Int’l Wayside Gold Mines resumes trading on mixed results

Vancouver — After being taken to task by the Canadian Venture Exchange for its over-promotional ways and questionable past sampling practices, International Wayside Gold Mines (IWA-V) has resumed trading with gusto.

The company recently released mixed results from the latest batch of five drill holes. The program targeted the Bonanza Ledge discovery at the Cariboo gold property in north-central British Columbia.

Holes 16 through 18 tested the northwestern extension of the new zone but failed to cut any significant gold mineralization.

Holes 16 and 17 were drilled from the same site as previously reported holes 6 and 7, about 100 metres northwest of hole 10. (Hole 10, which returned 25.8 metres grading 24.65 grams gold per tonne, is the best hole to date in the Bonanza Ledge zone. Holes 6 and 7 were not drilled deep enough to intersect the new style of high-grade gold pyritic mineralization occurring in the footwall of the BC vein.)

Hole 18 stepped out a further 130 metres to the northwest of holes 16 and 17.

The three holes intersected muscovite-dolomite alteration, with pyritic bands and minor pyrrhotite, containing gold concentrations of less than 0.5 gram per tonne. The best intercept, 1.1 metres of 14.17 grams, was cut by hole 16 in a narrow quartz-carbonate-pyrite vein in unaltered rock. Hole 18 yielded 1.5 metres of 1.49 grams.

The southeastern extension of the high-grade discovery was further tested by hole 15, which tested the downdip extension of mineralization encountered in previously reported holes 13 (33.2 metres of 10.6 grams) and 14 (17.2 metres of 1.43 grams). Hole 15 intersected intervals of muscovite with weak pyritic alteration in the footwall of the BC vein. The two best intercepts were a disappointing 1.83 metres of 1.09 grams, followed by 1.5 metres of 1.05 grams further down-hole. The BC vein itself averaged 12.56 grams across 4.6 metres.

The best hole of the batch, no. 19, cut 19.8 metres of muscovite-pyrite alteration averaging 18.15 grams, starting at a downhole depth of 81.7 metres. Collared at minus 48, no. 19 was an infill hole drilled 26 metres southeast of holes 4 (8.5 metres of 10.12 grams) and 12 (17.6 metres of 20.8 grams) and 25.9 metres northwest of hole 15.

Assay results are pending for holes 20 through 24, which are currently being logged. The rig is currently drilling hole 25.

Based on work by independent consultants David Rhys and Katherina Ross of Panterra Geoservices, the newly discovered Bonanza Ledge zone is hosted by an overturned, northeasterly dipping sequence of clastic metasedimentary rocks made up of upper laminated, carbonaceous pelitic phyllite and lower metaturbiditic rocks in the footwall of the BC vein. Mineralized zones occur in a broad area of muscovite-carbonate alteration containing auriferous pyrite mineralization with grey-blue quartz-dolomite-ankerite stringers. Pyrite mineralization is best developed in discrete areas, locally more than 30 metres thick, where it comprises 10-70% of the rock as stringers, concordant laminations and massive bands.

Drilling to date shows a discontinuity of mineralized zones, lithologies and alteration in holes between and within sections. From the presence of numerous minor D2 folds, the consultants conclude that the area is structurally complex.

The Cariboo project centres on three past-producing gold mines — Cariboo Gold Quartz, Island Mountain and Mosquito Creek — all of which are in a 13-by-5-km area of Barkerville-Wells. International Wayside has optioned an initial half-interest in the Cariboo group of claims from Mosquito Consolidated Gold Mines (MSQ-V). The remaining half can be purchased for cash payments totalling $4 million by Dec. 31, 2003, subject to a 3% net smelter return royalty.