Keno City, Yukon
Encyclopedia
Keno City is a small community in the Yukon
Yukon
Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....

 at the end of the Silver Trail
Silver Trail
The Silver Trail connects the communities of Mayo, Elsa and Keno City with the Klondike Highway at Stewart Crossing, where that highway crosses the Stewart River....

 highway. Population was about 20 in 2001. Keno City was the site of a former silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

-lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

 mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 area proximal to Keno Hill. Keno City is 13 kilometres away from the Elsa, Yukon
Elsa, Yukon
Elsa is a privately owned mining town based on silver, lead, and zinc in Yukon, Canada. It is located between the valley of the Stewart River to the south and the Mackenzie Mountains to the north. It is to the north of Whitehorse, and east of the Alaskan border...

, which is owned by Alexco Resource Corp who currently own and operate the various Ag-Pb-Zn deposits in the Keno Hill area. Rich silver and lead ore
Ore
An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....

 deposits were found on Keno Hill in 1919, and since then the population of the community has fluctuated in response to the mining activity in the area. When in 1989 United Keno Hill closed the mines, literally overnight, the people in the Keno area who decided to stay chose a more sustainable economy: tourism. They successfully marketed Keno City as the quiet, tranquil community.
Keno City was named after the gambling game Keno
Keno
Keno is a lottery or bingo gambling game often played at modern casinos, and is also offered as a game in some state lotteries. A traditional live casino keno game uses a circular glass enclosure called a "bubble" containing 80 balls which determine the ball draw result. Each ball is imprinted...

 popular in mining camps at the turn of the 20th century.
A small placer mining operation is behind Keno City, indicating the present support for active disturbance of earth materials through mining in the vicinity of Keno City. Some people believe that fewer materials will be moved through the new Alexco proposal than have been moved by placer mining around Keno City. The issue, however, is not the amount of material being moved but the placing of an industrial facility (crusher/mill/tailings) close to a residential community.

Keno City has also developed some tourism-based businesses, and its attraction is the Keno Mining Museum with an extensive collection dedicated to the history of mining in the Yukon from the early 1900's until the present. The signpost on the top of Keno Hill showing distances to places around the world.

Keno City is located at Mile 69.1 of the Silver Trail, Yukon Highway 11.

The 2004 Kim Barlow
Kim Barlow
Kim Barlow is a Canadian folk music singer-songwriter, based in Whitehorse, Yukon.- Biography :Born in Montreal on March 10, 1969, and raised in rural Nova Scotia, she studied classical guitar at Florida State University before moving to the Yukon....

album Luckyburden is about Keno City. Two tracks are recorded live at the Keno City Snackbar.

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With the property abandoned by the previous owners, and mounting environmental impacts due to metal laden water coming from mine adits, in 2006 the Federal Government sold the assets of former United Keno Hill Mines through the Supreme Court to an Alexco Resource Corp. (Vancouver based mining company) subsidiary for $410,000. Alexco now became the 100% owner of the Yukon Keno Hill Silver district (23,350 hectares hosting 35 prior producing mines, its own private town of Elsa, and the infrastructure), with a requirement to stop the environmental degradation and a contract to clean up past impacts. With this deal Alexco also became the sole-source clean-up contractor to the Government of Canada in charge to clean up the environmental mess left by former mining activities (estimated $60+ millions of taxpayer's monies).

In 2009 Alexco decided to resume silver mining in the district. Many residents of Keno City have opposed a proposal by Alexco to build the crusher/mill and tailing facility less than one kilometer from their homes in Keno City, YT which will significantly impact this quiet small community. The ore was historically processed in Elsa, which is located approximately 13 km away from Keno City. Despite local objections in regards to the closeness of the mill and tailings facilities this proposal was recommended to proceeed subject to specified terms and conditions by the Mayo Designated Office of Yukon Socio-Economic Assessment board(YESAB). The Yukon's Department of Energy, Mines and Resources (EMR) issued the Quartz Mining Licence in November 2009. Unfortunately most of the conditions and terms are at the discretion of Alexco because there is no regulatory body in Keno City to enforce these conditions. While some residents of Keno continue to oppose the mill location, support for the project includes the local community of Mayo and the First Nation of Nacho Nyak Dun. First Nation of Nacho Nyak Dun as well as residents of Mayo live 60 km away from the mill plant. Recent test runs of just the ball mill have shown noise levels of 50- 55 dbA.

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