Canadian gold exploration company Cross River Ventures Corp. recently announced updated preparation plans in regards to an upcoming 2022 winter drill program at its 100% owned McVicar Gold Project, located about 150 km east of Red Lake, and 80 km west of Pickle Lake, in NW Ontario, Canada.

The company has multiple gold exploration projects located mainly in NW, Ontario which span across various high gold potential belts, including its largest project, the McVicar Gold Project in the Lang Lake greenstone belt. The project is actually a recent consolidation of multiple properties within the historic Patricia Mining Division. It is over 11,500 hectares and covers all “major fertile structural and geologic elements” of the Lang Lake belt. 

The most recent, up to date drilling intercept highlights from McVicar are as follows: 

• 6.46 g/t Au over 10.09m (including 29.86 g/t over 1.86m),
• 5.5 g/t Au over 3.6m,
• 11.72 g/t Au over 1.52m,
• 33 g/t Au over 1.86m,
• 5.0 g/t Au over 2.74m, and
• 9.3 g/t Au over 2.02m

Source: Cross River Ventures Corp. 

The winter 2022 drilling program includes 5,000 meters of core drilling and will be staged from the Cat Lake Winter Road. The program is fully funded and will prioritize two main targets, The Altered Zone and the Bear Head Zone, which were advanced to the drilling stage due to significant field work in 2021. Exact timing of when the drilling campaign is expected to begin will depend on conditions of the winter road, but camp construction is anticipated to start in February. 

In advance of the drilling program commencing, the company also acquired the rest of the “relevant open claim blocks” located on the McVicar project, that are known to cover “historic mineral occurrences with notable gold results.”

These additional mineral claims were acquired from an “arms length vendor” in exchange for the issuance of 100,000 common shares, which are subject to a statutory hold period of four-months-and-one-day following the closing day of issuance.

The following list includes the mineral land occurrences from the additional claim blocks:  

• Lang Lake – Belore[iv] 14.12 grams per ton gold and 0.45% copper
• Sample 2056[v] 1.34 grams per ton gold
• Sample 0134[vi] 1.47 grams per ton gold
• AOI 3[vii] 1.18 grams per ton gold
• Sample 2211[viii] 297 grams per ton silver and >1% lead

Source: Cross River Ventures Corp. 

The 2022 drilling program is actually the second step in discovering the potential of the two targets at McVicar. In 2021, phase one was launched and the company’s technical team discovered two high-grade gold trends at the two main priority targets, which confirmed the locations of historic bedrock gold occurrences. 

Not only were these bedrock gold occurrences discovered, but the discovery of one of the main targets, the Bear Head Zone. The zone is undrilled, with a “minimum 700-meter-long, high-grade gold corridor, nested within a multi-kilometer gold-bearing crustal-scale break.” Bear Head is approximately 600 meters south of the historic Chellow Vein, which is a narrow vein containing white quartz, minor pyrite and visible gold. The location of the Bear Head Zone alone shows the great potential the property has. 

The other main target the company is focused on is the Altered Zone, which is a “complex zone of deformation and intense alteration composed of intensely sheard mafic volcanics, abundant green mica, intermediate intrusive rocks, massive to semi-massive quartz, and a quartz-carbonate-sericite schist.” The upcoming drilling program plans to test the gold grade along with ​​new gold shoots and domains at several locations along the zone. 

“Shallow historic drilling at the Altered Zone intercepted 6.46 g/t Au over 10.09m (including 33 g/t Au over 1.86m) (drillhole ML-86-27[xii]), 5.7 g/t Au over 7.71m (drillhole ML-03-019), amongst other high-grade results. Trenching of the shear zone approximately 200m north of the claims returned 6.89 g/t Au over 1.55m (trench AZ-03-05; Continuum Resources Ltd.[xiii]).”  

Source: Cross River Ventures Corp. 

The company received Early Exploration Permits for the McVicar property in June 2021 along with all relevant permits for the drilling program. Cross River also controls four early-stage properties within the Archean Uchi Greenstone Belt, which are Shabu, Dent-Jackson, Maskootch, and Ear Falls from north to south. It is also responsible for the Manitou gold exploration project near the ​​Archean Eagle-Wabigoon-Manitou lakes Greenstone belt approximately 40km south of the community of Dryden, and the Fuchsite Lake project located 20 km north of the town of Armstrong, Ontario.

Cross River is off to an exciting 2022 year with its upcoming drilling program, but also with its new grant of stock options which it announced mid January. The stock option plan will allow various directors, officers and consultants of the company to purchase up to 2,000,000 common shares of the company. “The stock options are subject to a four month hold period, are exercisable at a price of $0.17 per share and expire two years from the January 17, 2022 date of grant,” according to the press release.

The above references an opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a licensed professional for investment advice. The author is not an insider or shareholder of any of the companies mentioned above.