Over the past couple of years, prospector Shaun Parent has been going out into the bush near the eastern shores of Lake Superior and physically staking out a number of claims for mining and exploration companies.
But come next week, the physical staking of claims will become a thing of the past, as the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (NMDM) will be ditching that process in favour of an online registration process, which will be rolled out in April 2018.
The deadline for traditional claim staking is Jan. 8.
“There’s no fun of going out in the bush and staking claims,” Parent said. “There’s no physical work, which means that mining companies, even in Toronto, can go online in April and stake a bunch of ground.”
Once next week’s deadline for traditional claim staking has passed, the province will then put a 90-day hold on all claim recording, land transfers and the filing of assessment work reports.
Ontario Prospectors Association executive-director Garry Clark said abandoning the requirement for mining companies to send people out to blaze lines and pound in corner posts will bring Ontario in line with most other provinces.
The new system involves map-selection using a computer.
"Everything is divided into small cells, and then you select your cells. It's kind of good in the way that it makes it absolute,” Clark said. “You get exactly what you pick."
Tania Poehlman, lands manager of Red Pine Exploration Inc., said that her exploration company - which holds a 60 per cent stake in a gold project two kilometres southeast of Wawa - has been preparing for this change off and on over the past year, and will benefit from the online claim staking process.
“The idea of converting to an online system is intended to bring certainty of title to claim holders,” said Poehlman. “It will be more visible to everyone where people’s claims are, or location, position [and] right.”
Meanwhile, Parent said that for prospectors, they may be able to make some money up until next week’s deadline, or may get hired to cut some lines in the bush for an exploration company in the future, but that’s about it. The days of making a livelihood out of prospecting are over.
“Anyone who stakes claims for companies now like me, and a few guys I know in Sudbury that stake claims, companies won’t hire them,” he said. “They’ll just do it themselves.”
- with files from tbnewswatch.com
