Mark Selby and Steve Balch stood over a laptop, watching as their in-house algorithm stitched together the geophysical data and maps. After a long pause, twenty targets on the screen lit up.

What they saw changed everything.

In 2019, Selby — now CEO of Canada Nickel (TSXV: CNC, OTCQX: CNIKF) — had almost dismissed the Crawford deposit north of Timmins, assuming it was another small, high-grade target hyped during nickel booms. But this was different.

Balch, Canada Nickel’s VP of Exploration and a seasoned geophysicist, had developed a proprietary method, his “secret sauce”, to decode magnetic data and predict the scale and quality of nickel deposits with 70–80% accuracy.

They blended datasets from Crawford, Dumont, and historic surveys held by the Quebec and Ontario governments. Nickel often forms in clusters, and they believed the key lay in connecting the data.

“We knit the geophysics maps together, tuning them to highlight magnetic anomalies that matched our existing projects—to create a magic map,” Mark Selby says.

This wasn’t guesswork. They meticulously cross-referenced these “magic map” findings with historical drilling records available through Ontario and Quebec’s public claim maintenance system. Many targets had been drilled in the 1940s–60s by companies like Inco or asbestos firms—who never assayed for nickel.

The “magic map” led to the Reid discovery — now one of Canada Nickel’s most promising assets — identified using only public data and hitting nickel in all of the first 16 drill holes.

The entire, sprawling acquisition of these 20-plus targets — spanning 42 square kilometres, 25 times the size of Crawford’s original geophysical footprint — unfolded discreetly during the COVID-19 pandemic. For 18 months, Canada Nickel worked behind the scenes, consolidating land through 35 to 40 deals with prospectors, estates, and other mining companies before publicly announcing their ambition.

This strategic discovery positions Canada Nickel as a formidable player, boasting the largest nickel deposit in North America. 

And not before time.

Since the Voisey’s Bay discovery in 1993, there hasn’t been another major high-grade nickel sulphide discovery of comparable scale in North America. This absence has created a significant gap in the development pipeline for nickel supply.

This has been offset by the massive ramp up of supply from Indonesia — approx 60% of global supply in 2024 — but demand from electric batteries (50% of batteries produced in 2023 using high-nickel chemistries) and global economic growth (aka stainless steel, aerospace, data centers, etc) has meant significant volatility in the market.

Despite a two-year correction from a sharp spike in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, prices are trading approx double, relative to 2016.

And there are signs the market is tightening again with electric battery demand rising and ore grades falling in Indonesia and the country looking to maximise value by limiting supply and raising prices.

“Prices in Indonesia for nickel ore with 1.6pc nickel content and 35pc moisture rose to about $53/wet metric tonne (wmt) cif main production hub in May, rising further from the $44/wmt in January, mostly driven by a stronger premium” — Indonesian nickel ore prices rise on tight supply, Argus Media

Geopolitics is also intruding urgently as governments across the West look to diversify and secure supply from Indonesia (where Chinese companies control approx 75% of Indonesia’s nickel refining capacity). 

Canada, with its established mining infrastructure and skilled workforce is emerging as a strategic supplier of choice. 

The Crawford Project is located in north of Timmins, Ontario, with good infrastructure links — and it also recognised as one of Ontario’s five critical minerals priority and nation-building projects. This recognition is expected to help leverage further funding from the government, particularly from the new CAD$500 million Critical Minerals Processing Fund created by the province.

Canada Nickel has recently raised CAD$19.4 million in aggregate gross proceeds from private placements in 2025, as well as securing investments from prominent players, including Agnico Eagle (10.2% stake), Samsung SDI (8.1% stake), Anglo American (7.1% stake), and the Taykwa Tagamou Nation (8.0% on conversion). Notably, the CAD$20 million investment from Ontario’s Taykwa Tagamou Nation is believed to be the largest ever by a First Nations group into a mining company, signifying strong local support. 

The Crawford Poject is advancing at a “near modern-day record” according to Mark Selby, with expectations the company will receive the federal permit before the end of 2025.

Selby and Balch’s “magic map” showed where X marks the spot. Now it’s time to dig up the treasure.