Atlantic Canada

During 2021, the Company completed an exploration program focused along the Back Bay Fault and the contact with the granite and included the collection of 3,315 soil samples, 171 rock float and grab samples, and a 685-line kilometre drone magnetic survey.

In early 2022, the Company received results from a soil sampling program covering the 10-kilometre long contact zone between the St. George Batholith and the Mascarene Group and coincident Back Bay Fault, the target environment for gold mineralization. The survey was designed to follow-up and expand upon historical sampling in the area that outlines areas of anomalous gold-in-soils. A total of 3,315, largely B-Horizon (98%) soil samples were collected along 100 metre spaced lines at 25 metre sample intervals.

Gold analysis of the soil samples has returned assays up to >10,000 ppb gold with 232 soil samples assaying >10 ppb gold and 10 soil samples >50 ppb gold. These anomalous samples, along with results from historic exploration, outline five main geochemical and structural target areas; the Jake Lee, Hawkins, Love, New River 1, and New River 2 Targets (Figure 3).

Sampling at the Jake Lee Target has outlined a gold anomaly over an extent of 1.7 by 2.7 kilometres, with 54 soil samples assaying greater than 20 ppb gold and up to 256 ppb gold and >10,000 ppb gold, over a strike length of 1.7 kilometres that coincides with high tenor, historic stream silt samples assaying up to 5,280 ppb gold in an area of bedrock base metal (Cu, Pb, Zn) mineralization. A soil sample assaying >10,000 ppb gold (>10 g/t gold; upper detection level) is located at the southern extent of the Jake Lee Target and forms a priority target for follow-up prospecting.

At the Love Target, 32 high tenor soil samples assaying > 20 ppb gold and up to 208 ppb gold occur over an area of 2.8 by 1.0 kilometres with the highest tenor soils located 500-1,000 metres down-ice (southwest) of historic, visible gold-bearing boulders* assaying up to 302.5 g/t gold.

At the Hawkins Target, 12 anomalous soil samples assaying greater than 20 ppb gold and up to 683 ppb gold coincide with known bedrock base metal (Cu, Pb, Zn) mineralization and form a target over a 1.0 by 0.6-kilometre area.

At New River 1 Target, 9 anomalous soil samples assaying greater than 20 ppb gold and up to 52 ppb gold form a target over a 1.4 by 0.7-kilometre area.

The New River 2 Target, 10 anomalous soil samples assaying greater than 20 ppb gold and up to 460 ppb gold form a target over a 1.2 by 0.6-kilometre area.

The Hawkins Love Property is characterized by an area with a complex glacial geological history with areas that have thin glacial till cover and other areas covered by thicker glacial till blankets and glacial-fluvial material. The soil anomalies show a consistent southeast directed glacial dispersion, where transport of gold-bearing soils from a source located up-ice from the northwest extent of the soil trend is likely, typically near the deformed northern margin of the Mascarene group in proximity to granitoids of the St. George Batholith.

During June and July 2022, the Company completed a prospecting and geological mapping program focused on follow-up of the five key exploration targets at Hawkins Love. A total of 119 rock samples and 317 soil samples were collected from the property. Preliminary follow-up exploration on the five gold targets has resulted in the discovery of zones of quartz-sulphide veining with anomalous gold (up to 38 ppb gold) at the Jake Lee Gold Target and strong carbonate-sericite alteration at the Love Gold Target.

The soil sampling program was designed to test the faulted contact between Silurian felsic volcanic rocks of the Mascarene Group and intermediate intrusive rocks of the New River Granitoid Suite and also provide a first-pass on an area that has seen little historic exploration at the east side of the property. 10 of the 317 soil samples collected contained anomalous gold and assayed between 11 and 36 ppb gold. Each of these anomalous samples were collected within 100 metres of, and are centred along, a 700-metre strike extent of the inferred fault. Follow-up exploration is required to explain this anomalous geochemical trend in this area.