LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (May 18, 1992)

The article “Canada has dismal record for return on gold” (T.N.M., March. 30/92) by Virginia Heffernan caused me to shake a negative head and pick up pen.

Although I was weaned (1934-36) as a sampler in North America’s richest lode gold mine of that period (the Pioneer mine at Bridge River, B.C., where we milled daily 500 tons of 1-oz.-per-ton gold), I never viewed the metal gold with blinkered reverence save in one important respect: it is a most valuable “pathfinder” to other and often more important discoveries. Apart from my involvement with gold as a “pathfinder” for copper porphyry and other non-ferrous base metal deposits, I have visited and been shown in at least six different countries where earlier gold prospecting efforts led to major base metal deposits.

One need not look any further afield than here in Canada and the Cordillera of British Columbia and the Yukon, and also in Alaska, for proof of the axiom that “gold is a prospector’s best friend,” not only because of itself but also for the company it keeps.

Franc Joubin

Toronto