North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Redstar Gold Corp. Aug. 22 renewed its lease for the Unga project on islands just off the Alaska Peninsula and plans to resume exploration of the high-grade gold project later this year.

Aleut Corp., an Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) regional corporation, owns the mineral rights to most of Unga. Two ANCSA village corporations, Shumagin and Unga, own much of the surface estate on this island.

More information on Aleut Corp can be found at Aleuts Ring of Fire mineral potential in the August edition of North of 60 Mining News.

Redstar has signed a subsurface agreement renewal with Aleut Corp. that provides for an exploration license and a 20-year extendable mining lease on the ANCSA-held properties on Unga and Popof Islands.

"Redstar is pleased to announce that it has signed a milestone agreement with TAC (The Aleut Corporation) that will allow the company to fully explore all of the areas of its Unga high-grade gold project on Popof and Unga Islands, in addition to the company's patented and state claims," said Redstar Gold President John Gray. "This is the longest agreement so far negotiated between TAC and Redstar and is the result of many years of a cooperative and productive relationship in which both Redstar and TAC are committed to advancing the Unga project. As such, we are grateful for TAC's professionalism and support."

The exploration license is for eight years, which provides Redstar the time to carry out the drilling, trenching and sampling needed to advance the numerous areas of mineral showings on the islands.

The roughly 100-square-mile (250 square kilometers) Unga property blankets two high-grade gold trends – Apollo-Sitka and Shumagin – that each cut roughly six miles across Unga Island, which is just south of the Alaska Peninsula.

Apollo-Sitka hosts Apollo, a historic mine that produced roughly 150,000 ounces of gold from 1886 to 1922.

Shumagin, a parallel structural trend about 2,000 meters to the northwest, has been Redstar's primary exploration focus in recent years.

The company's 2017 program focused on expanding Shumagin zone, a 2,000-meter-long subset of this 9,000-meter (5.6 miles) structural trend.

Redstar Gold Corp.

Early in 2018, Redstar commissioned an NI 43-101 technical report that compiles the company's exploration at Unga along with historical data from 130 years of exploration on this property that hosts Alaska's first hardrock gold mine.

"We believe that Unga, with its dual trends of epithermal low to medium sulfidation formation with gold showings over 19 kilometers (12 miles) is currently amongst the most exciting and prospective gold exploration projects in North America," said Redstar Gold Executive Chairman Jacques Vaillancourt. "In the most recent 43-101 report, 32 distinct areas of mineralization and potential mineralization were defined."

Redstar plans to resume exploration of these gold zones before the end of September.

–SHANE LASLEY