Strong start to gold exploration in 2022

Dozens of prospectors and junior mining companies are trekking into the bush in Yukon Territory this field season, seeking the next big pot of gold in a fabled land rich with possibilities.

Leading the charge is White Gold Corp., which initiated 7,500 meters of drilling, including 5,000 meters of diamond drilling, 1,000 meters of reverse circulation drilling and 1,500 meters of rotary air blast drilling.

The 2022 exploration program began with diamond drilling at the Ryan's Surprise and Ulli's Ridge targets on the White Gold property in Yukon's White Gold district. The targets occur in the southern part of a 6.5-kilometer- (four miles) long north-northwest gold-arsenic geochemical trend. This highly prospective Ryan's Trend is only about 2,000 meters west of the company's flagship Golden Saddle and Arc deposits, which have a combined mineral resource of 1.14 million ounces indicated averaging 2.28 grams per metric ton gold and 402,100 oz inferred at 1.39 g/t gold.

The work is part of White Gold's C$6 million exploration program for 2022 on its extensive and underexplored 350,000-hectare (865,000 acres) land package in the White Gold District, supported by the junior's strategic partners, including Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp.

White Gold CEO David D'Onofrio June 13 said initial exploration will evaluate extensions of a high-grade mineralized zone encountered in 2021 and additionally test the gap area between Ryan's Surprise and Ulli's Ridge, with the goal of further expanding the large footprint of mineralization encountered to date.

Diamond drilling is also scheduled on the Betty property to follow up on a 2021 high-grade discovery (3.46 g/t gold over 50 meters in hole BETFD21D003) and to conduct maiden diamond drilling at other targets nearby. D'Onofrio said details of the junior's other 2022 exploration plans will be released in the coming weeks.

In April, White Gold reported that soil geochemistry surveys carried out in 2021 on its Hayes and Pilot properties identified significant copper, gold, and other multi-element soil anomalies. The Hayes and Pilot properties are located within the southern portion of the company's land package.

Hayes is contiguous with the Betty property about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Western Copper and Gold Corp.'s Casino giant copper-gold porphyry deposit (measured and indicated resources of 14.8 million oz gold and 7.6 billion pounds copper and inferred resources of 6.3 million oz gold and 3.1 billion lb copper).

The Pilot property is located 55 kilometers (34 miles) southwest of Newmont Corp.'s Coffee gold deposit (2.17 million oz gold in measured and indicated resources and 500,000 oz gold in the inferred resource category).

Observing that 100% of the significant grassroots discoveries made in the White Gold District initially were identified through soil sampling, Terry Brace, White Gold's vice president of exploration, said, "Our regional exploration program normally constitutes a significant portion of our annual exploration budget and has continued to identify prospective new targets across our large district scale land package.

"Given the lack of rock outcrop and the unglaciated terrane in this part of the Yukon, soil sampling has proven to be an extremely effective early-stage exploration tool as demonstrated by these latest results. Our goal is to continually add new targets to our exploration pipeline and advance those of merit to the drill-ready stage," Brace added.

Longtime explorers return

Seasoned gold explorers in Yukon with exploration programs underway in early June include Western Copper and Gold Corp.

The junior's 2022 exploration program, developed in collaboration with Rio Tinto under a 2021 investor agreement, includes exploration drilling of a target identified in 2009 and better defined in 2018. The target is a deep magnetotelluric low-resistivity geophysical anomaly initially identified by a Titan induced polarization-magnetotelluric survey, and better defined by data reprocessing.

The anomaly trends northeast to southwest and is 1,300 meters long and 500 meters wide. It is expected to be encountered at a depth of about 800 meters. An equally extensive induced polarization anomaly lies above and northwest of the MT anomaly.

Historical drill holes that penetrated that anomaly contained low-grade copper and gold values. A second deep drill hole will target an area located about 175 meters to the southwest and is contingent on the results of the first drill hole.

Western Copper and Gold also plans to continue studying 50,000 meters of historical drill core, using a robotic scanning device with a primary focus on standardizing rock types drilled throughout all its programs.

At Victoria Gold Corp.'s Dublin Gulch property, home of Eagle, Yukon's sole producing gold mine, plans are underway to follow up on encouraging 2021 results with a 2022 exploration program at the nearby Raven project. Work will include 20,000 meters of diamond drilling, 10 kilometers (six miles) of surface trenching, expanded soil geochemistry tests and detailed structural/geological mapping and prospecting.

