For Michael Gunning, there's nothing like spending a winter at a northern resource exploration camp.

"They're serene -that's probably the best word," he said.

"When you're out on a Ski-Doo going across a lake to a drill site and it's crystal clear at minus 40, I would say that's a unique experience. You can't do that everywhere in the world -you can't do that everywhere in Canada."

It's a lifestyle Gunning, president and CEO of Hathor Exploration Ltd., has fond memories of. At a recent visit to a winter exploration camp at the company's Russell Lake uranium project in northern Saskatchewan, he spoke of the camaraderie of co-workers at remote sites and the quiet stillness of the surroundings.

These days, Gunning is focused less on enjoying the scenery and more on discovering what's underneath. The 75,000hectare Russell Lake site, he says, has the potential to contain a uranium deposit large enough to rival Cameco Corp.'s McArthur River mine -the world's largest deposit of high-grade uranium.

If something is there, Gunning and his team want to find it.

Located near Cameco's Key Lake Mill, about 570 kilometres north of Saskatoon and 80 kilometres southwest of McArthur, Russell Lake is located in a "special within special" area of the Athabasca Basin.

"McArthur is a very special deposit and Russell Lake is within that belt in the Basin where you have the potential to find another one," Gunning said. "Of course, that's the big prize for Hathor -and I would say Saskatchewan, too -is to find another McArthur. Russell Lake is in the area where we believe we can do that."

Hathor is spending $1.6 million this season on a drill program at the site. It expects to drill between eight and 10 holes. So far, two are complete.

Even if uranium is found this winter, more drilling needs to take place to define the deposit. Gunning says Hathor plans to spend the next five or six years searching for ore at the site.

"For Hathor, it's what we call an earlystage exploration potential," he said. "Russell Lake is that sort of excitement of what we call a blue sky discovery and it's a very exciting project for us."

MINING, NATURE COLLIDE

On a small part of the property, several high-end tents -complete with furnaces -are set up, their red colour distinguishing them from the layers upon layers of snow and ice on the ground and trees.

Some tents are used as office space. Others are living quarters for Hathor and drill crew staff. Two ATCO trailers joined by a makeshift hallway serve in part as the kitchen and dining room. That's where Dave Walford spends most of his time.

As head cook, Walford is responsible for more than just feeding the 12 to 16 people who work at the site. When staff -most of them men -are away from home for weeks and work 12-hour shifts in freezing temperatures, the cook's role is also caregiver.

"I'm not a good-looking young girl and I can't make them feel good that way, so I've got to make them feel good by producing half-decent food as good as I can," Walford said, laughing in the tiny trailer kitchen.

Steak and prawns, sausage and perogies, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding -the menu is hearty and varied. Walford, who says he enjoys cooking "good-tasting, honest food for people who are actually working," spends his summers operating a North African and Middle Eastern food truck at fairs and concerts across Canada.

The mining industry is a complex entity. It provides money and jobs to rural communities, Walford said, but it also takes its toll on Mother Earth.

"The camps are like pods of our society, and the world is strewn with them all over the place as we're looking for resources to feed what we've built," he said.

"What I enjoy being a part of is making sure the people who are working up here get fed well and have a good sense of a warm place to come to when they need to be able to continue on, because guys are working hard."

Marcus Campbell, 29, is only a few weeks into his job providing maintenance work at the Russell Lake camp. Campbell, from the Patuanak region of northern Saskatchewan, recognizes the give-and-take nature of the industry.

"It's a 50/50 thing for me," he said. "Can't really do nothing about it."

Gunning says the financial trickle-down effect of the mining sector in northern Saskatchewan is obvious. Sitting in the Points North cafeteria -a place to stop over for lunch following the visit to Russell Lake and prior to heading by road to Hathor's Roughrider project -the company CEO explains his point.

Mining, drilling and camp staff make good wages. Plane and helicopter companies and their pilots are busy with flight contracts. Scientists in Saskatoon analyze core samples drilled at exploration sites. Northern hotels, restaurants and other product and service suppliers employ regional staff and provide essential goods.

"We write the cheques in Vancouver, but that's really about all that I do," Gunning said. "Everything happens here. And that's why I think the mining industry is so important for Saskatchewan.

"It's not just about the mining companies themselves, it's about all of the related work that happens around these projects."

ROUGHRIDER POTENTIAL HIGH

A 15-minute drive over a bumpy forest road and frozen McMahon Lake takes Gunning to the Roughrider site, part of the Midwest NorthEast project, from the Points North service centre. This is where in 2008 Hathor made a name for itself in the uranium mining community.

About 200 metres underground lies nearly 30 million pounds of uranium. Known as the Roughrider Deposit, 25 million pounds of the resource is at a grade of nearly 12 per cent, an above-average figure even in the prolific Athabasca Basin.

"The question with Roughrider is how big might it be because it has the right grade, it has the right depth, it has the right characteristics.," Gunning said. "We just have to keep drilling and see how big we can make it, or see how big that deposit is."

Hathor is spending $4 million to $5 million at the site this winter, working to test the Roughrider East uranium discovery. The company hopes to learn how large the eastern deposit is and whether it's connected to the original Roughrider find.

"The discovery is rare, it's above-average grade, and it really has those attributes that look like it could be a viable project for northern Saskatchewan and that, for me, is a win-win for everybody," he said.

The future of the Roughrider deposit remains unclear. Gunning expects one day it will be mined, but the specifics are unknown. Will the ore be milled at a nearby facility, or, if enough uranium is discovered at Roughrider East, will a new operation be built on site?

Will Hathor be the company to bring the project into production, or will it be bought by a larger mining firm?

With so much of the potential of the property riding on what's underground in the east region, Gunning hopes some answers come soon.

"We'll just keep our heads down, keep the drills turning, and see what we can do in 2011 on this new eastern zone," he said.

What Gunning does know is the Athabasca Basin is unlike anywhere else in the world.

"This is a world-class mining district and it's something Saskatchewan should be proud of."

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