Subscriber Insider

Revelations and ruminations

Author

Mark Doremus
November 18, 2025

In This Issue

  • Content Drop: The Back Forty is back (maybe)

  • Personal Note: Who am I? (perhaps you were wondering)

  • Curated Content: Developer shows off site work at the Copperwood mine

  • Coming Attractions

  • Tell Your Friends!

Content Drop

Gold Resource Plans to Resume Work on Proposed Back Forty Mine

First posted Nov. 5, 2025, at https://www.facebook.com/906report

Improvements in its financial condition have enabled Gold Resource Corp. to renew efforts to permit and finance the proposed Back Forty mine in Menominee County, Michigan, CEO Allen Palmiere said in a Nov. 5 investor conference call.

Most of the call was spent talking about the anticipated return to profitability of the company’s Don David mine in Mexico.

However, in a brief aside, Palmiere said, “lack of capital has prevented us from advancing the [Back Forty] project. With the improvements at our mine in Mexico, we are now able to fund the permitting process and complete a feasibility study, advancing this exceptional project towards a production decision.”

“We will expect this work will commence in the next couple of months,” Palmiere said.

The Back Forty is a proposed open-pit and underground mine that’s been in the works for the past 20 years. It would be located on a pristine stretch of the Menominee River west of Stephenson, Michigan.

Aquila Resources, Inc., spent more than $100 million trying to develop the project, but gave up and sold out to Gold Resource Corp. in 2021.

Since then, the Back Forty initiative has sputtered due to Gold Resource’s financial losses at the Don David gold mine in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Now, an anticipated return to profitability at the Don David mine seems to have allowed the company to renew its efforts to permit and finance the Back Forty.

Personal Note: Who Am I?

I’m not big into “branding.”

However, it’s dawned on me that a little personal info will help you judge my credibility.

So here goes.

  • I am a former television news reporter, now retired

  • I have a law degree from the University of Wisconsin

  • I have a second home in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

  • I have been writing and making short films about mines and the environment since 2015

  • You can see my reporting at https://www.facebook.com/906report

  • You can learn more about me at https://coldtype.org/

  • I make zero money from any of this; I do it because, well, it’s what I do (once a journalist, always a journalist)

Curated Content: Copperwood Developer Touts “Sustainable Development” at Mine Site

Highland Copper Company, Inc., wants you to know that it “deeply respects and values the natural beauty and ecological integrity of Michigan’s western Upper Peninsula,” where it’s working to develop the proposed Copperwood mine.

Coming Attractions

I journeyed to Wakefield, Michigan, in late October to take a guided tour of the Copperwood project. Representatives of the mine developer, Highland Copper, wanted me to see their efforts to restore disrupted streams and wetlands at the site.

I posted a report about the preliminary site work. I also asked a lot of questions and got some answers I want to share with my readers.

My next trip report, coming soon-ish, is about the potential of the Copperwood mine to generate acid mine drainage.

Tell Your Friends!

If (as I hope) you find The906Report to be a useful resource, may I ask a favor?

Please encourage your friends and relatives to subscribe to this (always free) newsletter about mines, the environment and Upper Peninsula-oriented miscellany.

A large subscriber base is leverage for me as a reporter. If I have a big audience, politicians and corporate officials will find it harder to ignore me when I contact them for information.

Plus, I’ll have an added incentive to keep doing this work!

Thanks in advance for your support.