The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2024 - January 15, 2025
Native silver and argentite (silver sulfide mineral) in core from an 8.1-meter intercept of Wolf Vein averaging 725 g/t silver.
Dolly Varden Silver CEO Shawn Khunkhun attributes the company's success to the crews on the ground at Kitsault Valley.
The consolidated Kitsault Valley project includes the silver-rich Dolly Varden deposits at the south end and the more gold-forward Homestake deposits to the north.
The Wolf and Torbrit silver deposit trend toward each other and are believed to be connected at depth.
Since bringing Shawn Khunkhun onboard as CEO in 2020, Dolly Varden Silver Corp. has raised roughly C$124 million ($88 million), substantially expanded its land position and precious metals resources at the southern tip of British Columbia's Golden Triangle, and completed more than 135,000 meters of drilling across its Kitsault Valley silver-gold project. As a result, the company's market capitalization has rocketed 1,500% to over $300 million over the past four years.
"This is a company that has been growing – the shareholders that got behind me on day-one are up over 400%," Khunkhun informed attendees of the 2024 Precious Metals Summit in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
The Dolly Varden CEO is proud of the company's entire team – especially the boots-on-the-ground members that have led the successful exploration and stakeholder engagement programs for the company.
"They are the people that get up every day looking to expand and extend mineralization, they are looking to tell the story and share it throughout the world," he said.
This story includes outlining roughly 64 million ounces of silver and nearly 1 million oz of gold in all resource categories in seven high-grade deposits across its 163-square-kilometer (63 square miles) Kitsault Valley project about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Stewart, British Columbia.
To build upon this precious metal inventory, especially silver, Dolly Varden carried out a 31,726-meter drill program at some of the most compelling high-grade deposits at Kitsault Valley.
When Khunkhun joined Dolly Varden, the company was focused on building deposits around four historic mines – Torbrit, Dolly Varden, Wolf, and North Star.
In 2022, however, the company substantially expanded its land package through the purchase of the neighboring Homestake Ridge gold-silver project from Fury Gold Mines.
The consolidated Kitsault Valley project includes the silver-rich Dolly Varden deposits at the south end and the more gold-forward Homestake deposits to the north.
Based on a resource calculated before the start of the 2023 exploration season, the four deposits at the Dolly Varden end of Kitsault Valley hosted 3.42 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 299.8 grams per metric ton (32.93 million oz) silver; plus 1.29 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 277 g/t (11.45 million oz) silver.
Homestake Ridge, which lies 5.5 kilometers (3.5 miles) northwest of the northernmost Dolly Varden deposit, hosts three deposits with 736,000 metric tons of indicated resource averaging 7.02 g/t (165,993 oz) gold and 74.8 g/t (1.8 million oz) silver; plus 5.55 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 4.58 g/t (816,719 oz) gold and 100 g/t (17.8 million oz) silver.
In addition to an immediate expansion of resource from the three deposits already outlined at Homestake Ridge – Homestake Main, Homestake Silver, and South Ridge – the acquisition opened up the highly-prospective Kitsault Valley trend between the gold-rich Homestake Ridge deposits and silver-rich Dolly Varden deposits for exploration.
The 2024 drilling on the consolidated Kitsault Valley project focused primarily on resource expansion drilling at Homestake Silver, which lies at the southern end of the Homestake Ridge resources, and Wolf, the northernmost deposit on the Dolly Varden end of the Kitsault trend.
Khunkhun said the overarching goal for Dolly Varden is to add 50-million-ounce-plus silver deposits with grades topping 500 g/t.
Hosting 2.6 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 297 g/t (25 million oz) silver, plus 1.2 million metric ton of inferred resource averaging 278 g/t (10.6 million oz) silver, Torbrit is by far the largest deposit outlined so far on the Dolly Varden side of the Kitsault Valley land package.
"The question I had when I came into the company, "how many Torbrits are on the land package?" Khunkhun said.
Toward finding the answer that question, crews completed 15,545 meters of drilling in 41 holes last year on the silver-rich Dolly Varden end of the Kitsault Valley project.
Much of this drilling targeted expansions of the Wolf Vein, a deposit about 1,400 meters north of Torbrit that Dolly Varden geologists believe may have the scale that the CEO is seeking.
Going into the 2023 drill season, Wolf hosted 402,000 metric tons of indicated resource averaging 297 g/t (2.1 million oz) silver, plus 9,500 metric tons of inferred resource averaging 231 g/t (70,000 oz) silver.
While currently only about 10% the size of a Torbrit, drilling completed over the past two years indicates that Wolf could be much larger and higher-grade.
"We are optimistic that the Wolf deposit has the potential to rival Torbrit and to be the next big, pure, primary, high-grade silver deposit," said Khunkhun
Highlights from the 2023 drilling at Wolf include:
• 18.1 meters averaging 246 g/t silver in hole DV23-352.
