Why I’m so excited to double down on our commitment to North Hemlo…

I’m feeling pretty good about gold as I write to you.

Upbeat US consumer confidence and mixed Chinese data may be bolstering the dollar and capping the precious metal’s upside somewhat for now. But with prices comfortably sitting just below US$2,000/oz, we’re certainly not complaining. 

After all, that’s not too far off historical highs. And the positive direction of travel that has been established in the past year alone more than validates our bullish outlook for the metal over the long-term.

Gold price over the last 10 years

With this in mind, we feel our recent earn-in to up to 80% of a package of 163 single cell mining claims contiguous to our North Hemlo property was particularly timely.
 
Why? Well, for one thing, the ground expands our footprint in North Hemlo considerably – by around 40%, in fact.
 
This area is a proven gold hotspot – 21Moz of continuous gold production at Barrick’s nearby Hemlo gold mine can attest to that. It’s also located in Ontario – a pro-mining territory with a long history of gold discoveries and production.
 
At the same time, however, it has been considerably underexplored due to historical access and ownership issues.
 
We are overcoming these barriers by consolidating licences. And really, with gold looking set to become more valuable and more in demand over the long term, I can hardly think of a better location to be searching for new sources of the precious metal.
 
This brings me on to next point – the licences we are earning-in to are not just large, they are also very prospective.
 
Eleven high priority targets were defined on the property by previous operators. Meanwhile, the lake sediment sampling we completed over the area as part of our due diligence process returned gold grades of over 100ppb gold.
 
As our programme supervisor Bruch Maclachlan highlihts, this is thought to be the highest lake sediment value ever collected in the region outside of Barrick’s mine.
 
It’s certainly an encouraging early sign of the package’s potential we can develop from here. Especially given the low cost at which we acquired our option (zero cash upfront and US$350,000 of work commitment by July 2026).
 
It’s all positive stuff.
 
However, I’d like to add that gold is not the only reason I’m so excited about our latest development. No – the new licences also present us with additional nickel and copper potential.
 
You see, as well as gold, the North Hemlo region holds numerous high grade nickel copper sulphide discoveries. And perhaps the most exciting of all is the West Pickle Lake nickel copper discovery being advanced by Palladium One within a JV alongside ourselves.
 
Palladium One has encountered grades of up to 10.4% nickel and 3.4% copper over a length of strike that increases every time the company drills. Moreover, with the company recently receiving a strategic investment worth some C$3.4 million from mining giant Glencore, it now has plenty of financial firepower with which to continue its investigation.
 
We were already excited to see if the mineralisation Palladium One is encountering extends across the border of our JV licence area and onto our 100%-owned North Hemlo Licences to the west. That, we believe, would increase the value of our licences considerably.
 
With the new licences we’ve acquired lying immediately north of West Pickle Lake, we’ve extended our control of any potential extensions of the discovery even further. Especially given that rock types similar to West Pickle have already been located on the new licences.
 
To see what I’m talking about, take a look at the map below. It shows our existing and new land packages surround the western and north extents of the West Pickle Lake discovery licence area (titled Pezim II).

West Pickle Lake discovery licence area

At the end of the day, it’s too early to know exactly what the licences we have acquired contain. For now, however, the potential upside they add in terms of extending our potential for both a gold and nickel/copper discovery is very significant.
 
We can’t wait to get on the ground and learn more about what we’re looking at here.