN REWARDING MINERS FOR MORE THAN 150 YEARS Working the Triangle 1861 Prospector Alexander (Buck) Choquette kicks off the Stikine Gold Rush by hitting pay dirt at the conflu- ence of the Stikine and Anuk rivers 1913 B.C.'s biggest-ever pure gold nugget, weighing 73 ounces, found at Spruce Creek 1871 + 1898 Cassiar and Atlin gold rushes follow 1938 Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co. (later shortened to Cominco) opens the Big Missouri gold- silver mine close to Premier. The Second World War helps force its shutdown in 1941 APRIL 2020 BCBUSINESS 43 1918 Premier Gold Mines starts operating near Stewart. Before it closed in 1952, Premier was North America's largest gold mine, yielding 2 mil- lion ounces of gold and 45 million ounces of silver THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE