Diamonds drive Wawa boom.

Ever since prospector Mickey Clement found 60 diamonds panning in a river near Wawa in 1993, junior exploration companies have been combing the 2.7 billion-year-old rocks of that part of the Canadian Shield, searching for the elusive source of potentially large diamonds.

Well known among hitchhikers for its landmark giant Canadian Goose statue, some Wawa residents hope their town may become equally famous for its diamond and gold production.

The latest buzz of exploration activity is not entirely new ground for the community of 4,100, located near the rocky eastern shore of Lake Superior. Modern prospecting there dates back to the Hemlo discovery in 1981.

Prospecting and mining have been part of the town's economic fibre since the late 1800s when gold, and later iron ore, was found to feed the blast furnaces at Algoma Steel.

Junior exploration companies such as Strike Minerals, Spider Resources, KWG Resources, Pele Mountain, Dianor Resources, Band-Ore Resources, Corona Gold, River Gold, Patricia Mines and Richmont Mines are in varying stages of exploration in the Wawa-White River-Dubreuilville area searching for diamonds, gold and nickel.

"The quality of the diamonds are very good," says Wilson. "But no one (yet) has a firm grasp on what (rock) hosts them."

Val d'Or diamond hunters Dianor Resources will spend more than $3 million this year to drill on their promising Leadbetter property, 10 km east of town.

The company is working the former claims of Wawa prospector Joe Leadbetter, who recovered an eye-popping 1.39-carat gem quality diamond from a creek bed in 2003. They signed a deal with him in December to acquire the claims and some private property to the south.

Company president John Ryder calls the area's infrastructure "fantastic," with bush road access and the Algoma Central Railway line just a few hundred metres away from their Leadbetter property, situated near Wawa Lake, just off Highway 101.

Dianor is finding diamond-bearing rock out-cropping at the surface.

Over the next 12 months, they are planning about 50,000 metres of definition drilling, mapping and ground geophysics on their 2,000-hectare land package over the next 12 months.

"Once we achieve that, it will allow us to zoom in our areas we want to take some larger samples of," says Ryder. "We don't know how big this thing is."

Ryder says the host bedrock appears to be thickening to the east, more than 300 metres deep. "We don't know how far north or south it goes."

Despite having ten projects in Northern Ontario and Quebec on the go, including drilling a diamond-bearing kimberlite target near Kirkland Lake, Wawa has taken over as Dianor's prime prospect.

"There's no where else in North America that has this amount of diamonds at this stage of exploration coming out of surface bedrock," says Ryder. He classifies the property's potential for an operating mine as "very good."

Two years ago, Pele Mountain Resources made headlines when they recovered a .79-carat white gem quality diamond from their Festival property located 20 km north of Wawa.

Festival was sampled extensively last year with a total of 3,471 diamonds being recovered along a northwest to southeast strike length.

"It's big on the surface," says Pele president Al Shefsky. "We've seen these big diamond-bearing horizons over a very long strike length and widths."

Through an option agreement with exploration partner Goldcorp, they'll spend a minimum of $800,000 this year on exploration.

Maury O'Neill, CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Wawa, is working with exploration companies to set up temporary offices and storage structures due to a shortage of commercial and industrial park space.

Exploration combined with some ongoing major hydroelectric dam projects by BrascanGreat Lakes Power in the area has created a "mini-boom" in the community.

"At this time, Wawa is experiencing an accommodations shortage," says O'Neill.

Real estate agent Linda Nowicki says with such a mad rush for housing by dam subcontractors exploration crews will be hard-pressed to find motel rooms, housekeeping units, apartments or any type of residential units for the summer.

"It's extremely tight right now," says the owner of Wawa's I-Deal Real Estate.

With no new home construction in the last 20 years, all price ranges are in short supply, except smaller, older homes in need of work.

"I just had a call from lady in Thunder Bay transferring in to the health unit looking for a house to rent, and I told her to get down here and knock on doors if anybody is even thinking about renting," says Nowicki.

"I've got buyers, but nothing to sell them."

www.pelemountainresources.com

www.spiderresources.com

By IAN ROSS

Northern Ontario Business