WHAT IS A LAND WITHDRAWAL?
Back in the 90’s the Government of Canada commenced land claim negotiations with Indigenous communities and governments. The South Slave region had several Indigenous groups including the Métis with overlapping areas of traditional usage. As part of the negotiation process, areas of potential interest were identified and provided with a “Land Withdrawal” to allow negotiations to proceed, the intention of ultimately lifting these withdrawals once lands are selected and the land claims were settled.
Slave Lake has successfully worked with the Métis and other Indigenous communities and now has a 76.25 square kilometer area staked, in an area that hasn’t been explored in at least 30 years when the withdrawals mostly were established and, in most cases, nearly 70 years. We are the first group to “ever” use modern exploration techniques on the Historic O’Connor Lake area and mine.
As stated by the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board:
“Land withdrawals are a tool that can be used to protect land from development or other activities. When a land withdrawal is in place, no new mining rights may be registered, or no new oil and gas rights may be issued. Existing rights are grandfathered.”
AMENDING THE LAND WITHDRAWL TO OPEN THE LAND FOR STAKING
Slave Lake Zinc realized the need to establish a larger land footprint for our O’Connor Lake Project. We knew this by our early geophysics that established that the known zones expanded off our grandfathered lease. We felt that we already had a potential of several millions of tons of high-grade zinc/lead/silver within our property boundaries but also knew that our real return would come from our historic knowledge of the area of interest.
Our map area (NTS 75-05) happens to be encompassed primarily under the land claims of the Northwest Territory Métis Nation. The surrounding area is one of those areas of overlapping claims with Akaicho (Treaty8) also being an important stake holder.
A Negotiation Agreement led to our “Collaboration Agreement” and the tacit approval of the several groups with interests in the South Slave that allowed our “Withdrawal” to proceed to the Ministerial level of the Government of the Northwest Territories.
NOTE: When the land is taken out of the withdrawal by an “Order in Council” of the NWT Government, the land reverts to the “CROWN” (Government of Canada) and technically becomes open for all to come along and “Stake” the land. We obviously had to work quickly once the “Order” became public. Typical “Fire Drill” when dealing with the government levels. This literally took Slave Lake 2.5 years of being secret and not knowing if we were going to then possibly have to compete for the land. We spent a lot of time, and even more money while running the company not knowing when or even if the land would become open.
Slave Lake Zinc and Osisko Metals are the only companies that have successfully negotiated this process.
Slave Lake Zinc also flew 900-line km’s of airborne geophysics at the company’s expense; with the permission of the Northwest Territory Métis Nation, prior to having the land released. Certainly, a bit of a risky decision, but showed graphically why Slave Lake Zinc would be potentially a very profitable partner to the NWTMN and an incentive to “help” with the land withdrawal process. The airborne had also been kept secret until the land was released and remains that way until now were a “NDA” signed by potential financing partners may view the results.
Needless to say, we are very optimistic about our land position