A Canadian mining company says it has found high-grade gold deposits north of Glacier National Park, raising additional concerns in Montana about development in the pristine Flathead River drainage north of the border.

Max Resource Corp. drilled 26 exploration holes and dug two trenches over the summer about 10 miles north of the U.S.-Canadian border. Of the samples collected, seven holes contained gold intercepts of 2 grams per ton and six other holes had .5 to 1.86 grams per ton.

More striking, one hole turned up 19 grams per ton, with one meter-long section holding 50 grams per ton. That is well above the average ratio of 2 grams per ton for operational gold mines.

“We are extremely pleased with our initial exploration results at Crowsnest,” said Clancy Wendt, the company’s vice president of exploration.

“There are many other areas at Crowsnest where significant gold values were reported by prior operators that have never been followed up; these will be examined during the 2010 exploration program,” Wendt said in a press release recently on the company’s Web site. “We have not yet determined the full extent of gold mineralization at Crowsnest.”

Montana political leaders and conservation organizations have battled against a string of potential mining operations in the Canadian Flathead since the mid-1980s. The main concern is impacts on water quality and fisheries in Canadian headwaters to the North Fork Flathead, a river that flows south along the Glacier Park’s western boundary and on to Flathead Lake.

“We’ve known for several months that Max Resources was investigating gold sources in Howell and Cabin Creeks and early reports indicated they found high-quality material without any idea of the actual extent of the find,” said Dave Hadden, president of the Flathead Coalition and director of Headwaters Montana, two organizations that are specifically focused on the issue of mining in the Canadian Flathead.

In one sense, Hadden downplayed the company’s findings. “They have no way of knowing how extensive it is,” he said of overall gold deposits. “Mining companies can overstate. There’s a rich history of mining companies overstating what they have found.”

On the other hand, he said the simple potential for mining in the Canadian Flathead is cause for concern.

“It’s a bit alarming that the B.C. government is allowing any kind of exploration in this area where they’ve put a 10-year moratorium on any kind coal mining development,” Hadden said, referring to a moratorium the provincial government applied to the lower third of the watershed in 2004. “There’s not a lot of difference between an open-pit coal mine and a gold mine in terms of impacts on the environment.”

Politically, Hadden said there has been growing opposition to development in the Canadian Flathead, an issue that has gained a much higher profile in recent years.

“The B.C. government is very aware of the Flathead issue in terms of its sensitivity to Montana’s interest as well as their own constituents in the Fernie and Cranbrook areas,” Hadden said. “They know their constituency does not want the Flathead developed.”

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com