Part 1 of this article examined the history of copper mining in the Whitehorse Copper Belt. This one is analysis of the big questions facing those working in and living near Whitehorse's Copper Belt
With copper now a strategic mineral required to help in the decarbonization of our economy in the face of climate change, Gladiator Metals is looking at copper reserves in the Whitehorse Copper Belt area. They are exploring areas where copper was found and mined in the early 1900s and again 1967-1982.
The question that Gladiator wishes to answer is this: Does the Whitehorse Copper Belt contain copper in sufficient quantity and quality to support a feasible mine?
The answer to that simple question has many interrelated complex aspects. Geological considerations, commodity prices, capital costs, mining costs, environmental factors, labour, power and the regulatory process are but a few of these.
Gladiator is an exploration company, not a mining company. That means that even if the answer to the question is “yes,” Gladiator will not leap into the mining business. They do not have the expertise or financial wherewithal to do that.
Gladiator will not have the answer to the question for several years yet. And even if the eventual answer is “yes,” no mine will spring quickly into being. A lot must take place first: obtaining the financing, designing the mine and navigating the regulatory process being just three aspects, any of which could delay or derail the whole project.
Yukoners can look at the proposed Casino Mine northwest of Carmacks for comparison. Even though presence of copper there was clear in the 1930s and financial backing has been in place for some time, that project has spent the last 10 years in various stages of regulatory review and there is still no firm date for mine startup.
Those who expect a copper mine in Whitehorse tomorrow are maybe 20 years premature. Much can change in the next few decades before a mine appears, if it ever does.
If the answer to the question is “yes,” then what are the upsides to having a copper mine in the Whitehorse area?
Clearly, a copper mine must be where copper exists. We have copper elsewhere in Yukon. Again, compare the Whitehorse situation with that of Casino, which is much closer to becoming an operating mine.
The main advantages of Whitehorse relate to climate change and environment.
Supplies heading to the mine and ore shipped out to market would go by road. In the traffic study on their website, Casino estimates that would require 72 truck round-trips per day on the 300 kilometres of road between Whitehorse and the mine. That is more than 15 million truck-kilometres per year on that section of highway alone, a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions.
The equivalent for a mine in Whitehorse would be zero simply because Whitehorse is 300 kilometres closer to shipping locations Outside for supplies coming in and to the port of Skagway for shipping copper out.
Some of the trucks for Casino will carry liquid natural gas to run a very large power generating plant with twice the current Yukon capacity. It will be isolated from the Yukon electrical grid. B.C. grid interconnect plus a new long power line from Carmacks into the mine location might change that but no concrete plans or date for those exist. While a mill in Whitehorse would probably need extra power, too, any new generating capacity here could go directly on the existing grid to provide much more flexibility to a wide range of Yukon power consumers.
Casino has an airstrip. It will require an onsite camp, extensive land clearing, significant onsite fuel storage and a new 120-kilometre-long road through caribou habitat.
A copper mine in Whitehorse would need none of that. Furthermore, money from a Whitehorse mine would flow directly into the local economy from the company and from the employees, most of whom could live in the city instead of flying in and out.
Some of the ore at Casino will require heap leaching due to its oxidized nature. That is not true of the copper in the Whitehorse area owing to the areas' differnet glacial histories leading to different chemical features of the ore.
Gladiator’s exploration includes brownfield, a term referring to land that has seen past industrial development, former mine sites well away from current residential areas. These sites are dangerous and unsuitable for residential development, and the Whitehorse Official Community Plan recognizes that. What better place for a mine?
If the answer to the main question above is “yes,” then what might be the disadvantages to having a copper mine in Whitehorse?
Residents are justifiably wary of a mine close to houses with potential negative effects on lifestyle and real estate prices. Clearly, the mine would have to go where the copper is and two of the most-promising areas to date are about 1,000 metres from the nearest houses in each of the Mary Lake and Cowley Creek subdivisions.
Residents are also concerned about environmental effects such as possible impacts on groundwater, including the release of radon.
Identifying and addressing these concerns are essential. But they do not come into play unless the answer to the question is “yes” and until all the other conditions converge to make actual development of the mine an eventual reality. At that point, which may be a decade or two away, if ever, these concerns become factors in the regulatory process, land-use planning and the design of the mine. These issues, along with many others, may eventually dictate that the mine is infeasible even if enough copper exists.
But all that is about a mine.
Even just getting to an operating mine, if that ever happens, will require many steps. The first of those steps is to answer the question about sufficient copper. And getting an answer to that question requires exploration work. That is what Gladiator is doing now.
Some Whitehorse residents object to that effort to answer the question.
Gladiator got off to a bad start with its 2023 conviction for five offences related to its early drilling in Cowley Park. They did not contest the charges and their fine was less than half the maximum possible based on the scale of severity.
The company now engages in regular open houses, briefings to city council and community events to keep people informed about what the company is doing, and to gather feedback. They have removed rusty car wrecks from areas they explore. They have reduced the noise associated with their drill rigs, which operate in any one location for days, not weeks or months at a time, and not continuously throughout the year in any area.
Gladiator has an agreement with the Kwanlin Dün First Nation to investigate the potential for future exploration to take place in a respectful manner in line with Indigenous values for use of the land.
Skeeter Wright, a long-time Whitehorse resident, believes that a mine has no place in the city at all.
“There’s a housing crisis in this town,” he observed on May 22. “The city is going to have to expand residential areas south of Copper Ridge. If there is a mine in the current industrial zone, there’s going to be a conflict.”
“Contingent uses have to be compatible. That’s a basic tenet of land-use planning.”
“The only reason you stake a claim is that you hope you’re going to be able to put a mine there,” Wright says.
Marcus Harden, the Gladiator Metals president, saw the situation a bit differently when he spoke on June 9. “Exploration is essentially an exercise in area reduction,” he said. “The whole purpose of mineral exploration is to find as much metal in as small a spot as possible.”
So even if Gladiator were to find sufficient copper to justify an economically feasible mine, that would by necessity affect only a very small portion of the claims that they control.
Harden points out that very extensive drilling — hundreds of kilometres — has taken place throughout the Copper Belt over the last 70 years. And the Whitehorse Copper mine was almost 400-metres deep, a significant ground water disturbance. In contrast, Gladiator has drilled 25 kilometres and focused only on the top 250 metres, mostly in areas that have already been disturbed by drilling.
“That is not to say we should be complacent or that we shouldn’t understand better what the impacts might be,” Harden said. He is confident that the Yukon government's ongoing monitoring of domestic well water quality in the Whitehorse area provides an excellent baseline for detecting any changes.
Gladiator has started a program of surface water quality monitoring in the areas where they are drilling in an effort to ensure they are not negatively affecting the situation.
So, the world — the Yukon — needs copper for decarbonization to reduce climate change. The Whitehorse Copper Belt has good potential to produce that copper under conditions with lower environmental impact than in other Yukon locations. But we do not yet know without more study if Whitehorse has enough copper.
The existence of sufficient copper is no guarantee of a mine. And even if conditions converge that favour a mine, then that mine would not appear for at least a decade or two. That would be sufficient to ensure that it is done correctly: lots of time to get the environmental, social, regulatory and land-use planning aspects right.
So this is not a “mine-in-my-backyard-tomorrow” question. Yukoners' children and grandchildren in a climate-changing world will be the ones who will live with the benefits and trade-offs of any mine that might eventually appear in Whitehorse.
Tim Green is a somewhat-retired engineer who has studied the history of the Whitehorse Copper Belt. He uses old documents and modern technology to guide onsite visits to mining locations.
