After just two seasons of drilling, Snowline Gold Corp. has reached a significant milestone with the unveiling of a multi-million-ounce gold resource for the Valley deposit on the company’s Rogue property in the Yukon Territory.
Exploring seven prospective targets across the Yukon, Snowline’s portfolio is split between its flagship Rogue, Einarson, Ursa, Cynthia, and Olympus properties in the Selwyn Basin near Yukon’s eastern border with Northwest Territories and the Tosh and Cliff projects closer to Yukon’s western border with Alaska.
Beginning its exploration journey in 2017, this relatively newer addition to the ranks of Yukon miners has quickly moved from plucky junior to seasoned veteran, all while focusing its efforts on the company’s flagship Rogue property and the Valley target therein.
Snowline doubled its already impressive Yukon land package to 254,000 hectares (628,000 acres) toward the end of 2022 and once more swelled it to 360,000 hectares (889,579 acres) just last month.
With this wealth of properties strewn across Yukon, a plentiful treasury from investors, and an abundance of substantial assays that attracted that funding, Snowline has finally unveiled the first resource estimate for Valley.
“In just two full exploration seasons, Snowline has advanced its Valley target from greenfield discovery holes to a robust multi-million-ounce gold deposit with continued exploration upside,” said Snowline Gold CEO Scott Berdahl. “The rapid advancement is a testament both to the quality of the discovery-with exceptional continuity of strong, non-refractory gold mineralization beginning at surface-and to the quality of the ongoing work by our talented and hard-working field team.”
Based on 27,911 meters of drilling from all 68 holes at Valley, and prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 standards, Valley is now estimated to host 76 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.66 grams per metric ton (4.05 million ounces) gold; plus 81 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.25 g/t (3.26 million oz) gold at a cut-off grade of 0.4 g/t gold.
Situated within the greater Rogue property, which encompasses a 60- by 30-kilometer (37 by 19 miles) cluster of intrusions known as the Rogue Plutonic Complex at the eastern end of the Tombstone Gold Belt, the Valley target has progressed from a greenfield prospecting discovery to a significant bulk tonnage gold resource within just a few years.
Valley is comparable to the multi-million-ounce reduced intrusion-related gold system (RIRGS) deposit at Kinross Gold’s Fort Knox mine in Alaska – the only difference is Snowline’s newly outlined gold deposit in the Yukon hosts substantially higher grades of gold.
Plan view of the Valley deposit, showing drill results to May 15.
Valley and beyond
Ongoing exploration indicates that Valley has room to grow, and the wider Rogue project has district-scale potential to host additional reduced intrusion-related gold systems.
“We believe that Valley has excellent potential for continued growth, as evidenced by broad intervals of 1-2 g/t gold mineralization returned in drilling on multiple edges of the system,” said Berdahl. “We are actively building on this milestone for Valley with our largest drill campaign to date, currently underway, while testing multiple prospective greenfield targets in a region we believe has the potential to become a prolific minerals district.”
Snowline aims to complete 25,000 meters of drilling this year, 15,000 of which have been allocated to advance Valley. Drilling there will also be complemented by ongoing metallurgical work and environmental surveys, along with scoping studies as necessary to inform economic assessment of the discovery.
The remaining drilling will be assigned to an aggressive regional drill campaign designed to test multiple other targets. This will include a 1,000-meter phase one drill program at Aurelius, a newly discovered prospect; 1,000 meters at Cujo, a target added to its portfolio in early 2023; 1,000 meters at Reid, similarly added at the time it acquired Cujo; and Gracie, where drilling will build on earlier results in vectoring toward the known intrusion, targeting mineralization within.
With the recent consolidation of ownership at Einarson, Snowline also plans to conduct a 4,000-meter program at the Jupiter target as a follow-up to the high-grade orogenic mineralization encountered in 2021.
Depending on how it goes, the company may allocate additional drilling to the previously mentioned targets or as phase one programs at other targets that Snowline deems to have strong geological merit to host significant zones of mineralization.