Defining, expanding Johnson Tract gold

HighGold Mining Inc. Sept. 23 provided details of the 2,000-meter drill program at its flagship Johnson Tract gold project in Southcentral Alaska.

In late August, HighGold initiated an eight- to 10-hole diamond drill program aimed at confirming, defining and expanding the main Johnson Tract deposit.

The Johnson Tract has significant historical exploration, including 88 holes primarily targeting the main Johnson tract deposit.

Under a joint venture with Cook Inlet Region Inc., an Alaska Native regional corporation more commonly known as CIRI, Anaconda Minerals discovered the Johnson Tract deposit with a 1982 hole that cut 102.6 meters grading 10.94 grams per metric ton gold, 8.01 percent zinc, 0.75 percent copper, 2.13 percent lead and 8.5 g/t silver.

A 50-meter section of this high-grade discovery intercept averaged 20 g/t gold, 9.4 percent zinc, 1 percent copper, 2.8 percent lead and 12.7 g/t silver.

Other highlighted intercepts from drilling the Johnson Tract deposit include: 71.4 meters of 20.94 g/t gold, 5.21 percent zinc, 1.23 percent copper, 1.51 percent lead and 9.81 g/t silver; 99.7 meters of 10.07 g/t gold, 6.34 percent zinc, 0.9 percent copper, 1.27 percent lead and 6.68 g/t silver; and 112.2 meters of 10.34 g/t gold, 5.01 percent zinc, 0.66 percent copper, 1.48 percent lead and 6.35 g/t silver.

This drilling outlined a 25- to 50-meter thick vertical lens of high-grade mineralization that runs to a depth of 275 meters before running into a fault that offsets a continuation of this mineralization.

In 1994, Wetmin Resources Ltd. studied the economics of shipping ore from Johnson Tract to its Premier Mine in British Columbia for processing.

A historical resource calculated in conjunction with Westmin's study outlined 1.04 million metric tons of resource in the Johnson Tract deposit averaging 10.05 g/t gold, 7.63 g/t silver, 8.32 percent zinc, 0.75 percent copper and 1.13 percent lead.

As rich as this deposit was, metal prices at the time did not support shipping the ore across the Gulf of Alaska for processing and Westmin relinquished its lease on the CIRI-owned property in 1997 and there has been no commercial exploration there until HighGold Mining.

The holes drilled this fall will be combined with the historical drill results and generate the first resource estimation that meets modern NI 43-101 reporting standards, slated for completion in the first quarter of 2020.

The 2019 program will also include mapping, prospecting and sampling at other prospect areas identified across a 7.5-mile span of the 21,000-acre property.

The details of HighGold's 2019 program at Johnson Tract comes on the first day of the company's shares being listed on the TSX Venture Exchange.

This listing comes on the heels of a C$7.65 million financing that drew significant investments from Rob McEwen, Sprott, a senior North American gold producer and others.

"We are extremely pleased to begin trading on the TSX Venture Exchange and would like to thank all those who demonstrated their support in HighGold's board and management team and exceptional exploration assets by providing our initial working capital," said HighGold Mining President and CEO Darwin Green. "This is an exciting time to be launching a new gold exploration company that focuses specifically on high-grade mineralization as the energy returns to the gold industry."

In addition to Johnson Tract, HighGold's portfolio includes the Munro-Croesus, Golden Perimeter and Golden Mile gold projects in Ontario's Timmins region.

"While the historic Croesus Mine last produced in the 1930s, it yielded some of the highest-grade gold mined to date in Ontario and warrants systematic modern exploration," said Green.

–SHANE LASLEY