RED LAKE GOLDFIELD LURES MANY SEEKERS TO CANADIAN MINES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17890, 5 July 1926, Page 13

RED LAKE GOLDFIELD LURES MANY SEEKERS TO CANADIAN MINES.

Winter ice prevented any rush of magnitude to the new Red Lake goldfield until tho Canadian summer had well begun, but an influx of hunters after fortune began with the opening of navigation, and by the end of July, says a Canadian despatch, there will be, it is estimated, about 20,000 men on the field. This calculation is based upon the fact that 3700 claims, covering 230 square miles of territory, have alreadv been recorded. Assuming that one-tenth of. the claims are held by bona fide miners who intend to investigate them, then the thirty days’ work which must be done on each claim before July 31. will require 10,000 men to do it. Add to this the number required for services and transport, and a biggish number is reached.

Publicity given Red Lake in the United States has been of such a character that a considerable influx of adventurous spirits from that country is anticipated. £o exaggerated and misleading has been much of the matter circulated that some of these adventurers actually believe that Red Lake is an alluvial gold camp, where the bullion may be washed from the sands, as was done in Cariboo, Klondyke and California.

The casual arrival in Red Lake today is confronted with no prospect of wading out to a sandbar and “ panning ” himself rich before nightfall. What the camp actually offers is hard labour with pick and drill and hammer at from two to three dollars per day and board.

Mining on the Keewatin formation is a business of blasting out the solid rock and feeding it to mills which pul-

verise it and extract the metals much as a separator extracts wheat.

The best the individual prospector may hope for is to uncover gold showings of sufficient significance to induce

some mining corporation to option it for investigation, when, if it justifies further expenditure, they will assume the working and allot him a share of the proceeds. A great deal of staking has already been done by amateur boomers entirely without regard to the geological formation of the country. Many have deliberately located on the granite in the belief that the demand for Red Lake properties will be such that any

claim thereon will be readily saleable to eager land gamblers. This particular form of activity is- already discredited, as both the outside public (in Canada, at least) and the real miners inside are. treating the situation in a sound and restrained manner.

As \ipcovering ’’proceeds, the strike of the gold-bearing vein on the Dome property at Red Lake, instead of striking due cast, as was at first believed, appears to be swinging northward. If it continues much further, there will be strong grounds for hope that the country north-east, by Port Narrows and the northern shore of East Bay, may be a continuation of the same "formation.

Although such reasoning is highly speculative, it is interesting in the light of the established fact that due east of the Dome workings the rock very .soon merges into the mother granite of the Trout Lake basin. Should the vein persist due eastward, it might dip beneath the granite; but in the light of known characteristics of the country, the former course is more logical.