Angela Harmantas | April 2, 2018 | SmallCapPower: When the results came in from its 2017 drilling program at Big Duck Lake last December, the management team at GTA Resources and Mining Inc. (TSXV:GTA) noticed there was one over-limit sample from Hole BD17-01 with over >10 g/t gold that had to be re-run at the lab to have it re-analyzed. It wasn't a mistake – on the re-run, the sample returned a bonanza value of 823.1 g/t gold over half a metre.
The rest of the drill program returned promising results as well. One hole showed 5.9 g/t gold over 5 metres and another 3.05 g/t over 8 metres. While it is still early in the project's development plan, GTA's CEO Peter Clausi is feeling positive. "There is proven mineralization in the system," he said. "Now we have to prove how much, and whether it's economic."
It helps that Big Duck Lake sits in the world-renowned Hemlo gold camp in northern Ontario, home to Barrick Gold's flagship Hemlo Mine. Big Duck Lake consists of 65 claim units covering six kilometres of prospective geology containing numerous gold and base-metal showings, including the Coco-Estelle deposit, which hosts a historic resource of 53,700 tonnes of 10.7 g/t starting near surface.
What also excites GTA at Big Duck Lake is the polymetallic nature of the deposit. There are 46 confirmed mineralization showings at surface in a polymetallic setting, and at the south end of the property there is a 2% copper showing that the team is eager to investigate further in 2018. Next door to the project is the former Winston Lake mine that produced five different metals over a nine-year period. "The part of Hemlo [where we are] is known to be polymetallic. Although we drilled the gold, there are nice numbers here and there for everything," said Mr. Clausi.
This year won't be all Big Duck Lake, however, as the Company plans to work simultaneously on its Northshore property, home to one million ounces of Indicated and Inferred gold. But, as Mr. Clausi explained, one million ounces is a precarious amount. "It's a lot, but at the same time, it's not a lot," he said. "You have to build a road or if not, ship it, build your own mill or custom mill it. If you have to build a road then there are environmental costs to doing all the studies that are required, although, we are pretty sure that all of our studies are going to say, go ahead. We are trying to look down the road to see what the best use of the property is, and whether it's justifiable to incur the economic expense of doing all of the environmental studies."
Raising money has not been an issue for GTA over the past two years, even when other junior miners have struggled with financing. In 2016, the Company raised $350,000 in an innovative crowd-funded flow-through share program, the first company of its kind to do so. Last year, the team raised an additional $440,000 with an existing shareholder exempt financing. "We have always been able to find the money we need to fund programs," said Mr. Clausi. "We are taking advantage of what the government is giving us to raise funds for the Company's exploration."
Moving into 2018, Mr. Clausi remains confident that the more positive the mindset is in the junior mining space, the more the good news from the Company will help its stock price as it continues its exploration programs at Big Duck Lake and Northshore. "Everybody likes gold, you don't have to explain it like you would other commodities," he said. "We only have 48 million shares outstanding, making us one of the cheapest companies by the ratio of proven ounces in the ground divided by capitalization. There's real value in the company."
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