Gold Occurrences in Saskatchewan

Many of the people living in Saskatchewan don’t realize that the province is the largest producer of Uranium in Canada but also has or had some world class gold deposits that are found in the northern part of the province. The starting point for all this mining activity is the city of Saskatoon where many of these mining companies are headquartered. The potential of the province where the surface geology has barely been scratched is vast with many mineral deposits yet to be found.

Rumors of gold being found by trappers on the North Saskatchewan River started filtering out in 1859. These rumors claimed there were one ounce and larger nuggets being found were prevalent during the building of North Battleford. Flour gold can still be recovered by panning the river from Churchill west to Edmonton Alberta and beyond. Some stories even tell of seeing businessmen with their pants rolled up panning gold from the river during lunch hour around Edmonton Alberta.

Gold was first discovered in Saskatchewan near Prince Albert in 1859 in the North Saskatchewan River. The province began producing gold in small quantities in the early 1900s from placer deposits along the North Saskatchewan River and its tributaries. Today there five gold mines have been brought into production since 1987 with additional production coming from base metal mines mainly from around Flin Flon. There are an additional 200 gold occurrences in the province that are not being worked presently.

During the 1980 although gold had been produced since the early 1900s marked the first time that there had been a significant gold exploration program had been used in the province. Most of these occurrences are in the Precambrian shield area except for some small placer deposits draining off the Canadian Shield.

According to the Saskatchewan Geological Survey (SGS) there are still large areas in the Province that haven’t been explored especially in the Canadian Shield. To search for Saskatchewan occurrences of gold, use the Saskatchewan Mineral Deposits Index searchable database, or the Geological Atlas of Saskatchewan. Or open the Mineral Resource Map of Saskatchewan.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Saskatchewan-map.png

It has been pointed out to me by one of my Canadian prospectors whose mother was born in Battleford, SK that they mined placer gold along the Saskatchewan River flowing between Battleford and North Battleford.  Some of the miners reported they were able to recover as much as an ounce a day.