For Yukon-focused explorer Snowline Gold Corp, its CEO Scott Berdahl is uniquely suited to the role, having been born and raised in the Canadian territory.
The Canadian junior company is uncovering district-scale gold systems in the famed Selwyn Basin and now boasts one of the Yukon’s largest mineral portfolios at more than 106,000 hectares, with nearly 100,000 hectares in the Selwyn Basin alone.
Its flagship Einarson and Rogue gold projects cover a combined 72,000 hectares within the prolific Tintina Gold Province that hosts multiple million-ounce-plus gold mines and deposits, such as Kinross’ Fort Knox mine, Newmont’s Coffee deposit, and Victoria Gold’s Eagle Mine.
READ: Snowline Gold encounters visible gold in Jupiter drill core, completes electromagnetic survey at URSA
Snowline is fresh off a successful first drill season with two separate discoveries and it aims to put a major new gold district on the map.
The company recently announced the discovery of visible gold in drill core at its Jupiter zone at Einarson. According to CEO Berdahl, the company noticed the gold after cutting a core in half to sample the geology and saw specks of visible gold mineralization in one of the quartz intercepts. The find complements drill results from earlier in the 2021 season including 13.2 grams per tonne gold across 6.5 metres and 10.4 grams per tonne gold over 5 metres in hole J-21-011, with grades of up to 63.9 grams per tonne gold encountered in the drill core.
Snowline is now “two for two” in hitting visible gold in drill core on brand-new targets this season: at the Valley zone at Rogue, visible gold was encountered in all four holes drilled, including trace levels of visible gold observed throughout the length of 161 metres in hole V-21-001.
It’s a positive outcome for Snowline’s experienced exploration team.
“We came at these two projects, and approached them together like this, because we see a new district out there that hasn’t been explored before,” Berdahl told Proactive recently. “To find visible gold in our inaugural programs in both projects lends a lot of weight to our thinking that we’re really onto something.”
'Intense' anomalies
Berdahl and the team are hoping that this success extends to its other projects like Ursa, which is located right in the same neighbourhood.
“They are some great rocks,” Berdahl put it succinctly. The “intense” geochemical anomaly includes zinc, nickel, molybdenum, copper and silver, offset with gold, according to the CEO.
Snowline is keen on exploring the trend. It recently completed a large aerial VTEM survey of 439 kilometres that should give the company an indication of how the underlying rocks are distributed – and, potentially, insights into the location of any ore bodies.
“It’s an interesting side-of-the-desk project, and we have some backers who are pretty excited about it. Without losing focus on our exciting discoveries, it’s too good not to just test a little further," said the Snowline CEO.
Snowline is on a mission to pick up more ground in the district, where it already controls nearly 100,000 hectares of land. Its most recent purchase added 16,500 hectares and includes some legacy claims in the same region as Rogue and Einarson where the first wave of exploration in the area took place from 2010 to 2012. Data from previous programs – stream sediment and soil samples – highlighted interesting anomalies.
Two of the projects Snowline picked up extend the prospectivity of the Ursa trend and tripled the strike length to about 30 kilometres from 10 kilometres. Another project, located near Snowline’s Cynthia project, has an intense gold-in-soil anomaly with eight soil samples over one gram per tonne across a 300-metre area, including one up to 6.3 grams per tonne gold.
Snowline is expecting a steady stream of assays over the coming weeks and months, and Berdahl is excited about the potential that exists to build value in the region.
“They’re exciting acquisitions that really dovetail what we’re doing out there and ultimately cement our cornerstone position in what we see as a new district.”
Contact Angela at angela@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow her on Twitter @AHarmantas