Snowline's rise rushes in like avalanche

Doubling its market capitalization in less than a year, Snowline Gold Corp. has swept into the big leagues of Yukon gold exploration like an avalanche. With its massive landholdings strewn across the Yukon, gold intercepts running as deep as the CN Tower is tall, some of the highest-graded holes ever drilled in the territory, and the sheer volume of discovered mineralization sparking a modern-day mini gold frenzy, Snowline is making its mark on Canada's North.

Snowline began the year with remaining results from the previous year – an interval of gold mineralization that the company could only adequately compare to the iconic CN Tower in Toronto.

"V-22-029 exceeded our expectations, intersecting strong mineralization much higher in the hole than we originally anticipated and continuing to significant depth," said Snowline Gold CEO Scott Berdahl. "It's the longest continuously mineralized interval we've drilled at Valley to date, and like many of Valley's best holes the interval begins at bedrock surface."

This hole returned 558.7 meters averaging 1.26 grams per metric ton gold, from bedrock surface.

"For perspective, I invite anybody visiting Toronto for PDAC to look at the CN Tower, which stands 553.3 meters tall, just shy of the length of this mineralized interval," he added.

Perhaps impressed by this interval, but more likely taking many factors into careful consideration, just a few weeks after reporting these results, Snowline welcomed a strategic C$19 million investment from B2Gold Corp.

"We are excited to welcome B2Gold as a growth-focused, long-term, value-driven investor," said Berdahl. "B2Gold is a major global gold producer with a strong track record of growth built on a demonstrated commitment to communities, sustainable mining and employee safety. Their interest in Snowline is a sound endorsement of the company we are building along with the quality and geological potential of our assets."

With the funding closing before the month was out, Snowline felt both confident in its project, and now its coffers, to outline a sizable 15,000-meter drill program at Rogue.

More expansion

As it began to determine its course of action for the year, Snowline wasted no time in staking more claims to fill out some of the open ground over the Rogue Plutonic Complex, the broad geological feature responsible for gold mineralization at the company's flagship Rogue project's Valley discovery, essentially expanding the property by roughly 80%.

"We know from our 2022 drill results at Valley that the Rogue Plutonic Complex has the necessary geological ingredients to produce a significant gold system," said Berdahl. "The Valley discovery highlights the geological potential of the rest of this regional-scale geological feature, where limited historical work and our own efforts have produced an abundance of intriguing results, anomalies and discoveries."

With an already expansive portfolio that spread the breadth of roughly 280,000 hectares (602,000 acres) of gold exploration properties within the Selwyn Basin near Yukon's eastern border with Northwest Territories and nearly 6,500 hectares (16,062 acres) of gold projects closer to Yukon's western border with Alaska, this latest staking suggests the confidence Snowline holds in its properties.

In addition to the expansion of the Rogue project, further strategic and targeted staking on the company's surrounding Cynthia, Einarson, and Ursa projects brought Snowline's total Yukon mineral tenure holdings to a whopping 333,900 hectares (825,085 acres).

"We have actively built, progressively and systematically, not just a first-mover position but effectively an 'only-mover' position in a fertile area that we believe has the potential to become a new gold district," said Berdahl. "We can now comprehensively and responsibly explore this area, focusing not only on advancing our existing targets but on making additional discoveries as well."

Wide Valley, other targets

Paying particular attention to Valley, 2023 drill results further cemented the quality of this emerging multi-million-oz gold deposit.

With three drills turning by early June, roughly 10,000 meters were allocated to advancing the geological understanding of Valley and to further delineate the at-surface, high-grade zone encountered in 2022.

Another 2,000 meters were targeted for the second phase of drilling at a prospect called Gracie, an inferred blind intrusion some 4,500 meters east of Valley, which the company is looking forward to unlocking.

As for the remaining 3,000 meters, Snowline allocated this toward phase-one drill programs at various targets, which the company deemed to have strong geological merit to host zones of mineralization.

Right away, however, the company cranked up the planned meterage to about 18,000 meters, with 15,000 meters alone to target Rogue.

Aside from Rogue, the exploration drilling at Gracie and others were complemented by an extensive program of stream sediment, soil, and rock sampling, as well as prospecting and geological mapping to follow up on various unexplained geochemical anomalies throughout the project.

At the time, the company stated that the proportion and total amount of drilling planned for each target, along with certain other planned surface activities, were rough working guides and were adaptable based on drill results and other observations or factors throughout the season.

