Michael Gordon was running a dozer on the heap leach facility at Victoria Gold Corp.’s Eagle Gold Mine on what he described as a “beautiful day” under the midnight sun. It was around 5:35 a.m. on June 24, 2024, near the end of his 12-hour overnight shift at the mine site north of Mayo, Yukon. The now-35-year-old man could see the truck he was waiting for in the distance, so he got ready for it.
But out of the corner of his right eye he also saw “millions of spider cracks” forming around the piece of heavy equipment he was operating. Gordon did not even complete his emergency call over the radio before the ground below him started slipping and sliding down the slope.
“I realized that the landslide was happening,” he told the News by phone.
“I began my ride of a lifetime.”
The dozer landed on its side at a 45-degree angle. He climbed out on the only side he could. He began treating the scene like a back-country avalanche.
“As I was doing that, another landslide happened,” he said.
“It almost buried me alive.”
Then he backtracked to run straight up the hill to the crest. There were no rescuers around. No one went near the landslide area.
He radioed out to his lead man, who informed him that everybody on site survived. Gordon fell to his knees, taking a moment to appreciate the fact that everyone was reported alive, before cresting the mound and continuing on to safety.
He hugged his coworker and got treated at the first aid tent before attempting to call his wife and text his mom. But his calls and texts weren’t going through.
“Everything was cut off,” he said.
What has been described as a “catastrophic” heap leach facility failure saw four million tonnes of material unexpectedly move and two million tonnes break containment at the mine site on the traditional territory of the First Nation of Na-cho Nyäk Dun (FNNND). Distress struck the First Nation citizens in particular over fears of toxic contaminated water creeping towards bodies of water like Haggart Creek.
The News conducted interviews with various sources and obtained hundreds of pages of documents from the Yukon government that offer a glimpse into the slide response in real time during the first 72 hours, as well as a look ahead.
The documents, obtained under access-to-information law over the past year, reveal concerns had been expressed within the Yukon government around confidence in other projects as well as around environmental impact immediately after the News broke the story about a cyanide-laden landslide at Victoria Gold Corp.’s Eagle Gold Mine one year ago.
Prior to the incident, Victoria Gold Corp. was using a cyanide solution to extract gold from the ore.
In its first public communications after the slide, Victoria Gold Corp. initially reported no injuries from the slide. It turned out that was not true. While no serious injuries were reported, according to a ministerial briefing book prepared for the legislature’s fall 2024 sitting, the Yukon Workers’ Safety and Compensation Board confirmed one reported injury due to the failure and two instances of workers receiving first-aid treatment.
In the weeks following the incident, the mining company's board quit, and its company's chief executive officer was fired by the newly-installed receiver, Pricewaterhouse Coopers Inc. (PwC). The receiver was appointed in August 2024 by an Ontario court, at the Yukon government’s request, after Victoria Gold Corp. failed to adhere to orders. The receiver now oversees the assets, undertakings and property of Victoria Gold Corp., which includes but is not limited to Eagle Gold Mine, according to a notice on the mining company’s website. The company’s shares stopped being publicly traded.
Former directors and members of Victoria Gold Corp.’s management wrote to Premier Ranj Pillai in October 2024. They suggested that PwC’s potential mismanagement could lead to environmental damage and permanent impairment of the mine, in turn shooting down one of the territory's most “significant proven gold reserves” and burdening taxpayers with the cost.
The Official Opposition Yukon Party remains adamant that Victoria Gold Corp. should never have been removed from control of the site.
The Yukon NDP, which is propping up the minority Yukon Liberal Party government through a confidence and supply deal, expects to hear from the mining company about what went wrong.
The Liberal government has defended the move to have the receivership take over the Eagle Gold Mine site.
In the latest major developments, PwC has started recovering gold from waste material and is seeking approval from the court to begin selling the mine, a year after the earth-shattering slide.
Political leaders the News spoke with indicated the future of heap leach mining in the Yukon could hinge on what comes out of an independent review board’s findings on the cause of the failure.
FNNND Chief Dawna Hope fears her citizens have lost faith in the land on their traditional territory as they grieve the loss of their Arctic grayling fishery downstream of the site. The fishery was not only culturally celebrated each spring during migration but also provided subsistence food for people in the area.
