Vanderhoof looks forward to mining conference

BURNS LAKE -- Minerals North 2014 will be held in Vanderhoof, it was announced Friday at the end of this year's event in Burns Lake.

The annual conference and trade show is known to be an economic generator for the host community, as well as a showcase for each town's industrial abilities. Terrace is home base to Minerals North 2013 before Vanderhoof.

Vanderhoof bid on Minerals North three times in the past decade, and mayor Gerry Thiessen was thrilled not only to win the bid for 2014, but also that the town did not win in the previous attempts.

"It's just, over the next two years, mining is expected to be such a big part of Vanderhoof life," he said. "It took us a long time to understand how mining could benefit us, but we are seeing it now, we know what it means, and 2014 is a great year to celebrate that with the Minerals North conference."

Driving Thiessen's interest is the Blackwater properties for the NewGold company, a mining project less than an hour down the road from Vanderhoof. Even though a mine there is still years away, the Vanderhoof region, including Prince George, is seeing the effects of the preparation work.

"We are still drilling to try to locate the boundaries [of the mine site] but they keep hitting more," said NewGold official Kathy LaFarge. "It is an aggressive exploration program."

It is a lucrative undertaking for supply and service companies, with an army of 250 or so workers at work on top of the soil. There would be exponentially more workers once shovels dig down to the ore.

Vanderhoof is home base to the NewGold project, but also the Bid-Ironclad partnership, which is doing much of the construction work on the Mount Milligan mine. The nearby Endako Mine is also expanding. Thiessen said there were other claims like the TTM project that were also showing positive signs for mining in the area.

"It will be very exciting to host in two years," he said. "There are two things it represents for Vanderhoof, or any host community. One: you want to showcase your town as much as possible. Two: you want people to understand what capacity your town has, what it is capable of. I think Burns Lake did that very well, and that is our challenge now, to get the community buy-in to do the same in 2014 and put Vanderhoof in full view."

As Minerals North 2012 exhibitors cleaned up their booths, Howard Broten of the Burns Lake Chamber of Commerce passed through the arena handing out information sheets about next year's event in Terrace.

"We in the north, all of us, have to stick together," said Broten. "We had a great event. Now it is their turn. We hope they get the same support we got."