Mineral Exploration is the official publication of the Association of Mineral Exploration British Columbia.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/428696
94 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4 Photograph : Polaris Minerals Corporation Polaris Minerals Corporation Supplying high-quality construction aggregates to major coastal city mar- kets in California and Hawaii as well as British Columbia since 2007, Polaris Minerals Corporation operates the Orca Quarry on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island, west of Port McNeill. Orca is 88 per cent owned by Polaris and 12 per cent by the 'Namgis First Nation. Sand and gravel production from Orca is currently permitted for 6.6 million tons per year via a dedicated ship-loading facility onto 80,000-ton Panamax vessels. Current destinations include the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. Polaris is currently develop- ing additional terminals in anticipation of sales growing as the company's geo- graphical footprint increases. Also on the Vancouver Island shore- line, 15 kilometres south of Port Alberni, is the Eagle Rock Quarry Project, a large permitted (six million tons per year) granite resource. Eagle Rock Quarry's exploration and drilling program con- firmed total measured and indicated mineral resources of 757 million tons with, at the permitted production rate, a potential life of over 100 years. Indeed, Eagle Rock is intended to complement the sand-rich Orca Quarry mineral and to provide further signifi- cant growth. It is 70 per cent owned by Polaris and 30 per cent by local First Nations, of whom the Hupacasath and Ucluelet First Nations each own 10 per cent, with the remaining 10 per cent held in trust. Construction of Eagle Rock will commence when contracted demand has been secured. Polaris president and CEO Herb Wilson outlined the links his company has been achieving with local First Nations. "Our two resource develop- ment areas are within overlapping treaty claims, the first having had a triple overlap (Hupacasath, Ucluelet and Tseshaht) and the second a double overlap (Kwakiutl and 'Namgis)," says Wilson. "Our pro- cess has been considered groundbreaking in B.C. because we started by giving the First Nations a veto right over the areas to be drilled, and then entering into co- operation agreements that defined the areas to be explored." Once Polaris had proved a resource existed suitable to meet its business