“For time immemorial, we have been taught by generations previous how to live off the land, how to sustain ourselves, how to maintain our culture in those aspects, and now we're dealing with something that we can't see, we can't hear, we can't smell, we can't taste, and that's very concerning, because we can't trust the land in these areas any longer,” she said.
Emergency response
Hope’s alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. on June 24, 2024. Her phone was buzzing. She received an unverified report of the heap leach facility failure from a good friend who had been contacted by their friend who was working at the Eagle Gold Mine. The First Nation reached out to the mining company and got confirmation of the slide that morning from an executive of Victoria Gold Corp., according to Hope.
“I was heart wrenched,” she told the News on the phone on June 20, 2025.
“This is something that our citizens, our elders, have been very worried about, even since the first initial discussions about having a facility like this out on our traditional territory.”
Gurmaan Rai, assistant deputy minister of corporate services, wrote an email to two communications leads in the Yukon mines department at 10:14 a.m. that Monday morning. The email discussed Rai having just been notified about a failure at Victoria Gold Corp.’s heap leach facility.
“The (heap leach facility) stores contaminated material being processed, and the breach caused this material to be released, burying equipment, etc. I understand there were no fatalities,” Rai wrote.
Keith Maguire, Yukon’s director of major projects, sent a link to the News’ breaking story on the heap leach failure 23 minutes after it was published online, giving a “heads up” of the article to the Yukon government’s Executive Council Office.
“We’re following up on it as it is going to be a pretty big environmental problem that will affect the eagle project and confidence in other projects,” reads Maguire’s message at 11:50 a.m.
According to emails the News obtained, by around noon, the head of major mines, Russell McDiarmid, and the lead investigator for the Victoria Gold Corp. site, John Minder, had left Whitehorse by truck for the mine. They went to get started on a site examination including taking photos, sampling water and getting drone footage. Water quality scientists were also mobilizing.
But the two men got held up in Pelly Crossing due to wildfires closing the highway, per the documents. They ended up negotiating passage with a pilot vehicle given the “urgency of their attendance to the site,” Will Tewnion, the director of compliance, monitoring and inspections, said in the emails.
At 12:59 p.m., Hugh Coyle, Victoria Gold Corp.’s vice-president of environment, sent a photo and image of the slide to Erin Dowd, a manager in major mines licensing.
An “urgent” 3:17 p.m. email notes Pillai had requested a virtual meeting with deputies to discuss Victoria Gold Corp.
Meanwhile, an emergency health planner was wondering about health impacts downstream of the mine.
A senior natural resources officer noted the number of inquiries the Mayo office was getting about the safety of the town’s drinking water due to the slide.
“There are no immediate concerns regarding impacts to people offsite. There are no people inhabiting downstream locations. There are placer operations further downstream, but the water is sufficiently diluted by that point,” mineral resources director Kelly Constable said in the emails.
A director of environmental protection drew attention to a guide on how to ask for help from the National Environmental Emergencies Centre (NEEC).
“I am confident we are not at this stage yet,” Tewnion replied about the NEEC.
Multiple sources the News had contact with expressed concerns that Victoria Gold Corp. shut down communications, including internet, cell and landline service, at the mine site following the slide because they couldn’t reach their loved ones when they usually could.
On June 19, 2025, Victoria Gold Corp.'s ex-chief executive officer John McConnell told the News by email that Victoria Gold Corp. may have shut down internet to stop people from posting photos to social media while the company tried to understand the situation, but the company did not have control over cell and landline service.
Spokespeople for Bell Canada (which operates cell towers in the territory) and Northwestel (the territory's main internet provider) confirmed that their networks were working normally in the area on June 24, 2024.
In documents obtained by the News, a director notes there was no cell service at the mine site, which further complicated logistics.
The following morning, an email from Dowd indicated Victoria Gold Corp. was focused on geotechnical monitoring, water management and water treatment efforts.
“I am in need of urgent financial support associated with the failure at Victoria Gold,” Constable wrote at 9:13 a.m. on June 25, 2024.
An advisory at 3:17 p.m. that day notes NEEC had received a request for scientific advice, technical advice and sensitivity mapping regarding the slide.
