BC’s Golden Triangle – High-grade Strikes Back!

By Staff Writer

The Golden Triangle is one of the hottest mining regions in the world due to its astounding endowment of metals and being in one of the most stable geopolitical arenas. Significant improvements to infrastructure, such as roads, high-power transmission lines, and deep-sea shipping ports, are making the area even more appealing for exploration. 

Currently, two mines are in production, the high-grade Brucejack mine and the low-grade bulk tonnage Red Chris mine (currently in expansion), which are both now owned by Newmont (NSYE: NEM). Other mines are moving towards production, such as the Premier mine (Ascot – TSX: AOT) in 2024 and the Eskay Creek mine (Skeena – TSX: SKE) scheduled for 2026, while Seabridge Gold (TSX: SEA) is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to become “Substantially Started” on their KSM project. With dozens of exploration companies in the area, 60% of all exploration dollars in BC are concentrated in this northwest corner of the province.

The Golden Triangle first became famous back in the 1920’s when the Silbak Premier mine became the richest gold mine in North America, and then had another massive surge in the ’90s through more high-grade discoveries like the Eskay Creek mine (45 g/t Au & 2,224 g/t Ag) and the Snip mine (27.5 g/t Au) that made investors fortunes back in the days of the Vancouver Stock Exchange. However, over the last couple of decades, the area has become better known for its world-scale copper porphyry deposits, which total some 220 million ounces of gold, 1.2 billion ounces of silver, and 93 billion pounds of copper. These include the producing Red Chris mine – 8.5M oz Au, 14.9B Lbs Cu, along with other mega-projects in development such as KSM – 154M oz Au, 820M oz Ag, 54.5B Lbs Cu, Treaty Creek – 24.3M oz Au, 157.5M oz Ag, 3B Lbs Cu (Tudor – TSX-V: TUD/American Creek – TSX-V: AMK/Teuton – TSX-V: TUO), Galore Creek –10.9M oz Au, 194M oz Ag, 13.5B Lbs Cu (Newmont/Teck – NSYE: TECK), Schaft Creek – 8.1M oz Au, 63.5M oz Ag, 9B Lbs Cu (Teck/Copper Fox – TSX-V: CUU), and the Tatogga – 8.9M oz Au, 19.2M oz Ag, 12B Lbs Cu (Newmont) [all categories included for all deposits].

While numerous large-scale porphyry deposits are being developed in what people call “elephant country”, recently, some of the new high-grade discoveries are “striking back” and stealing the limelight in 2023. This includes great intercepts from projects like the Premier mine – 98 g/t Au over 6.48m – (Ascot) as well as numerous earlier stage discoveries like the Blueberry zone – 56.4 g/t Au over 3.7m (Scottie Gold – TSX-V: SCOT), Dolly Varden/Homestake Ridge – 461 AgEq over 26.99m (Dolly Varden – TSX-V: DV), Golddigger – 65 g/t Au over 7.9m (Goliath Resources – TSX-V: GOT), Harry – 312 g/t Au & 101 g/t Ag over 1m (Blackwolf – TSX-V: BWCG), and the Goldstorm deposit at Treaty Creek – 15.64 g/t AuEq over 15m (Tudor/American Creek/Teuton). They say “grade is king,” and these projects, along with many more, are turning heads with the results they’ve had over last summer’s programs. With Ascots’ new mill designed to be a “spoke and hub” operation, it has the potential to provide much needed infrastructure to many of the discoveries in the area. Given what was reported last year, it will be interesting to follow the development of these high-grade deposits in this red-hot region this summer.

American Creek Resources Ltd. [AMK-TSXV] is a Canadian company that offers investors unique exposure to gold and silver exploration in the richest part of the Golden Triangle area.

The company’s key asset is a 20% fully carried interest until notice of production in the Treaty Creek project, a rapidly maturing gold project that already contains a very large open-pittable and underground mineral resource with higher gold grades than the other mega-deposits in the area, and now a new high-grade system has been made as well.

