Victoria Gold Corp., the owners of the Eagle gold mine near Mayo, have bought several claims and inactive mines, including the Brewery Creek site 55 kilometres east of Dawson City.

Victoria bought these sites from Sabre Gold Mines through the purchase of Sabre’s Yukon subsidiary, Golden Predator, for $13.5 million.

Knowing Sabre was currently focused on a project in Arizona, Victoria president John McConnell said his company decided to approach them to see if they’d be willing to sell Golden Predator.

“One thing led to another and we announced on (Sept. 14) that we bought their Yukon assets, which includes a number of claims,” McConnell said.

The purchase includes the old Brewery Creek mine and the Golden Dome area near Mayo, both of which McConnell called “quite interesting.”

The Brewery Creek mine was in operation between 1995 and 2002, according to a permitting application on the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB) website.

McConnell said Golden Predator had been doing some drilling at Brewery Creek and had begun the permitting process to reopen the mine, spending $56 million in the process.

He reckons the permitting process will take about three more years, estimating the mine would eventually produce 50,000 to 60,000 ounces of gold each year, from about two million ounces of estimated total gold resources.

Victoria currently produces roughly 180,000 ounces per year at the Eagle mine site, McConnell said.

Victoria’s website says they expect to get about 2.4 million ounces from the Eagle mine in total.

The Golden Dome project is not yet developed and Victoria is still in exploration stages at the site.

“It hasn't had a lot of work done on it, but there’s been a lot of Geochem soil sampling done that looks very interesting,” McConnell said.

“So, you know, we’ll be following that up with a drill program probably next summer.”

That site covers 95 square kilometres and is in a road-accessible area about 25 kilometres west of Mayo.

The Brewery Creek site is about twice the size, covering 181 square kilometres.

There is another site close to Ross River included in the purchase called Grew Creek, though McConnell said that site is “very small and very early stage.”

Asked what the employment opportunities could eventually be at the Brewery Creek site, McConnell said he expects to know more as they work through re-starting the YESAB process.

“It’s early days, we'll be evaluating that over the winter, putting together a mining plan and engaging with regulators to get the permitting process back on track,” he said.

“Stay tuned; we’ll come out with some of that information in due course.”