Altius discovers high-grade gold at Wilding Lake, Nfld

Altius Minerals Corp. [ALS-TSX] has reported the discovery of several new high-grade gold occurrences on the Wilding Lake gold project in central Newfoundland. It has also completed an agreement to option the project to Northwest Arm Capital Inc. [NWA-TSXV], a new TSX Venture Exchange-listed capital pool company. Altius will receive 4.5 million shares of NWA, and, upon earn-in by NWA, Altius will retain a 2% net smelter return royalty. Following completion of its qualifying transaction, NWA intends to seek shareholder approval to change its name to Antler Gold. Northwest Arm Capital,, a wholly owned subsidiary of Altius Minerals, must spend $500,000 on exploration within one year to earn a 100% interest in Wilding Lake.

The Wilding Lake property hosts high-grade gold mineralization within shear-related orogenic-style quartz veins and quartz stockworks underneath shallow overburden in an area that has not previously been systematically explored for gold. The 688-claim property covering 17,000 hectares, is located immediately northeast of and adjacent to Marathon Gold’s Valentine Lake Project (Resource:1,060,100 oz gold at 2.20 g/t measured and indicated and 200,000 oz gold at 2.85 g/t inferred. The land package covers more than 50 km of strike length of the projected structure that is believed to control the regional gold mineralization (see the company’s website www.altiusminerals.com for a location map).

The initial Wilding Lake discovery was made by local Newfoundland prospectors Brian Jones and Gary Rowsell along a recently constructed logging road, where metre-scale angular quartz vein float containing coarse visible gold returned a maximum value of 74.8 g/t gold in initial grab samples. Follow-up prospecting by Altius in 2016, subsequent to optioning the property from the prospectors earlier this year, has located additional areas of similar gold-bearing float and recent initial trenching has successfully exposed gold-bearing quartz veins in bedrock at the Alder zone.

Mineralization at the Alder Zone occurs as coarse, free gold in association with chalcopyrite, rare scheelite and gold-silver telluride, in association with tourmaline-bearing quartz veins. A total of 107 channel samples collected to date from outcrop in trenches have yielded uncut gold values ranging up to 13.9 g/t over 4.0 m, 5.4 g/t over 3.6 m, and 49.3 g/t over 4.6 m (including 279 g/t gold over 0.9 m). Additional and infill channel sampling assay results are pending.

Several additional gold occurrences in outcrop and float have also been discovered by reconnaissance prospecting along trend up to 3.5 km away from the Alder Zone. Additionally, the newly discovered Birch Zone, located 450 metres south of Alder, has returned gold values of up to 36.4 g/t in grab samples and up to 5.5 g/t over 1.0 m in preliminary channel samples.

Also, two initial grab samples from a recently exposed pyrite-bearing shear zone occurrence named Jigger, located 15.2 km to the northeast, have returned results of 8.4 and 19.7 g/t gold in grab samples.

Work to date on the Wilding Project remains early stage in nature and has only included prospecting near roads, limited soil sampling, trenching of the immediate Alder zone and a preliminary structural interpretation of the gold mineralization.

A program for continued exploration will be conducted throughout the fall and will involve more detailed trenching and channel sampling, systematic prospecting and mapping, soil sampling, structural analysis and other work required for design of an initial drilling program. Altius will be the operator of this work program. As well, an independent NI 43-101 technical report is currently being prepared and is anticipated to be delivered by late September in support of NWA’s qualifying transaction.