Green River Gold Corp. (CCR) (
CSE.CCR,
Forum)) has a story with many moving parts. The diverse opportunities and multiple businesses that the Company is involved in sometimes distract from the fact that central to the company’s future is the Fontaine Lode Gold Project, a very compelling 89 square kilometre mineral property. The Fontaine Project is located in the legendary Cariboo Mining District of British Columbia in Canada.
The Fontaine Lode Gold Project
The Fontaine Project is located approximately 20 kilometres south west of the historic town of Barkerville, which was the epicentre of the original Cariboo Gold rush starting around 1860. Since the original gold rush, historic gold production in the Cariboo Mining District has been approximately 3.8 million ounces, 2.0 million from placer production and 1.8 million from lode deposits. Few people, even in the mining industry are aware of the potential that still exists in this historic district. At its peak in the 1860’s, Barkerville was one of the largest communities in Western North America. Placer gold mining still thrives in the area, but the lode gold sources along many of the gold-bearing streams has not been clearly identified.
Green River negotiated the purchase of the core part of the Fontaine Project along with a package of placer claims in March of 2019. Simultaneous with the purchase, the Company staked the surrounding mineral claims resulting in a land package of almost 90 square kilometres. Within months of the property acquisition, the Cariboo District drew renewed interest from investors when Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd. (
TSX:OR,
NYSE:OR) purchased Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. for $338 million Canadian, bringing a well-known, deep-pocketed player to the neighbourhood.
The Fontaine Project is contiguous to the former Barkerville property, now known as Osisko Development Corp.’s (
TSX-V:ODV) Cariboo Gold Project. The 2,071 square kilometre Cariboo Gold Project holds an indicated resource of 3.2 million ounces of gold (21.4 million tonnes grading 4.64 g/tonne Au) and an inferred resource of 2.72 million ounces of gold (21.7 million tonnes grading 3.91 g/tonne Au). Osisko Development Corp. is currently in the process of developing its first mine on the property with production expected in 2021 while permitting a second mine with production expected in 2023. The presence of a larger player in the area has rejuvenated the prospects for mining in the Cariboo and brought renewed attention to the historic district.
The Fontaine Project straddles an 18-kilometre length of the Quesnel, Barkerville and Slide Mountain terranes. Green River is primarily targeting sediment-hosted vein type deposit mineralization in the Quesnel Terrane similar to that found at the nearby Spanish Mountain deposit (measured and indicated resources of 4.1 million ounces of gold grading 0.47 g/tonne gold). Within the Barkerville Terrane, the Company is targeting vein and replacement style gold mineralization that is known to exist. Gold mineralization target styles in the Slide Mountain Terrane include metabasalt-hosted vein deposit types that the Company believes could have similar grades and sizes to those of the Cassiar District high-grade deposits in northern British Columbia, with the largest being the Main Mine, which produced 150,000 ounces of gold averaging 17.14 g/tonne gold. Between the early 1970s and early 1990s, sporadic work was carried out on the Fontaine property consisting of prospecting and sampling bedrock and overlying soil horizons. Several showings were identified as a result of this work with anomalous gold and silver values.
The Company believes potential lode gold mineralization within the Fontaine Project area may share many characteristics with orogenic gold deposits typically found in the Cariboo Mining District where gold mineralization is associated with orogenic silica-carbonate-sericite-pyrite stable fluids moving along secondary permeability induced by the interaction of metamorphic fabrics, sublayer-parallel strike-slip faults, contacts between lithological units, and rheological contrasts between lithologies.
The Quesnel Nickel Project
When Green River Gold Corp. staked the Fontaine property in 2019, management was aware of the possibility of other significant mineral occurrences. That possibility is now about to be explored. On April 27, 2021, the Company announced that it has entered into an option agreement with Surge Battery Metals Inc. (
TSX-V:NILI, OTC:NILIF, FRA:DJSC). Under the option agreement, Surge has been granted the option to acquire an 80% interest in a contiguous block of 8 mineral claims comprising 2,219 hectares or just under 25% of the entire Fontaine land package. Surge is interested in exploring that portion of the Fontaine Project based on the historical occurrences of nickel.
Rick Wilson, Surge President & CEO comments:
“The Quesnel Nickel Project is at an early exploration stage with a very good possibility for hosting nickel alloy mineralization (awaruite) similar to the Decar District of FPX Nickel (TSXV: FPX). The project area covers a favorable linear NW-SE striking geological unit approximately 15 km by 3 km hosting nickel mineralization in serpentinite and sheared ultramafic rock, a similar geological host as the Trembleur ultramafic rocks found at Decar. With 2,434,965 tonnes of contained metal at a grade of 0.12% Ni, Decar has been recognized by
www.mining.com as the third top nickel project in the world.” (
See article here)
Mr. Rick Wilson goes on to state:
“The Quesnel Nickel Project is an exciting, early-stage nickel project with the correct geological and geophysical characteristics to host nickel-alloy mineralization, with many similar features to the Decar District. We intend to immediately file our work permits to be approved and to start work early this summer.”
Perry Little, Green River’s President and CEO comments:
“We are pleased to see that we were not alone in recognizing the potential for other minerals at the Fontaine Project. We look forward to seeing the results of Surge’s exploration and them great success,”
Kyle Townsend, Green River’s Mine Manager comments:
“Our target remains precious metals. We are pleased to have been approached by and to have reached an agreement with Surge Battery Metals Inc. who have the technical expertise and background to target the possible nickel alloy mineralization on the property.”
