Placer miners and mining company in dispute over access to Yukon claims
Two placer miners in central Yukon say they're being bulldozed by a mining company that's developing a major gold mine.
Kelly Benson and Joe Volf say their placer claims have been made inaccessible by upgrades to the road that leads to the Eagle Gold Mine about 80 kilometres north of Mayo, Yukon.
Victoria Gold is hoping to begin producing gold next year at the open pit mine.
Benson said he's owned his placer mining claims at Swede Creek since 1994.
But Volf, his mining partner, said when Victoria Gold upgraded a crossing on the road at Swede Creek and installed a power line, the work made it much more difficult and expensive for them to get at claims that lie underneath the road.
The work was done earlier this year without any notice or warning, Volf said. He said he and Benson heard about what was happening from another miner.
Volf said they had left equipment and a trailer on the claims so it would have been obvious to the road builders that placer miners were working there.
"What gives them the right?" Volf asks. "We actually have to live on the claim 365 days a year and guard it?"
"Because that's how it seems to us."
'These guys must have been living in a vacuum'
Volf said politicians and government officials they've contacted have not stepped forward with any support in their dispute with Victoria Gold.
"They're pretty big, right, and most of the Yukon wants this [Eagle Gold Mine] to happen. So it's pretty tough ... not a lot of people want to hear what you have to say," said Volf.
But John McConnell, the president of Victoria Gold, said Benson and Volf must have known about his company's plans to upgrade the road.
"You know, these guys must have been living in a vacuum if they didn't know we were building a mine at Eagle because I think you can ask anyone in the Yukon and they knew exactly what was going on," said McConnell.
"It's been well-publicized."
The company has spent most of the last decade getting permits and consulting Yukoners about the project, said McConnell. He said it has all of the required permits for the work it did on the road.
McConnell said as far as he knows, the placer miners haven't worked the claims for several years. He added that the miners have only recently demanded compensation.
"There's no approach from them to say, 'hey, here's our mine plan, you know, the road interferes with it, or the power line interferes with it,'" said McConnell.
"It just seems very odd, now that we're building a mine, they come out of the woodwork looking to be financially compensated and they use the press to tell their story," he said.
If the placer miners come to the company and the government with a plan to move the road to get at their claims, Victoria Gold would work with them, said McConnell.
But he said there won't be any financial compensation.
