{"id":1186063,"date":"2020-05-22T15:19:27","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T20:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1024690"},"modified":"2020-05-22T15:19:27","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T20:19:27","slug":"kaminak-gold-founders-back-in-business-in-alaska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1186063","title":{"rendered":"Kaminak Gold founders back in business in Alaska"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After its $520 million exit in 2016, the core team that found, developed and sold the Coffee Gold project in Yukon to Goldcorp Inc. (TSX:G) took a breather, and then regrouped.<\/p>\n<div class='ad-slot' id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {    googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');    googletag.pubads().addEventListener('slotRenderEnded', function (event) {        if (event.isEmpty) {            var id = event.slot.getSlotElementId();            var x = document.getElementById(id);            if(x == null) return;            if (x.parentElement.classList.contains('ad-slot')) {                x.parentElement.style.display = 'none';            }\t\t\t\t        }    });});<\/script><\/div>\n<p>Eira Thomas, one of Kaminak Gold Corp.\u2019s executives, took on the CEO job at one of the other companies she co-founded, Lucara Diamond (TSX:LUC) \u2013 a role she still holds.<\/p>\n<p>But she and two other Kaminak executives, Robert Carpenter and Tony Reda, knew they wanted to keep working together, even though they had no particular project in mind.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knew we wanted to work together, so we looked at a bunch of different endeavours collectively,\u201d said Reda, who was Kaminak\u2019s vice-president of corporate development and is now CEO of their new company, Tectonic Metals (TSX-V:TECT).<\/p>\n<p>Reda became convinced that their next project should be just across the border from Yukon, where they had developed the Coffee project.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;That political border is not a geological border. The rocks carry over. It\u2019s completely untapped, elephant-sized deposits, seven producing mines. The Yukon at that time had zero\u201d<\/p>\n<p><cite>Tony Reda<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThe three of us got together and I said, \u2018We\u2019ve got to get into Alaska,\u2019\u201d Reda said, \u201cbecause the Yukon was becoming a crowded place, especially with the Goldcorp-Kaminak transaction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat political border is not a geological border. The rocks carry over. It\u2019s completely untapped, elephant-sized deposits, seven producing mines. The Yukon at that time had zero.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The real clincher was the regional corporations that welcome mining and own vast tracts of land as a result of the Native Claims Settlement Act in the early 1970s, which awarded 44 million acres to Alaska\u2019s Indigenous people, known as Alaskan Natives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn Native-owned land, it\u2019s fee simple land,\u201d Reda said. \u201cThere\u2019s limited regulatory involvement. If I want to build a road, I work directly with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Typically, a new exploration company starts with a potential deposit, raises some risk capital and forms a management team. Tectonic\u2019s founders formed the team first, and then went prospecting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the team is the ultimate driver for value, why don\u2019t we start there?\u201d Reda reasoned.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the three core Kaminak founders, the company has brought along other former key players who worked on the Coffee project.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe built a company around a team, around a business model,\u201d Reda said.<\/p>\n<p>Tectonic didn\u2019t go looking just for potential gold deposits; it also went looking for partners in Alaska\u2019s Native American-owned corporations and developed a partnership with Doyon Ltd.<\/p>\n<p>With more than 12.5 million acres, Doyon is Alaska\u2019s largest private landholder, and about two-thirds of its land is for mineral exploration. There are some 40 Alaskan tribes within the territory controlled by Doyon.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, the founders gained exclusive rights to explore and develop two projects on Doyon land \u2013 Northway and Seventymile \u2013 and one on state land. Tectonic also has rights to a third project: Tibbs, which is on state land.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a lease agreement,\u201d Reda said. \u201cThey own the land. They\u2019ve given us the entire rights to explore, develop and produce, and they, in exchange, get a royalty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Initially, the founders put about $1 million of their own money into Tectonic and then raised $11.3 million through private placements between 2018 and 2019.<\/p>\n<p>They formed Tectonic Metals through a direct listing in 2019 and began listing on the TSX Venture Exchange in November.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Doyon took a $2 million, 23% stake in Tectonic, making it the company\u2019s biggest shareholder. Doyon CEO Aaron Schutt said the Tectonic team\u2019s successful track record in the Yukon gave Doyon confidence to take an equity position in the company.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir team has had success and are very highly regarded in the Canadian exploration community,\u201d Schutt said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReally, what was the tipping point for us was their demonstrated work with the communities and First Nation communities in the Yukon and then their two seasons of work with our two communities in Alaska, where they interacted very well with the communities and the local tribes on the work they were doing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd that\u2019s communication about what\u2019s going on, taking input and making sure they did a good job of hiring local when they could.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Early on, Tectonic met with villagers to determine what benefits they wanted. The company committed to local hiring and provided funding for scholarships. It also committed to developing an oral history encyclopedia to preserve the local Native language and stories.<\/p>\n<p> Typically, when a project gets to the stage where a feasibility study is published, it will included a number of risks and variables, including impact benefit agreements with First Nations. Tectonic wanted to address some of those uncertainties up front, so it negotiated a production agreement early on with Doyon Ltd.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wanted a legally binding agreement that could not be swayed or renegotiated,\u201d Reda said.<\/p>\n<p>He added that the company planned to conduct two drill programs this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have our sights on some new acquisitions as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>(This article first appeared in<a href=\"https:\/\/biv.com\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" Business in Vancouver (opens in a new tab)\"> Business in Vancouver<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four years after its $520 million exit, group launches company focused on Alaska.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2849,369],"tags":[43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1186063"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1186070,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186063\/revisions\/1186070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1186063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1186063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1186063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}