Yukon gateway project: Skagway's $80 million port plan.

• Author: Lavrakas, Dimitra
• Position: Special section: BUILDING ALASKA

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There is so much at stake, yet so much is up in the air. Tiny Skagway in Southeast is blessed with a deep-water port that has served the shipping needs of Canada's Yukon Territory for over a century. Now, three mining companies look to it to transport ore. One is even willing to build a new dock, but here's the rub: a tidelands lease with White Pass & Yukon Route Railway gives the company control until 2023. The mining companies want access within the next couple of years.

MINES

Capstone's Minto Mine has been using the Ore Dock on and off for years, but it's shipping steadily right now. The Minto Mine, just south of Carmacks in the Yukon, has its concentrates trucked to Skagway and on to smelters in Asia for treatment and sale. It is projected to operate until 2020.

The Chinese mining company Selwyn Chihong Mining Ltd. has started a feasibility study for its western Yukon mining prospect that sits close to the border of Canada's Northwest Territories, foresees shipping concentrates though Skagway beginning 2014-possibly for 30 years.

And Alexco Resource Corp.'s Bellekeno Mine, located in the Yukon's Keno Hill Silver District, hopes to produce 250 metric tons per day of lead-silver concentrate and 8,400 metric tons of zinc concentrate annually to generate up to 2.8 million ounces of silver.

MEETINGS

In a late November 2011 meeting in Anchorage, representatives of the Municipality of Skagway, WP&YR, Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority and an attorney representing the city tried to deal with the conflicting interests of the parties: WP&YR's desire to see the trucking replaced by rail and its tidelands lease extended; the Municipality of Skagway's desire to regain control of the tidelands; a concern that the suspension bridge on the Klondike Highway may need replacing because of heavy truck use and age; and WP&YR's intention of building a floating dock extension to the Ore Dock to accommodate the larger cruise ships that are expected and the company's demand that it be released from any environmental contamination at the Ore Dock, which the city considers a no deal.

In a Dec. 23, 2011, letter to WP&YR President Eugene Hretzay and Clublink Enterprises Chairman and Chief Executive Officer K. Rai Sahi, Skagway Mayor Stan Selmer outlined the hurdles all parties must leap over before any of them move ahead, adding: "In closing, we request your best written offer to jump start this renewed effort and that we...