BullMarketRun.com January 27, 2019
Makela with the 400-pound block of solid massive sulphide (insitu) from last fall’s surface discovery in the Central Zone (BMR photo, October 2017).
Everett Makela, the colorful Sudbury geologist who was instrumental in the discovery of the Golden Triangle’s first magmatic Nickel-Copper-rich massive sulphide system at Nickel Mountain, has passed away at the age of 58.
BullMarketRun.com January 27, 2019
Makela has forever secured a place in B.C. and Canadian exploration history.
It was the late summer of 2016, shortly after some initial surface sampling at the historic Nickel Mountain E&L deposit by geologist Jeremy Hanson, when Garibaldi Resources‘ (GGI, TSX-V) President and CEO Steve Regoci quickly reached out to an expert in Nickel exploration. That individual was Sudbury native Everett Makela who had honed his Nickel skills for many years with Inco and Vale. Makela’s first advice to Regoci was to have a lab carry out detailed analysis of the channel samples at E&L in order to determine Nickel “tenor”. As soon as the results came in, showing truly world class Nickel tenors, Makela instantly knew that Garibaldi had a “tiger by the tail”. He immediately joined the Garibaldi Advisory Board (just a few months later he would be appointed VP Exploration-Canada for the company) and reached out to some of his close friends and colleagues in the Nickel industry, specifically Dr. Peter Lightfoot, Dr. Raymond Goldie and geophysicist Alan King, recruiting them to the project (followed by others).
Lightfoot, Goldie and King were equally excited by what they were seeing, and from there the Nickel Mountain story gained increasing traction among a relatively small crowd of experts and investors who were inspired by Makela’s leadership. It wouldn’t be until the early summer of 2017, however, before the market would start to catch up to what the growing team of “Nickel Ninjas” believed they were about to discover. Notably, it took Sudbury/Voisey’s Bay Nickel experts to find what was sitting right under the nose of geologists in British Columbia who for decades were focussed instead on Gold, Silver and Copper in the Eskay Camp – they just couldn’t conceive that the area was also highly prospective for a major Nickel-Copper-rich massive sulphide system despite the clues from exploration carried out in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, and advances in global Nickel exploration in the years that followed.
Makela’s contributions only intensified. Working with a limited budget, and starting very late in the exploration season in the Eskay Camp, he faced a critical decision as VP Exploration in mid-August 2017: Play it “safe” with a couple of drill holes, targeting the best historical mineralization encountered by Silver Standard, or take a gamble and do something radically different in a classic “Go Big or Go Home” scenario.
In one of the boldest moves in B.C. exploration history, one that even took Regoci by surprise, Makela went unconventional and drilled away from the historic mineralization on the hunch that the E&L system was much broader than anyone had previously imagined. He also wanted to use the first couple of holes as a geophysical platform.
It was a huge gamble. If Makela and his team had missed, it likely would have been game over at Nickel Mountain (and Makela would have been searching for a new job). Instead, EL-17–01 intersected broad intervals of Nickel-Copper sulphide mineralization, leading to this statement from Dr. Lightfoot in a news release September 1: “The range in rock types, including the chaotic-textured rock types at E&L, are similar to those found in other global examples of Nickel sulphide deposits hosted by small intrusions that provided very efficient ‘magma highways’ from the mantle.”
Investors piled in and it was “Game On” at Nickel Mountain.
In a remarkable display of his instincts for Nickel and what a legitimate Nickel sulphide system should look like, based on just the viewing of drill core ahead of assays, Makela made these prophetic comments in an interview with BMR after the completion of the first hole:
Discovery Of World Class Nickel-Copper-Rich Massive Sulphides
Makela, of course, understood the importance of geophysics to help guide the drilling of a Nickel sulphide discovery, and that’s why he brought Syd Visser’s SJ Geophysics to Nickel Mountain in August 2017. It was both too early in the game and too late in the planning stage to lure a bigger or more well-known geophysics company, but Makela’s choice of SJ Geophysics was an astute one and of course would lead to the discovery of exceptionally high Nickel grades in massive sulphides in later holes to the east of the historic E&L deposit. On that note, it was Makela’s call, after consulting with geophysicists and his geological team, to drill infamous hole #14 into a conductor discovered through SJ’s borehole EM technology applied in a critical early hole (EL-17–02).
EL-17–14 was the biggest game-changer of all, occurring in the midst of extremely challenging mountaintop weather conditions, as it returned a whopping 8.3% Nickel, 4.2% Copper, 0.19% Cobalt, 6.4 g/t combined Platinum-Palladium, 1.1 g/t Gold and 11.1 g/t Silver over 16.75 m within a broader core length of 40.9 m grading 3.9% Ni and 2.3% Cu. Not only were the grades astounding, but the purity of the mineralization as revealed through lab analysis was also something Makela would consistently point out.
2018 produced more major developments at Nickel Mountain including the discovery of massive sulphides in the Central Zone, a significant expansion of the Discovery Zone in all directions around EL-17–14, and the possibility of something big under the 1.6-km-long icefield to the north and east. Makela also took major steps to dramatically increase the understanding of structural controls on mineralization at Nickel Mountain.
Makela’s instincts in the early days of the discovery were proven correct, so we would all be wise to pay particular attention to what turned out to be his last words to BMR in October of last year: “We’re figuring this out. It’s going to be a mine.”
Makela has left a lasting legacy, not only for Garibaldi and its shareholders but for the Eskay Camp, British Columbia and the Nickel exploration/mining sector in general. He also maintained incredible enthusiasm, despite battling health issues the past couple of years, and had a heart as big as the Eskay Rift. He will be sorely missed.
He’s now looking up from above, smiling at what he knows will unfold at Nickel Mountain in 2019 and beyond.
Well done, Everett. You blazed a path that others will now complete.
Contacted by BMR this morning in Smithers, B.C., Garibaldi Technical Advisor Dr. Lightfoot stated the following:
Dr. Peter Lightfoot (BMR photo).
“Everett brought enthusiasm and passion to exploration that sets the standard.
“In 1995 his major contribution to Inco’s Voisey’s Bay Project was the creation of a detailed geological map of the property. It was a masterpiece and even now it remains at the heart of the new understanding of the rocks that contain this ore deposit.
“Everett played a key part in exploring the Sudbury Structure, and his contributions to both regional and deposit scale exploration were many. He was part of the team that made discoveries.
“His real passion was exploration outside of the shadow of camps. I was so privileged to work with him in East Greenland where his field skills pushed the envelope of understanding, and his colourful personality made him the heart of the camp.
“At Garibaldi’s Nickel Mountain Project, Everett was the heart of the strategy that led to the discovery of massive sulphide mineralization in the Discovery Zone. I still remember when he phoned me up to share some of the first assays. His enthusiasm for doing the work and sharing the passion made all of the crew feel like a team. He will be missed so very much. My sympathies, and those of Garibaldi’s entire team, go out to his family and friends.”
