Hello and Welcome to The Top Line. I’m Brieanna McCutcheon.
Ashley Gold is an early-stage natural resource company engaged in the acquisition and exploration of mineral properties in the natural resource sector. The company’s principal project, the historically producing Ashley Gold Property, is situated southeast of Timmins, Ontario, in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt.
In October of this year, the company purchased a lease block located Southeast of Dryden, Ontario, known as the Tabor Lake Mine, located within the prolific Wabigoon Greenstone Belt.
Joining us today is George Stephenson, President and CEO of Ashley Gold. Hello and welcome.
TMH: Ashley went public in May this year. What have you been up to since then?
GS: Well, since we IPO’d with Jones Gable, we’ve been out at our property a number of times which again is located south of Timmins, just west of Matachewan. We go right by the Young Davidson, a 3.4 million ounce reserve property owned by Alamos. A good road right to our property, where we have a historic mine of over 50,000 ounces of gold, has been produced at 11 grams and over 7,000 ounces of silver. Actually, recently, we just put out a news announcement on the Ashley Mine last week where we on two of our outcropping veins. The number one vein came back with a sampling of 15.1 grams over six meters, and on the Garvey vein or second vein, we sampled 135 grams over three and a half meters with a grab sample of 582 grams.
What we did with this structure is we went along linear strike, and we tried to get a more constant feeling of continuity in the veins, and we’re very happy with those returns. In addition, later this summer, we acquired a number of properties out in the Wabigoon area of the Tabor Lake area, and we acquired the Santa Maria, the Howie Lake and Alto Gardener and ended up with our last acquisition, which was closing the Tabor Lake Mine. Historically, the Tabor Lake Mine has drilling of 154 grams of gold over one meter and the exciting drill hole number eight, which is 60 grams over one meter and 838 grams over one meter down around the 375-foot level.
TMH: Can you touch on the Tabor Lake property and how the company managed to acquire such a valuable project?
GS: Well, we had begun with our acquisition on the Santa Maria property and with the mag work that’s been done on the property, we noticed that there’s a strong north-easterly trend across all of the Santa Maria. So we began acquiring property in the Northeast. We first acquired 26 additional claims that brought us right up against the Tabor Lake lease. We contacted the owner. We explained that we were getting into an area play. He was very happy with the idea that we were going to do an area play in the area, and we ended up doing a deal to acquire the property.
TMH: There appear to be a lot of growth opportunities with the project. What are some of its key aspects that investors should know about?
GS: Well, the main thing I believe is that we’re in the greenstone belt, very similar to the Abitibi. Many of the properties are historic, and the ones we have historic high-grade. We’ve got some bulk sampling on almost all of the properties, and we also have high-grade occurrences at surface. So an excellent hunting ground for a junior gold company.
TMH: Can you provide a timeline for exploration activity and the extent of any drilling program planned?
GS: Well, we’re just probably going to be closing the Tabor Lake Mine acquisition this week. We’ll be needing to get our geologists on the ground. We’re going to prepare to do another 3D model in preparation. So by the time we get that done, make sure that we’ve got good access to the property. We’re thinking that we would like to get in by early spring with the intention of testing these high-grade drill hole samples that were drilled many years ago with follow-up drilling to try to confirm the assays that were put out years ago.
TMH: What expectations does the company have for what could be unearthed?
GS: Well, right now, what we’re hoping to do is go along the strike length and try to increase on all our properties, our strike length and drill for increasing depth with the hope of getting an economic ore body. We think that we’re in the right place, and that’ll be what we plan to head along those lines. For Ashley itself, we are going to go back and continue the surface program on the low-hanging fruit being the outcropping veins, and we intend to continue to do some work with the intention of doing a bulk sample.
TMH: What makes Ashley Gold stand apart from other mining companies in Ontario?
GS: Well, I think it’s primarily the fact that we are a small company. We’re focused on trying to, with under 20 million shares, have a tight float maximizing shareholder approval. The management that’s in Ashley, myself and, for example, my archeologist Shannon Bard, that we bring a lot of experience. We’re very familiar with high-grade properties and so low overhead, low GNA and returning shareholder values is what I think is our positive side.
TMH: Before I let you go, anything further you would like to add?
GS: Well, I’d like to add that anyone wanting to look further into us could find us at ashleygoldcorp.com.
Again, we have been speaking with George Stephenson, CEO of Ashley Gold. To keep up to date with all things Ashley Gold, you can find the company on the CSE under the symbol ASHL.
A special thanks to our viewers for joining us for this interview. See you all again soon.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by The Market Herald.