An unexpected helicopter in the area at one point heightened anxieties and disrupted plans, according to the emails.
“We are dealing with a helicopter that showed up out of nowhere. This is very worrisome for this type of activity without proper notice on our end,” Alexandru Popa, Victoria Gold Corp.’s senior mine engineer, said in a forwarded message from 8:46 p.m.
According to a situational report, by June 26, 2024, the Yukon’s Emergency Measures Organization had activated a Level 2 response, and the Emergency Coordination Centre was put into action, given evacuation alerts due to wildfires, Yukon River Quest support and the Eagle Gold Mine slide situation.
An initial economic analysis of the slide was ready for the premier on that third day, per the documents. The contents of the analysis are mostly redacted from the package of documents the News obtained.
However, the fall economic outlook released months later by the government painted a bleak picture.
“Removing Eagle Gold Mine production equates to a reduction in the Yukon’s real GDP of over $1.5 billion over the five-year forecast compared to the previous forecast,” reads the outlook.
Ongoing risks and impacts
During a phone interview on June 16, 2025, Energy, Mines and Resources Minister John Streicker indicated he did not take it lightly when the experts forecasted the risk of another slide at the mine site after the June 2024 event and ongoing through the spring melt.
The June 2024 event marked the second slide at the heap leach facility that year.
On Jan. 6, 2024, 14,000 tonnes of unleached, crushed ore that had been stacked in the southeast corner of the heap leach facility “sloughed onto the 1,041-metre elevation.” No one was hurt and no material was released into the environment, according to Tim Fisch, the vice president and general manager of the Eagle Gold Mine at the time, in the memo to a Yukon Workers’ Safety and Compensation Board safety officer.
Hecla Mining Company is blaming the fallout of the June 2024 Eagle Gold Mine failure for broader impacts on permitting, projects and production, and its ability to reach “increased, profitable production” at the Keno Hill Mine, according to a company quarterly report shared with the News.
The quarterly report ending March 31, 2025, indicates the Yukon government and FNNND were overly focused on the response at Eagle Gold Mine at the expense of routine permitting matters. That led to delays in authorizing its mill construction and modifying a permit for its dry-stack tailings storage facility (DSTF), forcing the firm to suspend milling operations from Aug. 27, 2024, to Oct. 26, 2024, per the report.
“Mill operations and design and construction projects (including DSTF construction) resumed during the fourth quarter of 2024 but permitting and projects remain behind our original planned schedule, which has also impacted mine development, and these delays continue to impact our ability to ramp up production from the mine,” reads the report.
The report suggests another ongoing impact came from the “strong positions” FNNND initially took on continuing and future mining ventures within the First Nation’s traditional territory, including an initial call to halt mining production.
“The FNNND 's position has evolved since then to support environmentally responsible mining practices,” the report reads. Hecla Mining Company’s report goes on to commit to “responsible and sustainable mining that governments and local communities support, including the FNNND” which the firm said factors into its plans and projections for Keno Hill Mine.
While Hope agreed with FNNND's latest position laid out in the report, she said that it comes with the highest standards and best practices to protect and maintain the environment.
Hope noted the First Nation currently has three land officers and guardians patrolling the region to keep track of peoples’ activities on the land. FNNND’s technical team went out and started water monitoring downstream of the Eagle Gold Mine site, since the monitoring prior to that was restricted to the site, to try to assess how far contaminants had spread.
“We feel that our push has resulted in some of the responses that are on site, and that is critically important to us,” Hope said.
“We are stewards of these lands, and that's our job.”
Streicker told the News the government and the First Nation have been “appropriately focused” on the Eagle Gold Mine response.
“It's been a serious situation, and we need to address it. And I think it's important for how can Yukoners trust mining? That's the fundamental question that we're asking ourselves,” he said.
“We're not out of the woods yet, but I think that the work is definitely moving in the right direction.”
For example, Streicker said the Yukon government was concerned about workers’ safety, so the receiver got a safety berm built at the base of the slide, in response to a directive from the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. The safety berm, completed on Oct. 25, 2024, is intended to control the runout pathway and reduce the risks of secondary slides, as noted in the receiver's report.
