Highest Grade Copper in Bathurst Mining Camp History: Nine Mile Metals
CEO.CA Sep 30, 2026 8:34
Summary
Nine Mile's Wedge hole in New Brunswick's Bathurst camp returned 14.15 metres at 5.09% copper equivalent, with zinc, gold and silver.
The guest calls Bathurst the world's third-largest mining camp, a district New Brunswick's new government now treats as a critical minerals venue.
Half of a 10,000-metre Wedge drill program is done, paused for moose season, with a second rig starting new targets 4 km west.
Miners in the 1950s and 60s never assayed for gold, so modern drilling and borehole EM are re-testing ground written off as mined.
Osisko's $250 million Bathurst vehicle has the majors circling, which the guest frames as added strategic interest for Nine Mile.
Patrick Cruickshank's takeaways
- Top takeaway Cruickshank argues the Bathurst mining camp has been a hidden gem and that the change in government in New Brunswick, which has made the camp a priority critical minerals venue, is the moment for it to step out from behind the curtain; he calls it the third largest mining camp in the world.
- His central thesis is that VMS deposits in the camp occur in clusters, so he expects the Wedge, West Wedge and Tri-Bag to form a new discovery-style cluster rather than a single orebody.
- He says operators in the 1950s and 60s often stopped at untested limits and did not assay for gold, so he now uses drones and borehole EM that images down a hole to map where mineralisation continues.
- He states the company is undervalued and is meeting institutions, exchanges and strategics, and points to Osisko's new $250 million Bathurst camp vehicle and the majors circling the region as evidence of outside interest.
- He views Nine Mile Brook as a multi-lens deposit where only one of an expected five or six lenses has been found, and has announced a second target below a pyrite-rich rhyolite cap, which he now calls the company's number one target.