The 2021 exploration program at Raven was designed to build upon a previously defined strike length of 750 meters. This year, Victoria is targeting an inaugural mineral resource estimate for Raven.

"Raven continues to produce high-grade gold intervals with continuity across a greatly expanded 1.3-kilometer strike length," said John McConnell, Victoria's president, and CEO, adding, "Importantly, it is our intention to fast track Raven development with a focused two-kilometer drilling program in 2022."

Early exploration underway

A crowd of juniors and prospectors, including winners of 27 mining incentive grants from the Yukon government in 2022, have tackled early-stage exploration across the territory this year with prospecting, target evaluations and follow-up programs.

Sitka Gold Corp. reported assay results from diamond drilling completed during the company's 2022 winter exploration program at its 376-square-kilometer (145 square miles) RC gold project in the Tombstone Gold Belt. Four diamond drill holes were completed on the property during a 2022 winter program for a total of 1,243 meters. Drilling has resumed at the RC project, which is situated midway between the Eagle and Brewery Creek gold mines.

The RC Gold Project land package comprises five underlying properties, namely, the RC, Bee Bop, Mahtin, Clear Creek, and Barney Ridge properties and shares a common border with Victoria Gold's Clear Creek property at its western boundary and Florin Resources' Florin Gold property at its northern boundary.

Sitka Gold recently identified a 500-meter by 2,000-meter intrusion-related gold system on the property at the Saddle Eiger zone, having drilled 23 diamond drill holes into this system during the 2020, 2021, and 2022 seasons that returned several significant gold intercepts. These include the discovery hole in the Blackjack zone, which intersected 220.1 meters averaging 1.17 g/t gold from surface, including 50.5 meters of 2.08 g/t gold.

This hole is the westernmost hole drilled in the Saddle-Eiger trend under a greater than 500 part-per-billion gold-in-soil anomaly previously identified on surface that is part of the larger 2,000-by-500-meter gold-in-soil anomaly that stretches from the Saddle Zone to the Eiger Zone and is open in all directions.

Drilling in 2021 in the Eiger Zone in the easternmost area of the gold-in-soil anomaly produced numerous significant intersections, including in Hole 9, which intersected 354 meters of 0.41 g/t gold including 72 meters grading 0.72 g/t gold.

Sitka Gold said recent exploration and analysis of historical data also defined several mineralized zones with both bulk tonnage, intrusion-related gold deposit targets and high-grade, vein- and breccia-hosted gold targets.

Snowline Gold Corp. reported June 13 that it has intersected mineralization from bedrock surface in its first hole of 2022, drilled at the Rogue Project's Valley Zone.

"Hole V-22-005 was designed to get a better sense of the width of the sheeted quartz vein arrays that constitute the Valley Zone," said Snowline CEO Scott Berdahl. "That we encountered mineralization at surface is encouraging, as this expands the known surface width of the Valley zone by roughly 150 meters, and the width remains open."

The junior said geological setting and style of mineralization at the Valley zone demonstrate the presence of a bulk tonnage gold target, with similarities to Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine in Alaska and Victoria Gold's Eagle Mine in the Yukon. An 800-meter phase-one drill program conducted in September encountered broad zones of gold mineralization in all four holes drilled.

Valley is one of at least five bulk-tonnage gold targets present on Snowline's Rogue project, according to Berdahl. The Gracie target, roughly four kilometers (2.5 miles) to the east, covers a 5,100-meter gold-in-soil and talus fine anomaly above an unexposed felsic intrusion.

Berdahl said mineralization at Gracie is thought to be like that at Valley, and phase 1 drilling will commence at Gracie in mid-season 2022 following surface work to identify viable targets.

St. James Gold Corp. reported an interpretation of digital data from a satellite image across the project area at its Florin Project, located in the Mayo District of Yukon that indicates several anomalies prospective for gold may be located near its inferred resource of 2.47 million oz averaging 0.45 g/t gold, with a 0.3 g/t gold cut-off. The junior said it will continue to prospect and take samples in the area to identify potential drill targets aimed at possibly increasing its inferred resource ounces.