Streicker said cyanide and mercury levels picked up in water monitoring have been coming down.
“We've made it through freshet, and that was a very, very big concern for everybody,” he said during the June 2025 interview.
Yukon Party mining critic Scott Kent noted the difficulty getting PwC representatives to appear for questioning by members of the Yukon Legislative Assembly. He said a potential motion would have found PwC in contempt of the legislature. Following a court order, PwC senior vice-presidents appeared remotely during the final days of the spring sitting of the legislative assembly in late April 2025.
In response to questions Kent raised in the legislature on March 27, 2025, Streicker submitted a report on local procurement at the Eagle Gold Mine, where 72 per cent of contractors have been local and 72 per cent affiliated with the Nacho Nyak Dun Development Corporation. By then, $20.8 million had been paid to local contractors and $7.7 million to FNNND businesses since the receivership started.
Despite those efforts, Hope noted that some FNNND businesses that were previously working for Victoria Gold Corp. have lost employment, and some workers that were employed by the company have lost their jobs.
“Since the failure, we've been doing as much as we can to assist those people in getting their needs met and just relaying as many opportunities for employment as we can to try to make up that loss,” Hope said.
Moving forward
PwC has cited Victoria Gold Corp.’s “liquidity crisis” and cash flow, which it said was due to run dry by the end of November 2024. The lender, the territorial government, is pouring $220 million and counting into the work the receiver has done to protect workers and remediate the environment. PwC vice-president Michelle Grant said by email that the receiver has approval to borrow money through Sept. 30, 2025. The budget has not been finalized beyond that date.
Remediation recently expanded to recovering gold from waste material to help pay for the receivership's activities. Mining and processing have been suspended since the failure, Grant noted. A report from PwC states the adsorption-desorption-recovery carbon plant’s restart for recovering gold and other precious metals will be done in a limited capacity.
Lately, PwC has taken early steps towards a sale and investment solicitation process for Eagle Gold Mine, per Streicker. He added the receivership was intended to protect the workers that remain on site and address the environmental risks that had been created by the slide.
“Their job was to deal with that remediation work, not to try and sell off the mine,” he said. What the means is that once the site is stabilized, the government wants the receiver to step away from the mine site and “put it back into private sector hands.”
If the mine is sold, the money will go to creditors of Victoria Gold Corp. Once the creditors are paid, any additional funds will be distributed to the shareholders, according to Grant.
“Until the outcome of the sales process, if approved by the Court, is known, we cannot provide any definitive comment at this time,” Grant said. The sales process goes before the court for approval on June 25, 2025.
The next steps on what to do with the mine will depend on several factors including what comes out of the independent review board’s report and what FNNND thinks, per Streicker.
Streicker needs to see the report before commenting on what he would have had enforcement and licensing branches do differently to prevent the slide from happening in the first place. He wants to learn from the independent review board about what caused the slide in order to prevent a similar incident.
He pointed to new minerals legislation, which the government has been criticized by the opposition and First Nations for moving too slowly on. In February 2025, Streicker said the legislation was stalled at the government-to-government stage.
His government held off on releasing a “what we heard” report on new minerals legislation immediately following the slide to give the situation time to “breathe,” as noted in the documents mentioned above.
According to the mines minister, the first type of questions that will need to be asked upon reviewing the review board’s report are: can heap leach mining be done safely in the territory and, if so, how?
“We were so lucky that we didn't have loss of life or a lot of serious injury,” Streicker said.
“It wasn't that it was without injury, because there was someone who actually rode that slide down on a big, heavy piece of equipment and then ran off and was pretty traumatized by the whole event, but it could have been very much worse.”
Streicker wants to know if the risks can be mitigated and addressed with “a level of confidence and with assurance.”
He said he will wait for the report before commenting on the future of heap leach mining in the Yukon.
“We have to keep going with water treatment and water management on site. That's pretty important,” he said.
“There's always this delay between what we see in Haggart Creek and what we measure in the ground. So, we have to stay ahead of that.”
The FNNND chief feels not enough time has been spent on the emergency response to the failure.