Treaty Creek is geologically located in the same hydrothermal system as the KSM project and the Brucejack gold mine. It shares the same faults, geological structures, and even similar geophysics. Fortunately, it has much better logistics as shown in the image below:

The Goldstorm deposit at Treaty Creek has become known for its incredible endowment of 23.37 Moz at 1.13 g/t AuEq Indicated and 7.2 Moz at 0.98 g/t AuEq Inferred (24 Moz Au, 157 Moz Ag, 3 B Lbs Cu), making it one of the largest gold discoveries in the last 30 years. Incredibly long intervals are commonplace. For example, five of the 2023 holes are about the height of the CN tower, grading over one gram per tonne gold equivalent, including a 605m interval at 1.4 gpt AuEq. However, over the last two years, American Creeks JV partner and operator, Tudor Gold, started to hit regular occurrences of high-grade gold that weren’t included in the resource calculation, including:

• 9.96 g/t AuEq over 25.5m inc 20.86 g/t AuEq over 4.5m – GS-22-134
• 39.15 g/t AuEq over 2m inc 70.96 g/t AuEq over 1m – GS-22-143
• 9.55 g/t AuEq over 10.5m inc 24.11 g/t AuEq over 1.5m – GS-22-146
• 22.79 g/t AuEq over 1.1m – GS-22-147
• 59.93 g/t AuEq over 1.5m – GS-22-151-W1
• 7.84 g/t AuEq over 15m – GS-22-154
• 28.9 AuEq over 1.5 m – GS-22-156
• 15.64 g/t AuEq over 15m – GS-23-176-W1
• 10.07 g/t AuEq over 12m – GS-23-179
• 11.68 g/t AuEq over 3m – GS-178- W1

and numerous other high-grade intervals.

High-grade gold is something that Tudor President Ken Konkin knows all about, given his experience of helping put the neighbouring Brucejack mine (7.5 g/t Au head grade) into production when he was with Pretivm. That mine was sold to Newmont in 2022 for $3.5B CAD who was subsequently acquired by Newmont in November of 2024.

The 2023 drill program delineated a new high-grade system called the Supercell One (SC-1) with grades about ten times the rest of the Goldstorm deposit. This late-stage gold-dominant event overprints the primary mineralization of the Goldstorm Deposit. The SC-1 is a breccia stockwork system that features minor pyrite and chalcopyrite with fine-grained visible native gold and measures approximately 400 m down plunge and over 300 m along a northeastern axis so far.

Three drill holes are interpreted to have intersected this structural corridor:

• GS-22-134: 25.5 m of 9.96 g/t AuEQ (9.66 g/t Au, 1.23 g/t Ag, 0.24 % Cu)
• GS-23-176-W1: 15.0 m of 15.64 g/t AuEQ (14.89 g/t Au, 4.72 g/t Ag, 0.60 % Cu)
• GS-23-179: 12.0 m of 10.07 g/t AuEQ (9.78 g/t Au, 1.35 g/t Ag, 0.23 % Cu)

“The SC-1 represents a significant economic target” said Konkin. “This is significant, as these smaller, higher-grade systems have the potential to streamline start-up plans, allowing for rapid extraction of gold with the possibility of substantially lower capital expenditures compared to a much larger conceptual bulk tonnage operation.”

The gold-rich SC-1 system won’t be included in the updated Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) due out in Q1 of 2024 as its grades are above the cap applied to the deposit. However, updated mineral domains show significant expansion of the Goldstorm Deposit in several areas. (plan maps and cross sections of the SC-1 and the expanded domains). These maps indicate how the drilling conducted in 2023 has the potential to convert several areas of the deposit from Inferred Mineral Resources to Indicated Mineral Resources. Despite the aggressive exploration and expansion of the Goldstorm Deposit, it remains open in all directions and at depth. Darren Blaney, American Creek president and CEO, stated: “Considerable expansion has taken place on the Goldstorm deposit, and based on the exceptional drill results from the 2023 program, we’re confident that overall grade is improving as well.”

The Golden Triangle is a large area, and logistics can vary drastically. Infrastructure is a critical component for projects and is improving in the district. Nowhere is this more apparent than at Treaty Creek, where bridges, roads, and power lines are under construction to join Treaty Creek with Highway #37. From there, it’s only 160 km to ice-free bulk tonnage shipping ports in Stewart, BC. The power is from a hydro source and is amongst the cheapest power sources in the world.

Konkin has referred to the Goldstorm deposit as a geological marvel. Given it’s already one of the largest gold deposits in the world, is expected to increase in size and grade in the upcoming MRE, and now has a high-grade zone extending over a long distance, he may just be right.

Having a fully carried interest in the Treaty Creek project allows American Creek to increase in value as the project develops without experiencing the associated dilution. This unique arrangement allows the company to maintain the 1:3 ownership relationship it has with Tudor throughout the entire discovery stage of the project.