Why this company is making new discoveries in re-emerging camps in Ontario

The province of Ontario has a rich history of gold mining, while the yellow metal is Canada’s most valuable mined metal, totaling C$10.3 billion in production as recently as 2019.

In total, Canadian mines produced roughly 175 tonnes of gold in 2019, up from 70 per cent in 2010, with Ontario accounting for over 73 tonnes of that production.

While major gold miners in the space are at the forefront of production, there are up-and-coming juniors that are aiming to make a dent with prospective gold exploration projects.

Manitou Gold (TSXV:MTU, OTC:MNTUF, Forum) is one such company focused on making new discoveries in re-emerging gold camps in Ontario.

The company has consolidated 35,000 hectares of prospective gold properties on the Michipicoten Archean Greenstone Belt, which is located between the Island Gold Mine — operated by Alamos Gold — to the west and the former producing Renabie Gold Mine — owned by Barrick Gold — to the east.

Manitou Gold’s 100 per cent owned Goudreau Project lies beneath Archean-aged rocks of the Michipicoten Greenstone belt. The project area is traversed by several broad-scale deformation corridors, which contain most of the regional gold deposits and showings within the region.

Bringing the project to discovery, there is an ongoing 30,000 metre drill program focused on targeting high-grade gold mineralization on the 18-kilometre-long Baltimore deformation zone (BDZ). This represents the fault offset extension of the Goudreau-Localsh deformation zone, which hosts most of the deposits in the camp.

The company acquired the project in starting in October 2017, and, over the course of the last three-and-a-half years, Manitou Gold completed a property consolidation, and had the first significant gold intersection at BDZ in 2021 — among other things.

In line with this, 2021 has proven to be a busy year for the company at the Goudreau Project. Manitou Gold announced in late February that the company began a 300 line kilometre ground geophysical survey, spanning an additional 10 kilometres of strike length along the BDZ. According to the company, this will be the focus of further drilling.

In March, Manitou Gold revealed additional assay results from its ongoing drill program along the eastern portion of the BDZ in the Goudreau Project. Drill results include ones from the Stover Zone and newly identified extension zones, with assay results from 8 additional drill holes completed in February.

As drilling continues at the property with two diamond drill rigs currently testing on the Stover zone and 28 other targets on the eastern 4 kilometres of the 18 kilmoetre length of the BDZ, the company is gearing up for a busy year — which is one of many reasons why investors should do their due diligence on Manitou Gold.

Stockhouse Editorial caught up with Manitou Gold’s CEO, Richard Murphy, to discuss some of the company’s recent milestones and what investors can expect moving forward.

1. Thanks for joining us. Let’s start with the company’s Goudreau Project. What led to Manitou Gold’s interest in the property and subsequent acquisition of it in 2017?

1. RM: In late 2017, we were successful in making the first of 7 land acquisition deals. We closed the last of these large acquisitions in the summer of 2019. The total land package controlled by Manitou between Alamos Gold’s Island Gold Mine property on the west and Barrick’s Renabie mine now totals 350 square km.
2. At the end of 2019, we were successful in bringing in Alamos Gold Inc and O3 Mining Inc (an Osisko group company) as strategic shareholders who own 19.9% and 9.9% of Manitou respectively. We enjoy close working relationships with both of these companies. We enjoy the input of Alamos’ COO and O3’s CFO on our Board of Directors. Additionally, we have frequent technical discussions with the exploration teams from both companies, the fact that they own such a large amount of our company means we are all aligned to make Manitou a success
3. The project area is traversed by serval crustal-scale deformation zones and bookended by a series of well known orogenic gold deposits (past producing Renabie Mine, Island Gold mine and the Maginomine development). Exploration in the intervening area has been very sporadic with and the highly prospective, yet underexplored environment represented an opportunity for significant new discoveries in what is becoming an re-emerging gold camp in Ontario.

2. The company has made a lot of progress on the project this year. Can you talk about some of the milestones this year investors should know about?

1. RM: Our drilling program which was initially set at 5,000 metres was quickly expanded by the team following some very promising results. We grew the program to 10,000 meters and have recently expanded it to 30,000 meters based on the presence of significant orogenic style gold mineralization along the Baltimore deformation corridor. We are currently completing large-scale Alpha IP, ground magnetic and soil geochemistry surveys to advance property-scale targets along the western 10 kilometres of the Baltimore deformation zone to the drill ready stage.

