Gold Occurrences in Manitoba

Gold in Quartz.
Photo by Rob Lavinsky

There are several gold mining companies that are presently exploring for gold or mining it in Manitoba. The provinces also been the site of many gold rushes the earliest of which occurred in the southeast corner of the province where the abutts Ontario. This part of the province is part of the Canadian Shield as well as northern Manitoba where there are several operating gold mines.

The southern part of the province as well as the other Prairie Provinces is covered with a sequence of glacial lake sediments that are derived from glacial Lake Agassiz about 10,000 years old. Today, Lake Winnipeg is just a small part of Lake Agassiz. The gold deposits in the province are mostly found north of the Lake District where you encounter the ancient rocks of the Canadian Shield. It is these rocks that contain gold except for a narrow area in the far eastern part of the province. Gold and other valuable minerals are founded this area of the Canadian Shield.

The southern portions of these three provinces are the home to oil and natural gas; they also contain minable amounts of gypsum, potash and salt because they were covered by an ancient sea that bisected North America from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. The Williston Basin extends into these provinces that also contain portions of the Bakken and Three Forks Formations.

Gold is found in northern Manitoba where rocks of the Canadian Shield are exposed. There is mining for gold and other metals in this part of the province. It isn’t only gold that they find. There are deposits of copper and nickel that are mined around the area around Flin Flon.

Manitoba is huge, it is almost as large as Texas so there is plenty of territory where you are able to prospect plus you have a provincial government that is quite friendly to the exploration and mining industries.

A good share of the exploration that is occurring in the province is between Rice Lake and Red Lake in Ontario. These two lakes are only 60 km apart and are both on the same continental fault. Although gold was discovered at Rice Lake in 1916 there were only a few mines that operated to the five hundred foot level. The deposits that have been discovered recently are all below the 1,000 feet.

Like a lot of other places in Canada it is often useful to prospect in the shadow of an existing mine. To find these old mines you are going to have to spend some time in the library researching them. Another good source of information about gold and other mineral localities is available from your provincial government.