CNBC host and Wall Street expert Jim Cramer told investors to take advantage of gold’s impending comeback. Gold is often seen as a safe haven during times of economic uncertainty and a hedge against inflation.
There are plenty of great gold stocks like best-of-breed Barrick Gold Corp. (TSX:ABX, NYSE:GOLD), but if there’s one company in the industry that could be a steal it’s Sassy Gold Corp's (CSE:SASY, OTCQB:SSYRF) spinout company Gander Gold Corp (CSE:GAND).
Gander Gold CEO Mark Scott, who also spearheads Sassy Gold, has astutely amassed ground in Canada’s easternmost province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the site of the country’s newest gold rush. Significantly, Gander has eight major claim blocks carefully assessed and acquired prior to the start of the Newfoundland gold staking rush in 2021.
Born into a mining family and drawn into mining when he was a university student, Scott has a strong handle on operations. He has a clear strategy for Gander, a proven Newfoundland drones-to-drills method of discovery with exploration partner GroundTruth Exploration, and has put the right boots on the ground to drive new high-grade gold discoveries across the island.
More importantly, Scott’s pure play Newfoundland gold exploration company is well financed and has Sassy and famed billionaire Canadian investor Eric Sprott as its major shareholders.
Proactive sat down with CEO Scott to learn about Gander’s aggressive exploration program. It’s currently focused on its Gander North project discovery, which the company believes has the potential to be a major new gold trend within the Gander Gold Belt starting 12 km east of the Grub Line and 25 km east of the Appleton trend that hosts the New Found Gold and Labrador Gold high-grade discoveries.
The Vancouver-based company’s seven other projects are Carmanville, BLT, Mt. Peyton, Gander South, Little River, Hermitage, and Cape Ray II.
Proactive: Please elaborate on how Gander Gold is a leading player in the Newfoundland gold rush.
Mark Scott: With 9,052 claims covering some 2,263 square kilometers of ground, Gander Gold has one of, if not the largest single-company claim position on the island of Newfoundland. We established that position starting in 2020, prior to much of the staking activity which has gone on since, giving us an early-mover advantage in the Central Newfoundland gold belt.
We have undertaken large-scale, early-stage exploration programs, including airborne geophysical surveys and soil sampling programs covering that very large claim position. To our knowledge, our 2021 sampling represents the largest one-year sampling program ever undertaken on the island by a single company.
To use a fishing analogy, we started out in Newfoundland by throwing out a very large net. Multiple million-ounce and multi-million-ounce gold deposits are in development in Newfoundland, and Gander is poised to play a significant role in the rapidly developing Newfoundland gold rush.
Given your dominant land position in Newfoundland does Gander have a strong pipeline of high-priority drill targets to warrant investor interest? More specifically, tell us about your early focus on Gander North and why you think this project, which starts 15 km east of New Found Gold’s Keats Zone, represents a large, prospective opportunity?
Significant gold and copper anomalies have been identified on several of our properties, including but not limited to Gander North, Mount Peyton, and BLT (Botwood, Laurenceton, Thwart Island). Gander North, which includes the first claims we acquired in Newfoundland, and which is where we started our exploration program in 2021, has had more work done on it than our other properties to date. Accordingly, its development is a little further along.
We have identified a number of coincident structures and soil geochemistry anomalies at Gander North, which we are now in the process of further exploring and mapping for the purpose of developing our first rotary air blast (RAB) drill and diamond drill targets.
Canada’s well-known gold prospector Shawn Ryan, who is a technical advisor for Gander Gold, has said: “We’ve got a stacked deck here. And we have a method to hunt, that’s the key. So, we’re not wildcatting. We know where we’re going.” Can you expand on this idea?
We have engaged Groundtruth Exploration to execute our early-stage exploration program, whose “Drones to Drills” methodology is a proven winner. With Shawn’s research having identified the properties we acquired and Groundtruth’s cost-efficient program execution, our confidence is high that we’re doing the right things in the right way to maximize our odds of discovery success.
As a follow-up question, do you think you have an ace exploration team spearheaded by “Gold Hunter” Mike Middleton?
We have a very experienced team of geologists and technicians working in Newfoundland. From vice president exploration Ian Fraser, to Groundtruth and their team, to Mike Middleton and his team of prospecting “gold hunters.” We have been working with Mike and his team for a number of years, through Sassy Gold, in British Columbia, and it’s great to have him and his team in Newfoundland.
As an exploration-stage resource company how much cash does Gander have on hand, and how long will it last?
Gander Gold recently closed an over-subscribed, non-brokered C$4 million financing. That cash will take us well into 2023 and get us into our first Newfoundland drill program.
Has there been very promising early exploration success at your Mount Peyton project?
The “Golden Horseshoe” target at Mount Peyton and several northeast-trending structures which are overlain with gold-in-soil anomalies have emerged as intriguing early stages successes. We’re in the process of following up on those first-pass results, and will be developing a list of prioritized drill targets at Mount Peyton and Gander North, among others.
Please spell out the upside for investors wanting to be a part of Gander’s early life as a public company.
Gander Gold is positioned for discovery success in the rapidly developing Newfoundland gold rush, with the largest single-company claim position on the island and significant early-stage exploration success. We have the right properties, the right team, right approach, and we are well-funded to capitalize on those opportunities.
Gander’s share structure is attractive. With major ownership positions by Sassy Gold and renowned Canadian investor Eric Sprott, Gander’s public float is quite limited, so any discovery success can reasonably be expected to drive share price appreciation.
You have a strong track record in mining, as well as a background in multiple mining majors while running big teams for companies like Vale Canada. What attracted you to the mining industry?
Mining is an incredible industry, filled with capable and committed people doing challenging work every day that is absolutely critical to the future of our society. I grew up in a mining household and first started working in mining as a university summer student. I was hooked immediately by the underground environment and the people who work there.
In the 27 years since, I’ve had the opportunity to work in a wide variety of different parts of the mining business, including exploration, project development and execution, underground and surface mining and processing, maintenance, reclamation, HR, Health, Safety, and Environment and corporate development.
I had the good fortune to run a large, fully integrated polymetallic operation and I’ve been very lucky to work in both operations and corporate environments right across Canada, and to see quite a number of operations and corporate settings around the world. That range of experience, I believe, gives me a fairly rare insight into the workings of the mining industry as a whole.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive
