"On-Site" Series #1: Fathom Nickel's Albert Lake Camp - Teaser Trailer
A sneak preview of soon-to-be released content from my trip to Saskatchewan's north to join Fathom Nickel in pursuit of their dream: To discover Canada's next great nickel mine.
tl;dr:
Above (click image for link to YouTube video) is the official teaser video for my inaugural episode of my new "On-Site" series, in which I will travel for site visits to exploration projects, active mines, and more.
The first of a few confirmed for 2024 drilling seasons (stay tuned), I traveled into Saskatchewan's north to visit Fathom Nickel's Fly-In camp at Albert Lake at the site of the old Rottenstone mine. Rottenstone, though tiny, was one of the richest polymetallic nickel deposits in Canadian history, with a LoM average grade of 3.3% Ni, 1.83% Cu and an eye-popping 9+ g/t Pd+Pt+Au.
CEO and VPEx Ian Fraser has been chasing the source of this incredible mine under the theory that sort of incredible grade at surface has to have a giant "mother" lurking beneath somewhere waiting to be found, and he has exhaustively compiled a broad, deep, pool of data in pursuit of it. With drill campaigns underway, maybe this is finally the season where Mother Rottenstone gives up her secrets.
Click the header image above to view the video, and read below for my companion piece for the trailer. I look forward to releasing more content from this site visit in the near future.
Tickers Mentioned: FNI.CN
Camp Thoughts
Imagine a village 50 miles past the end of the paved road in Saskatchewan’s north. Fly-in country. And fly-out. Everything - every stick it took to build and takes to maintain that village – every barrel of fuel, every sheet of plywood and insulated tarp, every gallon of milk and every roll of TP – all flown in on twice-weekly scheduled fly days for the Twin Otter, or the helicopter if and when needed.
But it isn’t just a village. Every person here shares too much of a common purpose for this to be for nothing. This isn’t residential but industrial.
More, then, maybe a human machine - one constituted out of each of its individual parts, working both individually and as one together. This machine is constantly turning and moving - each person’s job critical to all others being able to perform their own jobs successfully. A web of deeply interdependent efforts that have to work together to make it all work together.
But this work is also largely done alone, in small groups scattered across kilometers of broad, white, endless, frozen expanse. But still out there, busy, working. The 2 man day crew gone to the rig. The fifth man and camp man in never-ending transit. The core shack consuming hundreds of meters of core and spitting out data measured in centimeters.
Often, you don’t even notice you’re not out there in the woods alone until something has gone wrong somewhere along the way and you get hung up while it gets sorted, downtime dominoes starting to fall. And this machine of people starts to grind and seize.
But it isn’t enough to call it just a machine, either. People all bring their own uniquely and infinitely complex (and unknowable) lives from all walks of life with them to come work out here. Rough and ready local boys just a few kilometers from their birth place rubbing elbows with foreign-born workers hoping to make Canada their new home. Educated professionals who wear at least one white collar now roughing it in a tiny pinpoint of Canadian wild. Youth at various early rungs in their career-long ladder climb working alongside those who have already happily found their ceiling.
It all is – in a strange way – almost dehumanising. Not necessarily in any negative sense, but 6:30 to 6:30, people are their role. You don’t know their back stories. You don’t know their hobbies or fears or quirks. Who their loved ones are they’ve left behind. Their sole reason for existence here is the same as yours – to be a part of a larger whole. Sling it and drill it, bag it and tag it. To become a piece of this human machine.
In the end, it felt it was the quiet moments between the constant activity that told the true, human, story. Watching the groggy-but-moving night shift stepping out of their tents and into the kitchen for their breakfast (and your supper) as you head out into the dusk to your cabin for the night. Later, a blackened figure, stripped of their winter gear and exposed to the elements, seen walking wordlessly through the dark to some unknown point.
Here is when it actually begins to dawn on you just how big of a challenge this human endeavour truly is. How much work it takes to, in this season, in this province, at these coordinates, explore for nickel. The gargantuan amount of time, effort, and mental and physical power it takes to plan, supply, and execute this vison. The combined efforts of machine and humanity. And it all comes down to a 2” diameter cylinder of stone lancing some unseeable target nearly half a kilometer beneath your feet, deep within the Canadian Shield. All in pursuit of that incredible dream: To make Canada’s next great nickel discovery.
Conclusion
I loved my time in the north, as I always do, and was appreciative of being up there in an entirely new context, and the opportunity for learning that provided. I am excited already to head back out to other camps and projects and bring them back with me for my readers.
For the immediate future, I plan to release a series of shorter videos following this one highlighting particular aspects of Albert Lake camp life - the core shack, the drill rig, and even the kitchen, over the coming weeks to give you a look at life in Canada's wild in pursuit of the next great discovery. Ultimately a long-form documentary capstoning my time in camp with Fathom this winter will be released. Look for that later in the coming months.
Till next time.
-Matthew from JRI