Nevertheless, results from Valley outshone most of this other target work.

From best to better at Valley

Early July, the company reported a fantastic start to its 2023 program at Rogue with a wide interval of strong gold mineralization in a hole testing the boundaries of Valley.

"Our first drill hole of 2023 was drilled to test what we thought was the edge of a relatively high-grade gold corridor within the Rogue project's Valley intrusion," said Berdahl. "It ended up as Snowline's second-best drill hole to date."

Collared within the Valley intrusion, V-23-034 cut 418.3 meters averaging 1.88 g/t gold, which included a higher-grade interval of 3.08 g/t gold over 216 meters from about 109 meters downhole.

"The entire 418-meter hole is mineralized. The consistency of gold grades over large distances is remarkable. Internal intervals ranging from 15 to 25 meters in length bear higher gold grades than we have previously seen at Valley," said Berdahl. "These results highlight the discovery potential still present within and around the broad spatial footprint that we tested with sparse drilling last season."

While results returned toward the end of July continued to impress, in August the company once again reported yet another best – not only for the project but for the entire territory.

"Drill hole V-23-039 is the best drill hole reported at the Rogue project's Valley target to date, and it ranks among the best drill holes ever drilled for gold in the Yukon," said Berdahl. "Along with V-23-037 – which would have otherwise been the target's best hole – it confirms and builds upon the strong continuity and grade of the Valley gold discovery across significant distances beginning at surface."

Simply put, V-23-039 cut 553.8 meters averaging 2.48 g/t gold from bedrock surface.

Hole 039 stole the limelight from V-23-037, which cut 383.8 meters averaging 2.47 g/t gold from bedrock surface.

By this time, Snowline completed roughly 9,500 meters of its planned 15,000 for Valley.

The August results made the more than 500 meters of more than 1 g/t gold, and more than 250 meters above 2 g/t gold reported in September seem pedestrian.

"This latest round of results from our Rogue project's Valley target demonstrates high continuity of mineralization in three dimensions and adds considerable scale to the extent of the known system, which remains open," said Berdahl.

Snowline was particularly excited about the assays from holes V-23-045 and V-23-048, which returned 517.9 meters averaging 1.14 g/t gold and 265.2 meters averaging 2.2 g/t gold, respectively, from surface.

Perhaps due to acceptance of this astounding property, the assays rolling out closer to the end of October, felt like nothing could surprise any longer.

"The exceptional nature of our Rogue project's Valley target is highlighted by the observation that holes such as V-23-049 and V-23-050, with average grades of greater than one gram per metric ton gold from surface over hundreds of meters and greater than two g/t gold over broad downhole distances, are proving to be commonplace and very consistent across a large geographical footprint," said Berdahl.

The mineralized interval of 049 spanned the entire hole, averaging 1.2 g/t gold over 539.4 meters downhole from bedrock surface at 6.3 meters, including a 151.5-meter downhole run from 142 meters averaging 2.41 g/t gold, with a 10.5-meter hotspot averaging 4.67 g/t gold from 201.5 meters.

Hole 050 cut 423.3 meters averaging 1.08 g/t gold.

With hole after hole returning hundreds of meters of a gram or more of gold per metric ton, Snowline could only express how impressed they were with the continuity of its property at this time, as the more than 22,000 meters drilled across six gold targets at Rogue turned into a definitive banner year for this gold explorer.

In October, the company once more reported drill intercepts of 379.2 meters averaging 1.45 g/t gold and 359.4 meters of 1.34 g/t gold.

The fact that these long intercepts are the rule and not the exception speaks to how remarkable a mineralized body Snowline is outlining at Valley.

"The latest results from our Rogue project's Valley target further de-risk the discovery, adding to the known footprint of near-surface gold mineralization and demonstrating strong consistency of higher gold grades," said Berdahl. "Intervals of hundreds of metres averaging greater than one gram per tonne gold or even multiple grams per tonne gold have not only become the norm at Valley but are without exception among 32 holes drilled to date within a core area spanning up to 600 meters by up to 400 meters in the western part of the intrusion. This consistency results in higher efficiency and reduced risk in exploration, as well as in subsequent deposit modelling, in project development, and ultimately in responsibly and cost-effectively producing gold."

As Snowline enters 2024, perhaps a maiden resource estimate is the only thing that could top a year as fulfilling as 2023.