Terra X gold drilling may occur near Yellowknife-area cabins

Terra X Minerals says the winter 2016 exploration drilling program at its Yellowknife City Gold project may include work that, for the first time, moves drills close to recreational cabins.

Vancouver-based Terra X has the right to explore for gold on 116 square kilometres of land north and south of the city, near the old Giant Mine and Con Mine properties. The company gave a public update on the project Wednesday night.

This year's drilling will take place at eight areas on the company's Walsh Lake property, where there are a number of recreational leases. One drilling area could take crews to within 100 metres of a cabin, said Joe Campbell, president of Terra X.

"I'm a cottage owner so I know I would be very concerned if someone told me they were going to be doing some industrial activity next to my cottage and I would want to know what that was and what I could expect the damages to be," he said.

"Tonight was designed to show them that it's very short term work we're doing. We're going to do very little disturbance on the ground so they really don't have a lot to worry about change around their cottage and having lots of damage done."

About 40 people attended Wednesday's meeting, with only a handful asking questions.

Terra X will spend $3.1 million on exploration drilling near Yellowknife this year, said Campbell.