Opportunities NORTH

Ferguson Lake

Owner: Canadian North Resources Inc.

Resource: Nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group metals

Location: 250 km west of Rankin Inlet

Status: The field season is underway and 20,000 metres of drilling is planned for 2023, the company announced on April 3. This follows a 18,144-metre, 68-hole campaign in 2022 at the 254-square-kilometre property. The indicated mineral resource stands at 24.3 million tonnes grading at 0.85 per cent copper, 0.60 per cent nickel, 0.07 per cent cobalt, 1.38 grams per tonne palladium and 0.23 grams per tonne platinum. The inferred mineral resources is estimated at 47.2 million tonnes at 0.91 per cent copper, 0.53 per cent nickel, 0.06 per cent cobalt, 1.4 grams per tonne palladium and 0.25 grams per tonne platinum.

Naujaat

Owner: North Arrow Minerals

Resource: Diamonds

Location: Nine km northeast of Naujaat

Status: Australia’s Burgundy Diamond Mines officially earned a 40 per cent interest in the Naujaat project in February with the cutting and polishing of 0.31 carat and 0.21 carat fancy colour diamonds that were extracted as part of the 2021 bulk sample at Naujaat’s Q1-4 diamond deposit. The refining of the diamonds marked the final step in a $5.6-million financing agreement that the two companies signed in June 2020.

Seal/Storm

Owner: Aston Bay Holdings

Resource: Copper, zinc, silver

Location: 120 km south of Resolute Bay

Status: Following the discovery of near surface high-grade copper by project partner and operator American West Metals Limited last year, that company released news in late March that it’s planning to use two drills to bore 10,000 metres this year, almost five times the amount of drilling done during the last exploration season.

Storm encompasses a staggering 3000-sq-km area, including the Seal zinc and silver project.

Bathurst Inlet Lithium

Owner: North Arrow Minerals

Resource: Lithium

Location: 80 km southwest of the Doris gold mine

Status: North Arrow acquired 100 per cent interest in a Bathurst Inlet lithium property in late February. The site, formerly held by Panarc Resources, is within nine kilometres of tidewater and 12 km from Sabina (now B2Gold’s) port. “With the help of recent satellite imagery, we’ve been able to prioritize target areas for follow up detailed mapping and prospecting for lithium mineralization in early summer 2023,” said Ken Armstrong, president and CEO of North Arrow.

North Thelon

Owner: Forum Energy Metals Corp.

Resource: Uranium

Location: 50 km west of Baker Lake

Status: Forum Energy announced on April 17 that it was turning to the markets with a goal of raising $2 million to drill at its 1,020-square-km Nunavut Uranium Project later this year. The company refers to the territory’s Thelon Basin as “a geological equivalent to the Athabasca Basin,” which is a prolific source of high-grade uranium in northern Alberta and northern Saskatchewan.

Ulu, Hood River, Roma

Owner: Blue Star Gold Corp.

Resource: Gold

Location: 125 km west of Bathurst Inlet

Status: Blue Star Gold is planning another drilling campaign in 2023 and the company is shooting to surpass the one million ounces of gold mark. Blue Star Gold has amassed a resource estimate of 572,000 ounces of measured and indicated gold as well as 303,000 of inferred gold as it advances its Ulu project. Both estimates are at approximately seven grams of gold per tonne.

Owner: Bathurst Metals

Resources: Gold, silver, copper, nickel, platinum, palladium

Location: Kitikmeot region

Status: Bathurst Metals has acquired five properties in the Kitikmeot that offer prospects for a wide range of metals. The company’s most recent update came last November when it announced high-grade gold assay results from a summer sampling program at the TED gold showing, which is part of the Turner Lake Project. Six of the 18 grab samples returned values greater than 20 grams of gold per tonne. One sample exceeded the assay limit of 100 grams of gold per tonne, according to the company, which noted that the area has not been drill tested.

Owner: New Break Resources

Resource: Gold

Location: 235 km west of Arviat

Status: New Break reached terms with Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI) in October 2021 to explore 94 square km of Inuit-owned lands. The project is known as Sundog. The Kivalliq Inuit Association will manage surface rights while NTI will administer mineral rights. Terms of the deal stipulate that if New Break formally files a discovery of one million estimated ounces of gold, then NTI will get a $1 million bonus payment, or $5 million for five million ounces. A Sundog feasibility study would be worth $3 million to NTI, while commercial production would result in a payment of $5 million to Nunavut Tunngavik.

