Saskatoon  - Gold miner trapped

Lana Haight, with files from James Woods, Jeanette Stewartand David Hutton, The search for a miner trapped in a northern Saskatchewan gold mine continues more than 36 hours after an industrial accident on Tuesday.
"We are not currently aware of his personal status and under those circumstances are approaching this on the assumption that he survived the accident," Claude Resources Inc. president and CEO Neil McMillan said Wednesday afternoon.

The man trapped in Claude's Seabee mine, 125 kilometres northeast of La Ronge, has been identified as 29-year-old Cory Braaten of Birch Hills.
McMillan would not confirm Braaten's identity, but he did say the trapped miner has worked various jobs at the mine for about 10 years and has been a member of a mine rescue team.
McMillan, who arrived at the fly-in mine site on Wednesday morning, is providing little information about the accident scene and the ongoing rescue operation.

All underground mining has been suspended at the Seabee mine, which has about 130 employees. Between 30 and 45 are underground miners, but the missing man was working alone, a common practice at the Seabee mine, said McMillan.
The miner has been trapped since late Tuesday afternoon.

Supervisors were alerted that he was missing when either he did not exit the mine after his shift, which began at 6:30 a.m., or he and his supervisor did not connect at a routine safety check which happens every two hours.

The rescue effort began Tuesday between 5 and 5:30 p.m.
"We discovered the accident, we think, relatively quickly and immediately initiated (a) very well-established and highly practiced sequence of initiatives to identify the accident scene, locate the individual that's involved and initiate rescue activities," McMillan said in a conference call with reporters.

McMillan would not confirm if the man was trapped by a cave-in.
"We don't know for certain, yet, what exactly happened, and at this point, I'm not prepared to speculate."
He also wouldn't say what is preventing rescuers from reaching the trapped miner.

"I'm not going to speculate on exactly what the challenges are. The mine rescue team is intensely focused on the task in front of them. They're highly experienced and very good at what they're doing.

We're working at it intensely, non-stop. Every resource that's available is involved."
It's "very obvious" the miner is not holed up in one of the many refuge stations located throughout the 12 levels of the underground mine, which at its deepest point is 850 metres below the surface, said McMillan.

It took about a day for the news of Tuesday's accident involving Braaten to circulate throughout Birch Hills, population 985, where he has lived his entire life.
"He's a fine young fellow," said Birch Hills Mayor Gord Dyck.
"He just bought a house and got married here last summer," he said, adding Braaten's wife is expecting a baby.

The town is rallying behind the family.
"We are a community that helps each other as much as we can. Our thoughts and prayers go out to him.

We're going to give them all the support we can," said Dyck.