A Canadian company announced last week it’s starting multiple environmental studies to explore a possible new gold mine in Juneau.
The announcement comes as the Trump administration pushes to ramp up mineral production in the U.S and as gold prices are seeing a historic surge in value.
The project is called the New Amalga Gold Deposit and it’s being led by Grande Portage Resources, a Vancouver-based mineral exploration company.
It was formerly called the Herbert Gold Project and it’s proposed to be located near Herbert Glacier, about 15 miles north of downtown Juneau. It lies within Juneau’s historic gold belt, an area that has produced millions of ounces of gold since it was discovered in the 1800s.
Ian Klassen, the president and CEO of the company, says the studies are critical to advancing the project forward and making it “Alaska’s next great gold mine.”
“We’ve been excited about this project for a long, long time,” he said. “It’s one of the largest, richest undeveloped deposits around.”
Grande Portage has been drilling on federal mining claims in Tongass National Forest on and off since 2010 and it’s already completed five years’ worth of baseline environmental water studies. When the company first began drilling more than a decade ago, it faced pushback from local environmental groups and advocates.
Guy Archibald is the executive director of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission. He said the proposed mining project is still very conceptual and it’s difficult to know how impactful it could be on Juneau residents.
“Mining is inherently destructive. What level of of damage is considered reasonable? Because federal law only bans unreasonable levels of damage,” he said. “What level here are they going to consider to be reasonable, and does that align with the people in Juneau’s vision for their particular environment. A lot remains to be seen here.”
Mining already plays a major role in Juneau socially and economically. The city has strong ties to the largest silver mine in the nation, Hecla Greens Creek Mine on Admiralty Island. There’s also Coeur Alaska Inc.’s Kensington Mine, a gold mine located about 45 miles north of town.
While there are still many unknowns about the project, the company has begun to put conceptual plans in place. One involves sending the ore off-site to be processed at a third-party facility. That would allow it to operate while avoiding the need for chemical processing or tailings storage facilities at the site. Tailings are the ground-up rock that’s left over after the extraction of valuable metals like gold, zinc and silver.
Last fall, the company also announced it had signed a letter of intent with local Alaska Native corporation Goldbelt Inc., to see if it could develop an ore terminal at Goldbelt’s property at Cascade Point. That area is beyond where the road ends in Juneau and is also where a new ferry terminal is proposed to be located.
Archibald said that idea could come with its own set of issues.
“The tailings are going to go somewhere. May not be on the side of the Herbert River but they’re going to go somewhere,” he said. “You’re talking lots of truck traffic up and down the road, loading it, you know, on a barge to some mill somewhere else.”
Klassen, with Grande Portage Resources, said it’s hard to give a timeline for when the project may become a reality. Developing a mine would require state and federal permits and would also be subject to local review.
“There’s years and years of development in terms of meeting all the different requirements that are presented by the state as well as the federal government,” he said.
It’s also unclear if the company’s Canadian roots will become an issue as it pushes to develop the project in the U.S. Tension between the two countries is high following the Trump Administration’s long-promised tariffs on goods imported, including some Canadian imports, that took effect. The president has also called multiple times for the annexation of Canada.
Last month, mining leaders from Juneau and across the state said they had an optimistic outlook for resource development in Alaska under the new administration. On his first day in office, the president issued executive orders calling for more drilling, logging and mining in Alaska. One order aims to undo most of the Biden Administration’s work to limit resource development in the state.
Klassen said the company plans to do more outreach with the public as the project progresses. Last fall the company shared its proposed work schedule for 2025, which includes drilling approximately 15 holes to test the mineralized structure of multiple veins.