Gold Canyon keeps climbing on Springpole results

Vancouver – Everything is coming up roses for Gold Canyon (GCU-V) of late – the company is pulling long, golden intercepts from its Springpole project in Ontario, its share price has shot up 300% since August, and a recent financing just added $6 million to its coffers, enough to fund a winter drill program.

The Springpole project is northwest Ontario’s Red Lake district, 115 km east of the town of Red Lake. Gold Canyon has been exploring the project since 1997 and has outlined two parallel gold zones, both striking northwest and both sitting within the same alkalic intrusive complex.

The parallel zones are each composed of several areas of mineralization. The Sprog and East zones make up the more northern strike while the southern strike is made up of the Main, Camp, and Portage zones, aligned from northwest to southeast.

The latest Springpole results come from the Portage zone, where Gold Canyon has been stepping out to the southeast to probe for extensions to the zone along strike. And the company was rewarded for its effort. The last two step-out holes both returned some of the best intercepts from the project to date and extended the zone 100 metres.

First, hole 16 intercepted 305 metres grading 1.03 grams gold per tonne, starting 206 metres downhole and including 174 metres averaging 1.35 grams gold. The hole ended in mineralization when the drill reached its depth capacity at 511 metres. Gold Canyon says the Portage zone ranges in width from 50 metres to 150 metres and seems to be widening to the southeast; the company estimates hole 16 returned a true width of 150 metres, still open.

Then hole 19, collared 50 metres farther southeast, cut 307 metres grading 1.44 grams gold, starting 182 metres downhole and including 100 metres of 2.7 grams gold. The company says hole 19 is the best hole from the Portage zone, in terms of grade thickness.

The intercept in hole 19 is especially interesting because previous attempts to intersect a southeast strike extension did not work out very well, returning only low grade mineralization. Gold Canyon geologists now think those earlier holes may have only cut along the edges of the zone and that hole 19 is indicative of a hit into the centre.

Those two results, combined with a 123-metre intercept in hole 8 that carried 1.45 grams gold, indicate the southeastern portion of the Portage zone hosts good continuity of mineralization. The zone remains open along strike.

Gold Canyon is awaiting drill results from five additional holes already completed at Portage. Two of those stepped farther to the southeast, two stepped out to the northwest, towards the Camp zone, and one probed the middle of the zone. Three other holes still at the assay lab tested other targets on the property.

Gold at Springpole is hosted in an alkaline intrusion and potentially represents a new style of gold deposit for the Canadian Archean Shield. At Portage mineralization is within a porphyry intrusion displaying authlithic breccias while other Springpole zones consist of high grade veins and pods hosted in diatreme breccias. The known mineralized zones cover roughly 4 sq. km, which represents only 15% of the known alkaline intrusive complex.

Gold Canyon completed 10,300 metres of drilling at Springpole in 2010. Now the company is planning out its winter drill campaign, made possible by its recent $6-million financing. The company sold 6 million flow-through units at $1 a piece, with each unit comprising a flow-through share and half a warrant exercisable at $1.25 for two years.

The winter program will include up to 10,000 metres of drilling utilizing three diamond core rigs and is expected to get underway in early January.

Gold Canyon added 3¢ on news of the intercept in hole 19, bringing its share price to 98¢ In mid-August the company’s shares were worth just 25¢. Gold Canyon has 73 million shares outstanding.