Nunavut gold exploration project scales back summer plans

A small company looking for gold in Nunavuts Kivalliq may be forced to scale back plans for this summer, due to trouble finding investors.

Prosperity Goldfields has been working at Kiyuk Lake, 350 kilometres west of Arviat.

Company president Adrian Fleming said they've had promising results but it's getting tough for small companies like his to find investors.

He said last week's fall in gold prices means the Kiyuk Lake project will suffer this year.

"The program will be quite small," he said. "We may or may not drill. I would suggest at the moment my perspective is we don't have enough money to drill. We're still very keen on the project, and we're eager to progress Kiyuk Lake, but it's very hard at this juncture to do that."

Fleming said the company raised about $3.5 million last year; most of that was spent on the drilling program at Kiyuk Lake.

The company drilled 20 holes at the site.

"If the market were more buoyant, on the back of the results I would have raised another say, $5 million, and we would have been back in the summer with continued aggressive drilling," Fleming said.

Fleming said the company will continue to look for investors or a larger company to partner with.