No further news has since been released.

New Break’s other Kivalliq exploration properties consist of Sy, Noomut/Esker and Angikuni Lake, which cover 220 square km in total.

Owner: Western Atlas Resources

Resource: Gold

Location: Adjacent to Agnico Eagle’s Meadowbank mine

Status: Although the Meadowbank property garnered interest for its gold potential, Western Atlas Resources announced in April that it found nickel and polymetallic mineralization near the surface. One hole intersected 0.14 per cent nickel, 0.01 per cent cobalt, 0.28 per cent chromium, 9.11 per cent iron and 0.8 per cent sulfur over 95 metres from a depth of 18.73 metres. In September, the company served notice that it had amended its permits to allow it to drill up to 20,000 metres per year and enlarge the camp to a maximum of 40 people. Meadowbank covers 580 square km.

Committee Bay

Owner: Fury Gold Mines

Resource: Gold

Location: 130 km southwest of Kugaaruk

Status: Fury Gold announced in September that a fivehole, 2,587 metre drill program was complete. The focus was on an eight kilometre shear zone where the Raven prospect is located. In the past, Raven has yielded 31.1 grams of gold per tonne over 2.8 metres and 9.49 g/t gold over 7.57 metres. Results from this summer’s drill program had not been released publicly as of the first week of November. The overall property encompasses 270 square km along the Committee Bay Greenstone Belt.

Mel

Owner: North Arrow Minerals

Resource: Diamonds

Location: 140 km south of Sanirajak

Status: The last update regarding the Mel property came in February 2021 when North Arrow announced a data-sharing agreement with StrategX Elements Corp, which acquired the non-diamond mineral rights in the area. However, North Arrow retains a per cent royalty on non-diamond production. The Mel property encompasses 560 square kilometres.

CSI

Owner: North Arrow Minerals

Resource: Diamonds

Location: West of the Jericho and Muskox kimberlites

Status: North Arrow undertook a modest till sampling program in June 2021. The property covers an area that “could potentially host a bedrock source for regionally anomalous kimberlite indicator mineral samples reported by earlier work- ers,” according to the company.

South Kitikmeot Gold

Owner: Silver Range Resources

Resource: Gold

Location: 276 to 432 km south of Kugluktuk

Status: Silver Range revealed in August that it optioned the South Kitikmeot Gold Project to Australian company Viridis Mining. The property covers “known gold occurrences along a 200 km long package of metasedimentary rocks which host the Lupin Mine (3.4 million ounces gold production to date) and the Back River Project (5.3 million ounces gold measured and indicated resources) currently being advanced to production by Sabina Gold and Silver Ltd.,” Silver Range stated.

Yava

Owner: Blue Moon Metals

Resource: Zinc, lead, copper, silver, gold

Location: 450 km northeast of Yellowknife

Status: The 14,216-acre Yava project lies 32 km from Glencore’s Hackett River deposit. Historical resource estimates at Yava indicate 1.3 million tons of resource containing 4.96 per cent zinc, 1.03 per cent copper, 1.60 percent lead, 3.42 ounces per ton of silver, and 0.008 ounces per tons gold to a depth of 91.5 metres. Blue Moon stated that next steps for the project include exploring the five shallow holes the company has drilled.

Hard Cash and Nigel

Owner: Silver Range Resources

Resource: Gold

Location: 700 km east of Yellowknife

Status: Hard Cash and Nigel are located at the western end of the Ennadai-Rankin greenstone belt, which extends from Rankin Inlet to southwestern Nunavut. Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. has built the Meliadine high-grade gold mine at the eastern end of the belt.

Tree River

Owner: Silver Range Resources

Resource: Gold

Location: 155 km southeast of Kugluktuk

Status: University of Albera researchers brought back three alluvial, kimberlitic diamonds from two small, separate samples in 2020, according to Silver Range Resources in October of that year. Subsequent sampling from the property showed 36.3 grams of gold per tonne from a one-metre by one-metre panel. The company expressed its intentions to systematically test the gold and diamond potential in the area.

Qaiqtuq

Owner: Solstice Gold

Resource: Gold

Location: 26 km from Rankin Inlet

Status: Solstice carried out mapping and sampling at the Qaiqtuq project – formerly known as Kahuna – during the summer of 2020. Aiming to identify drill targets, the work was done within a 40 square km area containing gold-bearing boulders on the 866-square-km property. Qaiqtuq is only seven kilometres from Agnico Eagle’s Meliadine gold mine.