Work continues at OPAP pipe

Ontario’s prospecting community is hoping that the government axe will not fall on programs that fund grassroots work in northern regions of the province.

“These grants have the potential to lead to exploration programs that bring in millions of dollars to the local economy,” says prospector John Ewanchuk of New Liskeard. Ewanchuk points out that, in his case, a small grant from the Ontario Prospector’s Assistance Program (OPAP) enabled him to drill and intersect kimberlite in what it is now known as the OPAP pipe.

The project has since been optioned by a Vancouver-based junior, Consolidated Pine Channel Gold, which plans to spend $1 million, and possibly more, on further exploration.

As Ewanchuk sees it, the few thousand dollars from the OPAP grant was money “well spent” in that it led to $1 million worth of exploration on his prospect and other diamond exploration in the region.

The discovery of the OPAP pipe was triggered by reports of a large diamond found in northeastern Ontario at the turn of the century. One report from that time described the diamond as comparable in size to a “bantam hen’s egg,” while another suggested it was as large as 100 carats.

The diamond was purchased by an Ontario member of parliament who sent it to Tiffany’s of New York for evaluation and cutting. The stone was named “the Nipissing,” after the parliamentary member’s electoral district.

The source of the diamond has been debated for years, and several articles placed the find close to Cobalt in the Lake Timiskaming area, near a cluster of kimberlites discovered in the 1980s. Geologists Keith Barron and Robert Barnett began prospecting in the region to find the source of a kimberlite float sample then in Barnett’s possession. They later joined forces with Ewanchuk to assemble a land package that was optioned to a Vancouver junior. This work came to naught, and the claims were returned.

However, a grant from OPAP allowed Ewanchuk to continue exploration, and in September, 1994, a vertical hole intersected kimberlite beneath 20 metres of clay and glacial till. The hole terminated in kimberlite at 48 metres.

This summer, Pine Channel intends to extract at least 5 tonnes of core from different parts of the pipe using a large-diameter drill.

In the meantime, the OPAP pipe will be the topic of a paper by Barron, Barnett and Ewanchuk, to be presented this month at an international Kimberlite conference in Russia.