Hope considered that in the “history of hard rock mining in the Yukon” only one mine remains in existence and did not result in a failure or abandonment: Brewery Creek.
The third party Yukon NDP stands by FNNND’s calls for a public inquiry into systemic issues including the government's role in other mining failures around the territory: Yukon Zinc Corp.’s Wolverine Mine and Minto Metals Corp.’s Minto Mine.
Yukon NDP Leader Kate White commented on the “hard” last year that the Yukon has gone through as cyanide and other contaminants continue entering the water because of the June 2024 heap leach failure.
“It eroded trust with Yukoners and industry,” she said.
She wants to take an honest look at the territory’s expectations for caring for the environment and the economic benefits. She indicated the process of heap leach mining in particular benefits companies at a cost to society.
“I do see a future of mining in the territory, but I do not see a future of mining at all costs,” she said.
In an interview by phone on June 20, 2025, the Yukon Party mine critic raised Brewery Creek as an example of a success story in remediating a mine that used a heap leach facility process in the territory.
Jonas Smith, the executive director of the Yukon Chamber of Mines, said the Yukon government and FNNND both admitted that other things had “taken a back burner” due to their capacity being focused on the Eagle Gold Mine response.
The Yukon’s mining industry has suffered as a result, per Smith.
“The rest of the world has to keep operating,” he said.
He cited placer miners unable to get 10-year renewals processed — an issue that also affected quartz mining and exploration industries, from grassroots initiatives to Hecla Mining Company. He said the issue has detracted from certainty and meant the loss of a season for some people.
While Smith sympathized with the strong position that FNNND initially took against mining, he compared the incident to when someone dies in motor vehicle traffic.
“When there's a traffic fatality, as tragic as it is, we don't call for a ban on all motor vehicle traffic. And, you know, say it was a motorcycle accident, for example, we don't even call for a ban on motorcycle traffic,” he said.
“There's an investigation, and we try to get to the bottom of it and try to do what we can to ensure something like that doesn't happen again.”
Smith suggested heap leach mining is used safely around the world every day, so there’s a way for it to be done in the territory. A mining executive told the News about 20 to 30 per cent of mines across the globe use that procedure.
“I mean, would there to be a ban on heap leaching, that would very likely drastically affect the resale of the Eagle property, which is something I think most parties in the Yukon would like to see proceed,” Smith said.
Given the current price of gold, resale is an attractive prospect, from his perspective. He won’t forget what he called the positive social and economic impact that Victoria Gold Corp. had on communities, from donations to the Whitehorse food bank to sponsoring the Yukon Native Hockey Tournament.
“Assuming we can get another responsible operator in there and be able to start seeing those benefits flow again, I think that would be ideal for everyone,” Smith said.
Looking ahead, Smith is focused on what will come out from the independent review board.
Getting back on path
In terms of what needs to happen so FNNND peoples’ ways of living and livelihoods can get back on path, Hope said the community currently lacks the resources and capacity to continue dealing with responding to the mine failure at this rate.
She said her citizens are “double-time busy.”
“It kind of feels like an out-of-control freight train is being just harnessed,” Hope said.
“If there's any additional issues that come up, it could get out of hand again.”
As for what her community needs to continue to respond and who can provide that support, Hope believes the review might have those answers.
“Ironically, from my understanding, from the industry, Canada already is held up at a very high standard on a world basis,” Hope said.
“We truly need to deal with the antiquated legislation and modernize those especially in light of our final agreements.”
The review board’s report is on track to be in the receiver’s hands and posted to PwC’s website by the end of June or early July 2025, according to a recent PwC report and a statement from the cabinet minister to mark one year after the failure.
Meanwhile, the worker who slid down the moving slope on a dozer under Victoria Gold Corp.’s watch described it as a life-changing event.
After surviving the slide, Gordon remains traumatized. He said he cannot mountain bike or back-country snowmobile anymore due to his neck and back injury. He has been in a court battle with the workers' compensation board. He is shocked that the mine site is still open in any form. He is disgusted with what happened to him and how the company acted.
“It's overall probably one of the worst experiences of my life,” he said.
“It’s quite shameful. It's actually very heartbreaking.”
Contact Dana Hatherly at dana.hatherly@yukon-news.com
