Sitka Gold drilling RC Gold Project, Yukon
Sitka Gold Corp. [TSXV: SIG; FSE: 1RF; OTCQB: SITKF] reported that it has begun its 2025 diamond drilling program at its road accessible, 100%-owned RC Gold Project located in the prolific Tombstone Gold Belt, Yukon Territory.
The primary focus of the planned 30,000-metre drilling program at RC Gold this year will be to continue expanding the Blackjack gold deposit, which remains open in all directions, and further test gold mineralization within the Clear Creek Intrusive Complex (CCIC), including at the Eiger gold deposit, which also remains open in all directions, and at the Saddle, Rhosgobel, Contact and Pukelman targets.
“We are very excited to be back at RC Gold with an early start for what will be our largest drilling campaign to date,” said Cor Coe, Director and CEO of Sitka Gold. “Following up on the substantial progress of 2024, the 30,000 metres of diamond drilling planned this year will more than double the total amount of drilling we have completed at RC Gold to date. At Blackjack, drilling will focus on expanding the relatively high-grade gold deposit which begins at surface, remains open in all directions and currently hosts an indicated resource of 1.3 million ounces at 1.01 g/t gold and an inferred resource of 1.04 million ounces at 0.93 g/t gold. Drilling will also focus on other high-priority targets within the Clear Creek Intrusive Complex, including at Rhosgobel, where the first ever diamond drill holes completed last year discovered up to 119.0 metres of 1.05 g/t gold, including 37.9 metres of 2.05 g/t gold and 11.5 metres of 4.32 g/t gold, and at Pukelman where initial diamond drilling discovered robust intrusion related gold mineralization is present similar to that observed at the Blackjack deposit. With this fully funded drill campaign now underway, we look forward to rapidly advancing RC Gold this year as we push to further unlock the value of this impressive gold system.”
Of the 30,000 metres of diamond drilling planned at RC Gold this year, approximately 15,000 metres will be dedicated to drilling within the Blackjack-Saddle-Eiger zone. Drilling this winter will be aimed at laterally expanding the wide-open Blackjack gold deposit and further delineating the higher-grade zone discovered at depth in Hole 68 late last year.
Results from Hole 68 returned the best gold intervals discovered to date at Blackjack, with a 678.1 metres interval of 1.04 g/t gold returned from surface which contained numerous higher grade intervals, the most significant being 93.0 metres of 2.57 g/t gold from 589.5 metres. The highest grade intersection returned from the hole was 5.5 metres of 17.59 g/t gold from 598.5 metres, including 1.5 metres of 54.80 g/t gold, suggesting that gold mineralization is getting stronger at depth in the Blackjack system.
This focus will continue through the summer drilling phase along with expansion drilling at the Eiger gold deposit, which currently hosts a 440,000 ounce gold resource that is open in all directions(1), and drill testing at the Saddle target area, which has the largest and strongest gold-in-soil anomaly within the Clear Creek Intrusive Complex area.
While the majority of the recent drilling efforts have been focused on the Blackjack deposit area, the potential to significantly expand and further delineate the Eiger deposit, located approximately 2 km east, has always been a goal of the company and this year Sitka has the resources to push that agenda.
The Saddle zone, located between Blackjack and Eiger, is another high-priority target where surface sampling and drill testing have shown there is potential to link gold mineralization between Blackjack and Eiger. Drill testing at the Saddle target in 2023 returned strong gold intercepts including 84.0 metres of 1.21 g/t gold from surface in DDRCCC-23-054 which included 4.0 metres of 5.12 g/t gold and 51.1 metres of 1.52 g/t gold.
Drilling on the eastern periphery of the Blackjack deposit has also returned some significant gold intercepts with DDRCCC-23-046 intersecting 56.0 metres of 1.23 g/t gold from 134.0 metres and a separate interval of 38.2 metres of 4.15 g/t gold from 320.8 metres that included 4.3 metres of 33.10 g/t gold from 326.1 metres and 1.2 metres of 108.00 g/t gold from 327.8 metres. These results highlight the potential for robust gold mineralization to continue east of the Blackjack deposit, through the Saddle target and towards the Eiger gold deposit and the Company plans to aggressively drill across this area during the summer field season.
The remaining 15,000 metres of this year’s drilling program is assigned to follow up drilling at the Rhosgobel and Pukelman intrusion targets.
Additional drilling and exploration is also proposed this year at other drill-ready, high priority target areas within the CCIC, including at the Bear Paw Breccia and at the Barney, Josephine and Big Creek stocks.
The RC Gold Project consists of a 431 km2 contiguous district-scale land package located in the heart of Yukon’s Tombstone Gold Belt. The project is located approximately 100 km east of Dawson City, which has a 5,000-foot paved runway, and is accessed via a secondary gravel road from the Klondike Highway which is usable year-round and is an approximate two-hour drive from Dawson City.
The RC Gold Project now has an NI 43-101 pit-constrained mineral resources contained in two zones: the Blackjack and Eiger gold deposits with 1,291,000 ounces of gold grading 1.01 g/t gold in an indicated category and 1,044,000 ounces of gold grading 0.94 g/t in an inferred category at Blackjack and 440,000 ounces of gold grading 0.50 g/t gold in an inferred category at Eiger. Both of these deposits are at/near surface, are potentially open pit minable and amenable to heap leaching, with initial bottle roll tests indicating that the gold is not refractory and has high gold recoveries of up to 94%.
To date, 72 diamond drill holes have been drilled into this system by the company for a total of approximately 25,136 metres. Other targets drilled to date include the Saddle, Josephine, Rhosgobel and Pukelman zones. The resource expansion drilling in 2023 at Blackjack produced results of up to 219.0 m of 1.34 g/t gold Including 124.8 m of 2.01 g/t gold and 55.0 m of 3.11 g/t gold in drill hole DDRCCC-23-047 and in 2024 results of up to 678.1 metres of 1.04 g/t gold starting from surface in DDRCCC-24-068, including 409.5 metres of 1.36 g/t gold, 93.0 metres of 2.57 g/t gold and 5.5 metres of 17.59 g/t gold.
Sitka Gold has approximately $14 million in its treasury and no debt.