3. In February, Manitou Gold provided an update on the drilling program long the Baltimore deformation zone in the Goudreau project. The BDZ is also an emerging crustal-scale structural corridor that is the extension of the prolific Goudreau-Localsh deformation zone. This area hosts the majority of gold deposits in the northeastern Michipicoten greenstone belt. How significant is this zone for the company’s exploration and drilling moving forward?

1. RM: We feel that this crustal-scale structural corridor is demonstrating several of the characteristics of the GLDZ to the point that there is no doubt the BDZ corridor is an extension of the GLDZ. We are very interested in exploring near the ultramafic rocks that we have found in the Western part of the BDZ. It is well known that that these can be key indicators for high grade gold.

4. The Goudreau properties consist of 35,000 hectares of consolidated prospective gold properties on the Michipicoten Archean Greenstone Belt. What makes this area stand out among others in the region?

1. RM: The region has been well known as a Gold prospective greenstone belt since the early 20’s. Historically, the region was owned by several different groups and there had not been much consolidation until recently. You know have 3 large land packages, the Alamos Gold Island Gold, the Argonaut Gold Magino project and Manitou Gold. Everything is bookened by the Renabie Gold mine which was a million ounce producer. One should note that the BDZ has seen very little drilling, historically only 4.500 meters and Manitou has drilled 10,000 meters on the easternmost 4 km of the available 18 kilometers of strike along the BDZ. In contrast, the Goudreau Deformation Zone has seen well over 1 million meters of drilling.

5. Ontario is Canada’s biggest producer of gold. What makes Manitou Gold stand out from other gold explorers in the province?

1. RM: Ontario is an excellent jurisdiction to operate in, the provincial government is doing a great job at helping junior mining companies keep the drills turning, helping discoveries and existing mine expansion and replenishment. I think there are good relationships between the First Nation communities and the mining operators where respect for the environment and the land come first followed by good stewardship and appropriate permitting and exploration support keeping the industry in a healthy and manageable space. I think that Manitou Gold stands out in this field by reference to its current track record. It has been able to consolidate a commanding land package in a quickly emerging world class gold belt. We have also been able to develop great relationships with the first nations and follow ministry guidelines enabling it to receive the required permits to keep explorations ongoing in a timely manner. You need several elements to be successful in this business, team work is key, collaboration, communication and preparation are paramount to ensuring success.

6. The company just recently announced a private placement for gross proceeds of up to just over C$5 million. Can you talk about what Manitou Gold will use the proceeds for?

1. RM: As mentioned before, the team has pulled together several new targets based on the correlations of several key scientific results which guides the geological team to continue defining the controlling structures, understanding the ground truthing paired with the collaboration of the Alamos and O3 teams feedback lead us to believe that the current raise will be applied to the new targets that have been identified by our team. The Manitou Gold team which currently numbers 35 people are doing everything they can to keep the targets coming and the results flowing.

7. In addition to the Goudreau Project, Manitou Gold also has the Kenwest Property and the Gaffney Property. Can you highlight any milestones or activity on these projects investors should know about?

1. RM: We have been mostly concentrating our energy on the Goudreau project but do intend on exploring the Kenwest and Gaffney properties in the very near future. We had excellent results on those properties in the past when the market was not really paying attention. We will return. For now, the entire Manitou Gold team has set its sites on covering the entire 350km2 Goudreau property in order to leave no stone unturned and no anomaly un-drilled.

8. Moving forward into Q2 and the remainder of 2021, what are the company’s plans that we should take note of?

1. RM: Watch for the results coming from the BDZ, the collaboration between the Alamos Gold Geologists and our MTU team are going to demonstrate some very interesting and compelling drill targets.

9. Thanks again for joining us. Is there anything else you would like to add?

RM: I would like to reassure the existing investors and Manitou Gold prospective investors that we are on the cusp of drilling what could be a major discovery in the Wawa Jurisdiction. This camp will rival Red Lake, Timmins and some of the largest gold producing regions in the world. Alamos Gold and soon Argonaut Gold will demonstrate this with their continued growth and ever-expanding reserves. Manitou Gold will deliver consistent results.

FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.