The Moose River gold mining region of Nova Scotia in Canada is experiencing a modern gold rush, with pockets of gold harvested from surface mining where deep-mine production once reigned.

Atlantic Gold Corp. is confident the company's Moose River Consolidated Project will be able to extract 87,000 ounces of gold from its Touquoy mine when operations are running full tilt in September.

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Another gold-prospecting firm, Newfoundland-based Anaconda Mining Inc., acquired a gold mine in Goldboro, 115 miles northeast of Halfax, with plans to mine and ship ore from the site to its processing facility in Newfoundland.

The means by which the gold is being extracted has changed dramatically.

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Geologists for the mining concerns are pursuing tiny specks of the metal from the folds of what they refer to as “host” rock that held the quartz, instead of infiltrating the quartz veins that characterize gold mines underground.

The Moose River operations are open pits of varying sizes that are subjected to multiple daily explosions to break up tons of ore than are eventually crushed into small pieces and exposed to chemical leaching to draw out the gold.

The surface mining method relies on moving tens of thousands of tons of ore, sophisticated crushing equipment that keep costs down and close proximity to ports and cities for transport and processing.

And, of course, a strong gold price doesn't hurt, either.

Provincial licenses to mine for gold in the region climbed from 259 covering roughly 86,500 acres, to 417 licenses spanning nearly 240,000 acres in 2016.