Share this article A vast prospective and underexplored jurisdiction Although large scale mines such as the Teck Resources Red Dog zinc mine, Hecla Mining’s Green’s Creek Mine, Coeur Mining’s Kensington gold mine, Northern Star’s Pogo and Kinross Gold’s Fort Knox all operate year round, the Arctic climate still provides formidable challenges to the smaller operator. The short summer exploration season means that much of the state remains underexplored. Nonetheless, the state still hosts over 4,440 documented gold prospects, and over 2,700 documented non-gold occurrences, including some of the world’s largest deposits. Today, over 200 million ounces of gold has been delineated, in 20 of 61 placer districts.