Cheetah Resources’ Clarence Pyke, Mathew Edler and Chris Pedersen at a Nechalacho ore pile. Courtesy of Cheetah Resources/billbradenphoto

The first thing you see as the single Otter touches down on Thor Lake is a dozen or so humble, wooden cabins poking out from a spruce tree backdrop above the rocky shore. If you didn’t know better, you might think you have landed at a fishing lodge, roughly 110 kilometres southeast of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.