I do understand what you are saying about Meadowbank. No different to the example I gave of Lupin, back when it was operating, and the diamond mines (some still operating) that come off the spurs from that Ice road.

Yes the transport goes back empty most of the time and I doubt there hasn't been a lot of thought of how to make use of that unused capacity. Unfortunately for mines that doesn't seem to work very often, if at all, as the fuel and much of the other things brought in are consumables and not much goes out.
Bulk fuel doesn't need drums like the exploration camps I worked out of, and even now bladders of some sorts may be an option instead of 12-16 full drums of fuel in a twin otter or more efficient aircraft these days.
Bringing in fuel drums means an empty return flight but to operate choppers, refuel fixed wing.and heating etc mean something needs to be done. It certainly isn't cheap. Believe a gallon of fuel, on site, was worth around $7 40 years ago. Don't think it was liters back then, though might have been.

2-300 barrels per season??

The cost of the flights means that the cost of food for crews is dwarfed by that, and alaskan king crab and other delicacies were on our menu.

If things were easy then High lake, drilled out beyond scoping study (VMS 17Mt 2.2% Cu, + Au Zn credits), would likely be mining these days as it is only some 50 Kms from the coast [that doesn't have a harbour.]
Just confirming the location data shows why this was discovered fairly early on.


Suspect the yellowish areas are gossans which would be difficult to miss when flying over the area. Stick in a few holes to confirm depth extensions after taking surface grabs a la Rae. Then sits there for 50 years while passing through multiple hands a la Rae again.
MMG are the latest owners and been trying for over 5 years.

Find it and they will come goes the saying in a movie. Taking a long time.

Danvers, as currently known, is much smaller and a little further from the coast though with Kugluktuk there might be a better opportunity to upgrade some of the existing shore facilities. Major effort needed from a check on Google Earth IMO.

WCN, and others, need to show there is enough ore to justify any of these expensive options

Red Dog, in Alaska, is a booming tier 1 deposit Different league to current stranded deposits in Northern Canada and has been operating for the best part of 35 years with some 6 years remaining with an exploration resource some 10 Kms away waiting for further definition and the permits etc to come through to allow further mine life extensions.
Red Dog is ~70 Kms to the coast with probably better terrain for road construction than at the Rae project.

Detail GE image of the port facilities.



Such infrastructure is justified by a world class mine.
The large sheds are probably for concentrate storage. Useful, and needed, when only a limited shipping season
Doesn't have to be that size to warrant some variant.

WCN, and others, need to find enough to justify building some variant.

All musings for a quiet weekend while waiting to see what is announced tomorrow. Probably as flagged by some though how the market will react is going to be interesting.