Newfoundland helps lobbyists with grants for prospecting

Newfoundland will introduce a program next spring designed to encourage people to prospect for gold. A 2-week prospecting course will be offered in May at a community college in Stephenville on the province’s west coast. In 1992 the course will be offered at a campus in Labrador.

“It’s aimed at the hobbyist or someone who spends a lot of time in the woods,” said Baxter Kean, manager of the Prospector Assistance Program with the provincial Department of Mines and Energy.

“A lot of people go in the woods and they look at the flowers and trees but they tend to ignore the rocks. Rocks are part of our environment, too, and an interesting rock could turn into an interesting little prospect.”

Most mineral exploration in Newfoundland is carried out by exploration companies based outside the province. In recent years they have been focusing their efforts on the Baie Verte Peninsula, where some significant gold and base metal discoveries have been made, and Gander, where a provincial water sampling program three years ago turned up traces of gold.

Kean said the prospecting course will be offered at a different campus every year in order to stimulate grassroots exploration all over the province.

“The aim of the program is twofold,” he added. “To increase the number of known mineral occurrences and thereby the economic development of the province. The other is to try to develop a local prospecting fraternity because Newfoundland, unlike much of Canada, doesn’t have a lot of history of prospecting. That never developed in the province.”

Until the 1970s most land in the province was staked by less than a handful of big companies. New regulations since then have opened up a lot of ground.

The Newfoundland government is proposing to pay the full shot for the program, including meals and accommodations for the 20 or so people it expects will sign up for the course. The only bills the province will not pick up are for clothing needed in the bush.

Money for the course is coming from a $17.5-million multi- year federal and provincial mining development agreement signed earlier this year. Newfoundland was the first province in Canada to renew a mineral development agreement. The previous deal was worth $21 million over five years.

The course will complement the province’s $100,000 Prospector Assistance Program. That scheme pays local prospectors $5,000 grants to help finance their explorations. This year 15 people received grants.

“They receive $1,000 upon approval of their application to offset the initial costs of getting set up — buy equipment, cover gas, and things like that to get you going,” Kean said.

In return, the prospectors have to file reports detailing their activities and expenses.