Drill turns in the heart of Timmins

A syndicate of 14 “respected risk-takers” led by Robert Ginn has launched a $250,000 drilling program in the old business district of Timmins, Ont.

The drilling, centred east of the railway station, will test Ginn’s theory that the favorable structures underlying the Hollinger and McIntyre gold mines continue beneath the streets of the northern town.

Historically, the Timmins camp has produced more than 57 million oz. of gold. “I’m not trying to sell stock or create any hype,” says Ginn, former president of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. “I’m just hoping we can demonstrate that Canada is still a great place to look for ore.” So as not to disturb the locals, the syndicate will collar all four holes along the Ontario Northland Railway right-of-way and drill west-to-northwest at an angle of 52.

Ginn, a senior geological associate for Watts, Griffis and McQuat, says the geology underneath Timmins — the city lies on an large esker — was considered “an unknown quantity” when the Ontario Department of Mines released a map of Tisdale Twp. in the mid-1960s.

Ginn and associates chose their 520-acre land position based on a reinterpretation of geology that followed the release of precise aeromagnetic maps by the provincial government in 1988.

“We expect to intersect the volcanic stratigraphy of the Tisdale Group, hopefully with hydrothermal alteration and quartz veining,” says Ginn. The holes will each be more than 800 metres long and penetrate 50 to 100 ft. of overburden.

Ginn, who held a public meeting to discuss the syndicate’s intentions, says residents support the project. If an economic deposit is found, he says, it will be developed as a underground mine. The syndicate acquired the patented mining rights to the property through negotiations with three separate landholders.