North Country rises on Nunavut gold hits

Vancouver – When the first results from the first drill program of a newly-listed company include hits like 42 metres of 5.88 grams gold per tonne, the market usually responds. And that is exactly what happened to North Country Gold (NCG-V), which shot up 45% in a day on news of its results at the Three Bluffs project in Nunavut.

The Three Bluffs project is roughly 300 km northeast of Baker Lake, in the centre of North Country’s 2,256-sq km land package. The northeast-striking property covers a large segment of the Committee Bay greenstone belt, which North Country says is underexplored and home to at least five drill-ready gold targets.

Three Bluffs is the most advanced target within North Country’s property and consists of a near surface, high grade hinge structure that is already home to 2.7 million indicated tonnes grading 5.85 grams gold as well as 1.3 million inferred tonnes averaging 5.98 grams gold. In a spring drill program shortened by unusually warm weather, North Country extended the known mineralization to the west when all six holes hit gold.

The best result came from hole 82, which hit 42.1 metres grading 5.88 grams gold from just 7 metres depth. The hit in hole 82 included 15 metres averaging 10.2 grams gold.

Hole 83 cut 3.5 metres grading 10.2 grams gold from 38 metres downhole, followed 15 metres later by 19 metres of 2.41 grams gold. Hole 87 produced a 25-metre intercept grading 4.17 grams gold, starting 19 metres downhole. And hole 88 returned 31.9 metres carrying 2.27 grams gold, starting at 14 metres depth.

Mineralization at Three Bluffs appears to be controlled by a steeply dipping, folded iron formation that can be traced on surface for 10 km and of which only about 1 km has been explored The spring drill holes all targeted the shallow, western, updip portion of the hinge, an area that was undercut in previous drilling.

North Country plans to follow up on these hits with 11 more holes into the shallow western hinge, which will be part of the summer drill program that recently got underway. The company will also probe three other areas this summer, one of which is simply farther west along strike from Three Bluffs.

The other two areas that will see drilling this summer are separate targets. The Antler zone is about 2 km to the southwest and has seen some limited drilling. The Hayes target, which lies another kilometer to the southwest along the traceable banded iron formation, has not been previously drilled. North Country has four drill rigs on site and plans to complete 20,000 metres of drilling.

In addition, North Country is working through a Titan induced polarization survey that will cover 7 km of the prospective trend, from east of the Three Bluffs to west of the Hayes target. The survey will test for additional blind mineralization potential in an area that has limited bedrock exposure.

North Country was born in April as a spin-off from CBR Gold, which has since renamed itself Niblack Gold (NIB-V) in honour of its flagship asset, the Niblack volcanogenic massive sulphide project in Alaska. As part of the spin-out Niblack transferred roughly $4.7 million into North Country.

The company recently boosted that working capital with a $1.7-million private placement, selling 1.2 million flow-through shares at 32¢ a piece as well as 4.3 million units at 30¢ a piece. Each unit comprised a share and half a warrant, exercisable at 40¢ for two years.

And investors certainly liked the company’s first drill results from Three Bluffs. North Country’s share price gained 11.5¢ or 45% on the results to close at 37¢. The company has 60 million shares outstanding.