• 29.3 meters averaging 381 g/t silver in hole DV23-368.
• 27 meters averaging 296 g/t silver, 3.01% zinc, and 1.68% lead in hole DV23-375.
• 18.2 meters averaging 247 g/t silver, 0.73% zinc, and 0.4% lead in hole DV23-379.
These results got better as the company drilled deeper extensions of the deposit in 2024; highlights include:
• 9.4 meters averaging 1,091 g/t silver, 1.4% zinc, and 1.35% lead in hole DV24-404.
• 27.2 meters averaging 513 g/t silver, 1.82% zinc, and 2.95% lead in hole DV24-408.
• 6.2 meters averaging 606 g/t silver, 1.43% zinc, and 0.61% lead in hole DV24-412.
• 3.8 meters averaging 771 g/t silver, 2.29% zinc, and 2.93% lead in hole DV24-414.
• 21.5 meters averaging 654 g/t silver, 0.57% zinc, and 0.47% lead in hole DV24-416.
"The Wolf Vein continues to deliver exceptional silver grades, often with significant base metal values and strong native silver mineralization over potentially bulk-mineable widths," the Dolly Varden CEO said.
There are also indications that Wolf and Torbrit are connected at depth. The Torbrit deposit plunges north toward Wolf and drilling of the most northern Torbrit zone (Kitsol) has cut above resource grade silver mineralization.
The Wolf and Torbrit silver deposit trend toward each other and are believed to be connected at depth.
Highlights from 2023 drilling at Kitsol include:
• 18 meters averaging 342 g/t silver in hole DV23-336.
• 9.6 meters averaging 496 g/t silver in hole DV23-337.
This is similar to the increasing grades cut at Wolf as it plunges south toward Kitsol.
The 2024 drilling continues to extend Wolf Vein closer to Kitsol.
Last year's drilling also continued to explore Moose Vein, a discovery made in 2023 that extends Dolly Varden-style silver deposits up the Kitsault Valley Trend toward Homestake Ridge.
The mineralization at Moose is remarkably similar to Wolf, which lies about 1,400 meters to the south.
Highlights from 2023 and 2024 drilling at Moose Vein include:
• 7.55 meters averaging 269 g/t silver in hole DV23-371.
• Five meters averaging 977 g/t silver in hole DV24-387.
"These excellent results from the first hole at the Moose Vein from the 2024 program exhibits similar geological and mineralization features to the Wolf deposit located 1,400 meter south, suggests that this area has potential to emerge into the northernmost silver deposit along the five-kilometer-long trend that also hosts the Dolly Varden, Torbit and North Star deposits," said Khunkhun.
As drills traced Dolly Varden-style silver mineralization north, others continued to expand Homestake Silver, a deposit toward the north end of Kitsault Valley with strong silver mineralization and a high-grade gold core.
According to the early 2023 calculation, Homestake Silver hosts 3.35 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 3.13 g/t (337,000 oz) gold and 146 g/t (15.7 million oz) silver.
Drilling since the resource was calculated has tapped into a zone with bonanza gold and silver grades.
Highlights from 2023 Homestake Silver drilling include:
• 93.95 meters averaging 1.74 g/t gold and 213 g/t silver in hole HR23-416, including 9.16 meters averaging 13.16 g/t gold and 3,085 g/t silver.
• 79.2 meters averaging 2.57 g/t gold and 102 g/t silver in hole HR23-419, including 9.22 meters averaging 9.53 g/t gold and 718 g/t silver.
• 12.45 meters averaging 79.49 g/t gold and 60 g/t silver in hole HR23-389, including 0.68 meters averaging 1,335 g/t gold and 781 g/t silver.
"These are world-class results, and it is a special project," Khunkhun said of the gold and silver intercepts at Homestake Silver.
The world-class results continued at Homestake Silver continued into 2024.
Highlights from the 16,181 meters of drilling completed in 23 holes at Homestake Silver last year include:
• 48.23 meters averaging 8.85 g/t gold and 5 g/t silver in hole HR24-432, including a 0.54-meter bonanza-grade subsection averaging 701 g/t gold and 184 g/t silver.
• 100.8 meters averaging 4.64 g/t gold and 38 g/t silver in hole HR24-435, including a 0.97-meters subsection averaging 166 g/t gold and 675 g/t silver.
• 9.95 meters averaging 4.58 g/t gold in hole HR24-442, including a 1.69-meter subsection averaging 14.96 g/t gold.
These high-grade intercepts are from infilling a gap in previous drilling, indicating the potential to increase both the grade and size of the Homestake Silver Resource.
"The identification of a gold-rich, wide and high-grade area within the Homestake Silver deposit is highly encouraging," said Khunkhun.
Having topped off its treasury with a C$32.2 million financing in September, Dolly Varden is already positioned for another year of encouraging silver and gold drill results across Kitsault Valley in 2025.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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