MINING MARKETS & INVESTMENT NEWS – QUERY — Old Caramora leases held by Patrician

Does The Northern Miner have copies of annual reports for a company called Caramora Porcupine Mines Limited (John Pump, president)? This company was formed in 1945, and its charter was cancelled in 1973.

I am also interested in any other information you may have on Caramora Porcupine and its interest in these claims: Argyle Twp. 9326, Bannockburn Twp. 8194-8195 and 8221-8223. What is the current status and ownership of these claims? They were formerly part of a group of claims known as the Ashley Group, based on the Ashley and Garvey veins, staked in 1930 by prospectors of the same name. They were mined by Ashley Mining Corp. from 1931 to 1936. Caramora Porcupine Mines operated from 1945 to 1948 and continued to hold the claims until its charter was cancelled in 1973.

Wayne Zelmer,

Regina, Sask.

If you ever feel like taking over this job, you’re probably a shoo-in. Caramora Porcupine Mines was incorporated in Ontario in 1945, and its charter was cancelled in 1973. It traded on the Toronto over-the-counter market and never had an exchange listing.

It made its first appearance in 1946 in the Canadian Mines Handbook, which reported that the company had a gold prospect consisting of 11 unpatented claims in McCann Twp. By the following year, Caramora had acquired, on a royalty basis, part of the Ashley Gold Mining Corporation property in Ontario’s Matachewan district. According to a 1944 map, the six leased claims were held by a prospector named Lalonde; Ashley Gold still held unpatented claims surrounding the property.

In 1947 and 1948, Caramora did some geophysical work (probably magnetics or resistivity) and poked a couple of holes in the vein system. The company started to dewater the old workings, but that work appears never to have been finished and Caramora was essentially dormant from 1949 onward. We don’t have an active file for the company.

In 1972 and 1979, a prospector named George Sunisloe staked some of the old Ashley ground in Argyle Twp., dealing those claims to two private companies: Petromet Resources and Camart Mines. Camart was run by a man named Charlie Martin, and it may be no coincidence that Caramora Porcupine had a director named C.A. Martin. Petromet and Camart are still the registered holders of Sunisloe’s claims, and the companies have put in a request for a lease.

Of the claims Caramora had held, three (Argyle 9326 and Bannockburn 8194 and 8195) are still held under lease by Patrician Gold Mines (PXX-A). Patrician Gold Mines has a 22-sq.-km block, made up of those three leases and 128 claim units, in the “four corners” of Argyle, Bannockburn, Montrose and Hincks twps. That land package covers the entire Ashley/Caramora holding, and most of the surrounding area — except for the Sunisloe claims in Argyle Twp.

Patrician announced at the end of November 1998 that it had plans to do some trenching and drilling at the Garvey prospect, on the old Ashley-Garvey property. It was also going to mount an induced-polarization survey over the Galer Lake fault, which cuts through Montrose and Bannockburn twps., south of the old mine.