To exercise the option, Surge must issue 1,400,000 common shares to Green River, with 500,000 shares issued upon signing the agreement, and the remaining 900,000 shares payable over the next four years. Surge must also incur no less than $800,000 in mining work expenditures by the end of the fourth anniversary of the effective date of the option agreement. Upon Surge exercising its option at the end of the fourth year, a joint venture will be formed between Surge and Green River with Surge having earned its 80% interest and Green River retaining 20%. If Green River decides not to participate in the joint venture, then Green River’s 20% interest would convert to a 2% Net Smelter Royalty with a cap of $2 million.
The Kymar Silver Project
In January of 2021, Green River further expanded its horizons by acquiring the Kymar Silver Project and adding a silver project to its portfolio.
The 1,214-hectare Kymar Property is located 28 kilometers west of Invermere, British Columbia, Canada along the southeast flank of Mount Catherine in the Golden Mining Division.
The Kymar Silver Project has an appreciable amount of historical data, which the Company has been compiling and interpreting. During this process Green River has identified multiple past-producing artisanal mines with encouraging historical ore grades. This data is aiding in the design of the proposed work programs on the project to confirm the historical results encountered on the property while identifying targets for further evaluation.
The mineralization found at the Kymar Silver Project to date consists of polymetallic veins hosted within the Purcell Supergroup strata, which includes the Mount Nelson and Dutch Creek formations. The historically mined ore included galena, tetrahedrite, chalcopyrite and minor sphalerite.
Regionally, the area is underlain by Proterozoic clastic sedimentary rocks of the Purcell and Windermere supergroups and by Lower Paleozoic strata of the Beaverfoot and Mount Forster formations (Geoscience Map 1995-1)
The Kymar Property is host to polymetallic veins (Ag-Pb-Zn+/-Au) within a dilatant zone along a normal fault, which strikes South East and dips 80 degrees West. (BC Minfile 082KSE055)
The Kymar Project is home to multiple past producing mines:
- The M.T. Fraction is hosted within dolomite of the Mount Nelson Formation. Limited production at the turn of the century yielded 254,641 grams of silver, 1655 kilograms of copper, and 39 kilograms of lead.
- The Delphine mine yielded 614,315 grams of silver, 3025 kilograms of copper and 46,880 kilograms of lead from 170 tonnes mined.
- The White Cat occurrence had limited production between 1924 and 1928 and yielded 154,893 grams of silver and 80,644 kilograms of lead from 152 tonnes of ore.
- The Beulah prospect in 1926 consisted of a 52-tonne ore bulk sample collected from an adit and shipped to a smelter in Trail, BC. Although recovery from the bulk sample is not known, the average grade of the shipment was 2,000 grams per tonne silver, 57 per cent lead, 0.8 per cent copper, and 3.4 grams per tonne gold.
- The B.C. Tilbury occurrence had a total of 79 tonnes sporadically mined from a quartz vein between 1905 and 1927. Total production yielded 198,873 grams of silver, 41,415 kilograms of lead, and 427 kilograms of zinc.
Kyle Townsend, Green River’s Mine Manager comments:
“The Kymar Project has a significant amount of history and data that we are currently compiling. We hope to announce our extensive work program targeting polymetallic veins for the 2021 exploration season shortly.”
Green River Gold Corp.’s Unique Business Model
Green River is first and foremost a precious metals exploration company. However, the Company is also involved in several gold mining related businesses, with the ultimate goal of generating cash flow which can be directed toward exploration and development of its mining properties.
In addition to the Fontaine Lode Gold Project, an interest in the Quesnel Nickel Project, and the Kymar Silver Project discussed above, Green River owns 24 square kilometres of placer mining claims in the Cariboo Mining District. The company collects cash rent from placer miners, and benefits from the exploration expenditures and development done on those properties by the renters. The company will also do exploration on the placer claims in an effort to enhance the value of those claims. Green River Gold Corp. does not actively engage in placer mining, but it does receive revenue from providing permitting and consulting services to placer miners.
Green River also provides other services to the placer mining industry from its combined manufacturing, retail and office building in Quesnel, British Columbia, in the heart of the Cariboo Mining District. The Company retails mining equipment and supplies to placer miners. A related company manufacturers gold mining equipment which is marketed under the Green River Gold Corp. name. Green River is also a Limited Partner in the Green River Gold Trading Limited Partnership, which purchases raw placer gold from miners and sells it to refiners and other end users.
The gold related businesses provide multiple benefits to Green River. The Company, in combination with its related companies, provides steady employment, complete with benefits, to area residents. Some of those employees divide their time between Green River’s related companies and Green River, giving the Company ready access, at any time, to skilled personnel who are familiar with the Company’s projects, while only paying them for the time spent on Green River projects. Virtually all the people and consultants involved in Green River’s exploration, permitting and planning can commute to the Company’s exploration properties in well under an hour from the Company’s permanent base of operations in Quesnel. The facility has a fabrication and repair shop, plenty of indoor storage for equipment, lots of office and meeting room space, and two acres of outdoor storage. There are significant cost savings to the Company from having the company’s permanent headquarters located within easy commuting distance of the Company’s primary mining properties.
In Closing
Green River Gold Corp. is a multi-faceted, multi-tiered, multi-project company whose unique business model and bona fide management team with a wealth of industry experience within the metals & mining space belongs on any investors stock portfolio radar.
https://www.greenrivergold.ca/
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.