There’s a moment in any exploration story when the rock starts talking — and at Howells Lake in northwestern Ontario, it’s saying something the defence industry very much wants to hear. Critical One Energy has drilled its first modern hole at the project and pulled up visible stibnite, the ore mineral of antimony, from near surface across roughly 100 metres. In a world increasingly anxious about supply chains for metals that keep missiles guided and batteries running, that’s not a small thing.
Antimony has been quietly climbing the list of metals that governments lose sleep over. China dominates global production, and Western nations have been scrambling to identify domestic alternatives. That geopolitical pressure has given new urgency to projects like Howells Lake — the kind of early-stage prospect that might have drawn a shrug a decade ago but now commands serious attention from both investors and policy makers. For Northwestern Ontario, a region that has long understood its wealth lies beneath the ground, this is another reminder that the next chapter of the mining story here may look very different from the last.
The Howells Lake result is early, and the work of proving up a resource is long and unforgiving. But visible mineralization from near surface in the first modern hole is the kind of opening line that makes geologists lean forward. As Canada deepens its critical minerals strategy and defence-linked metals gain momentum, Northwestern Ontario finds itself holding cards that the world is only beginning to appreciate. Click here to read the full story.