Toronto's Gowest Gold has turned to a well-known Timmins native and 30-year mining veteran to finally bring its Bradshaw deposit, located near his hometown, into production.
Dan Gagnon's appointment as the new president and CEO of Gowest Gold takes effect on Oct. 4.
He replaces Greg Romain, who stepped down in June. Yungang Wu filled in on an interim basis.
Most recently, Gagnon was in White River as vice-president of operations at the Sugar Zone Mine for Harte Gold.
Gagnon, a University of Ottawa bachelor of science grad, was a senior geologist at the Dome Mine in Timmins during the 1980s and '90s before serving as chief geologist at Placer Dome's Musselwhite Mine and at the Campbell Mine in Red Lake. Gagnon oversaw mining and mill operations in Red Lake for Goldcorp, for Vale in Sudbury, at Lakeshore Gold in Timmins, and at the Black Fox mine and mill operations for Primero Mining in Matheson. Before heading to White River in 2020, Gagnon was in Nunavut working for TMAC Resources as general manager of the Hope Bay Project.
Gowest's main mine project is the Bradshaw deposit, 32 kilometres northeast of the city. The deposit sits within the company's North Timmins Gold Project, covering 10,942 hectares.
The Toronto-based company is out raising money to bring Bradshaw into production.
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Currently in the prefeasibility stage, Bradshaw contains an indicated gold resource of 420,000 ounces, grading 6.19 grams per tonne (g/t) within 2.1 million tonnes, and an inferred resource of 755,000 ounces, grading 6.47 g/t within 3.6 million tonnes.
The first gold ore from Bradshaw was processed last winter, sending 23,000 tonnes of gold-bearing material, extracted from a bulk sample, through Northern Sun's Redstone Mill. More than 1,000 tonnes of concentrate was shipped off to the Humon Smelter in China.
In a statement, Gowest Chair C. Fraser Elliott was pleased to have Gagnon aboard.
“Gowest and our fellow investors are extremely fortunate to have attracted Dan to join our management team as we accelerate the company’s development towards our long-stated goal of bringing our wholly-owned Bradshaw Gold Deposit into production. Dan’s experience at this process is unparalleled, and we are confident that, with his leadership, we are on track to achieve our target in a reasonable time-frame.”
Gowest has also appointed Demin (Fleming) Huang as chief financial officer, effective Aug. 28. Huang replaces Janet O’Donnell who resigned July 6.
