Red Lake, Ontario was once mining’s hottest ticket — so booming in 1936 that Howey Bay became the busiest airport in the world. Now Australia’s Evolution Mining wants to repeat that history at today’s inflated gold prices. Can they?
Boom, bust, and a legendary second act
Prospectors arrived in the 1880s; mines opened in the 1930s and some produced millions of ounces across decades. By the 1980s the veins ran dry — until 1995, when Robert McEwen’s Goldcorp found a new deposit so rich it produced gold at $65 USD an ounce (the industry calls $800 “low-cost” today), powering Goldcorp to become the world’s most valuable gold company.
How the golden goose starved
Goldcorp never modernized beyond necessity. Costs climbed until the mine couldn’t carry them, and in early 2019 Newmont absorbed the company at a heavy discount. Evolution’s bet: fresh capital and modern methods can find what the old operators left behind.
The wager in numbers: mining economics live and die on cost per ounce. At $65, Red Lake printed money; at today’s costs, only high prices — or high grades — justify the gamble.
Mining fortunes swing; refined gold keeps its market. Get a live-price offer on yours, no gamble required.
