St. Elias Mines has done much this past year to propel us to new and greater heights in 2012. A tremendous amount of progress has been made. The EIS, geophysical modeling, Tesoro logistics, the Gold Summit work, Havilah spin-off, and of course trenching and drilling on Tesoro. And no doubt there was more that we have yet to learn of. The shear amount of advancement made through 2011 is exceptional.

Yet our SP is only 15¢ above that of 1 year ago to date and there is a sentiment that we are stagnated or in a declining state. Thus we see these pages interspersed with sour grapes and sometimes negative comments directed at fellow contributors or the company and it's leaders.

There have been criticisms of this board and some of the action taken by our Hub Leaders and Agoracom itself. I find these unfounded. Dissenting views are welcome here. I myself have expressed some. They need only comply with the 6 Rules of Use to be acceptable. Not too hard to do. Of course, as with the enforcement of any set of rules, there are differences of opinion as to whether they were correctly applied. I think our Hub Leaders have done and exemplary job and taken action in only the most egregious transgressions of the Rules.

Returning to our stock performance, I can understand why some feel SLI has underperformed of late. There are lofty expectations of St. Elias in general and Tesoro in particular. Why just hype alone can drive our SP up by 40% as demonstrated this fall. And now with the following decline, because of the lack of news, there is a wide spread feeling of letdown.

I believe we have done very well and are about to do far better. Firstly, the bigger picture. Over the past year, the TSX is down nearly 2000 points or ≈13%. The Venture lost over 700 points, over a third of its value. We are winners, even if small ones in a sea of losers. The biggest risk that I foresee for SLI is economic. Our gold is in the ground and we will need working capital markets to realize our prize. Mining is vastly capital intensive. Any buyer will need access to billions to mine Tesoro.

In my mind I rationalize the rise and fall of our SP with the anticipation of news and then its release or (perceived) non-release as the case may be as a matter of patience. When I look at the rise and fall we have seen since mid October, I see a rise on considerable volume and the decline on lesser volume. This tells me that people got in for the fast buck. The onset of the blackout led some to believe that substantive results would follow immediately. This is hardly ever the case and in our example I believe we are seeing those that wanted the instant reward are those that are selling now and to some extent griping on these pages.

Personally, I'll hang tight. Add a few shares at what I perceive as discounted price to fill out my TFSA. The ongoing and, more importantly, expanded exploration work at Tesoro will very soon yield results. Everything I have heard and seen over this past year tells me that the people in the know, those doing the physical work at Tesoro and those in the office to whom they report to are confident that Tesoro is a major play. Having seen the process at other junior that have produced winners, I can tell you that we are on the right track. At this point, doing it right is more important than doing it fast. Good work takes time.

It will not be too long into the New Year that we will start seeing hard results come in from Tesoro. We can expect Havilah shares in our accounts some time in Q1. I hope to see the good folks from Quantec at our Vilcoro property. Who knows what else. As I stated at the onset, lots was accomplished in 2011. We held strong and gained in the face of economic headwinds. Our payday is coming in 2012.

Cheers to all and Happy New Year!