Agree fully with both Cedar and Explorationguy.

With the Walmartization of all industries, small, labour intensive operations can only be carried out in non-western countries, so yes I agree we need high tonnages to make things profitable Therefore many of the small mining operations of the past can't be done economically in Canada or the US, except if you take a couple of weeks holiday to do some panning.

In terms of transportation of ore, in Sudbury Inco and Falconbridge send ore to each of their central mills. The average distance may be in the order of 50 km, and now Falco is developing the Nickel Rim South which would require about 70-100 km of road trucking. These ores contain roughly the equivalent of 2% nickel and at 15$/kg you have about 300$ per tonne of ore, being shipped those distances. In terms of gold we need about 0.3 ounces/tonne to get the same value of rock, so I suspect that ores of even less, maybe 5 g Au/tonne can be trucked some 30 to 50 km successfully.

From what I see the central rich portion of the GM would in the past also have been mined, but probably not more than 50,000 to max 100,000 ounces of gold, which is still a lot of money. But personally I can't see any of the other being economic even with a mill. That's where I would have liked to see a statement or analysis from Brian and the management about the economic feasibility of what we have been finding and continue to find. Hypothetically, lets say we find 10 times more of the same stuff spread out over the whole area, is that economic?; what would it take to make it economic.

I have lost a lot of money, and others much more, therefore I think the big decision is: Continue with the same and spend $$ in that area or cut losses, find new more promising spots. We still have some cash left but not in excess; if we spend it all and find nothing we are toast with no hope of recovery. We have the uranium play, may be focus on that this year while 'window shopping' for more promising gold grounds.