Exploration by Wheaton River boosts tonnage at Ursa zone

The first phase of this year’s exploration work on the Golden Bear mine property in northwestern British Columbia is complete.

Wheaton River Minerals (TSE), which controls the property through majority-owned North American Metals (VSE), is now proceeding with a reserve calculation for the Ursa zone.

The recent phase of work included drilling on both the Ursa and the Grizzly zone in an effort to outline sufficient reserves to restart the mine’s 400-ton-per-day mill.

Although stepout drilling met with limited success, infill drilling on the Ursa zone returned wide, gold-mineralized intersections. The drilling identified a core area measuring 250 ft. along strike and 250 ft. downdip, with widths ranging from 23 up to 255 ft.

A recently drilled control hole, drilled at 45 along the strike of the zone from north to south, returned a 180.1-ft. intersection grading 0.92 oz. gold uncut.

Underground drilling on the Grizzly zone, a few miles south of the Ursa, has not been as successful.

Wheaton reports that grades encountered in the Grizzly were generally lower than the initial discovery holes, and the size appears to be limited.

Wheaton plans to analyze, in detail, the results from the Grizzly drilling before deciding upon the direction of future work.

In the meantime, the decline ramp to the Grizzly is being allowed to flood.

Surface exploration in the area between the Ursa deposit and the Kodiak A deposit to the south is continuing.

Surface trenching is reported to have encountered grades and widths similar to the surface expression of the Ursa deposit.

The current exploration budget includes further trenching and at least 15-20 drill holes to test various targets.