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

Doyon Ltd., the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act regional corporation for Interior Alaska, is strengthening its partnership with Tectonic Metals Inc. with another investment into the equity of the company exploring for gold on Doyon and state lands in Alaska.

"Working on Native Owned Land is one thing, but being funded by Alaska Natives to explore on their land is something completely different," said Tectonic Metals President and CEO Tony Reda. "It is truly an honour, a privilege and a vote of confidence by our single largest shareholder, Doyon, one of Alaska's leading Native Regional Corporations, to entrust us with their capital to explore on their traditional territory and work alongside them,"

The Doyon region blankets a mineral-rich swath of Alaska's Interior that is nearly the size of Texas. The Alaska Native corporation owns 12.5 million acres of land within this vast region, making it the largest private landholder in Alaska and one of the largest in North America.

Following the passage of ANCSA in 1971, ANCSA selected much of these lands for their mineral potential, including the Seventymile, Carrie Creek, and Flat gold properties being explored by Tectonic.

Doyon and Tectonic first began forging a partnership in 2018, when the new mineral exploration company and Interior Alaska ANCSA corporation signed discovery-to-production agreements for Doyon properties.

Currently, Tectonic is exploring several Doyon properties – Seventymile, Carrie Creek, Maple Leaf, Mount Harper, and Flat – and the Tibbs gold project on state lands in the Goodpaster Mining District where Carrie Creek, Maple Leaf, and Mount Harper are located.

In addition to the land agreements, Doyon has already invested in two Tectonic financings and currently holds a 15% equity interest in the explorer – a stake that will increase with its participation in Tectonic's current non-brokered private placement.

"2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the formation of Doyon, Ltd. Since that day, our mission has been clear: continually enhance our position as a financially strong Native corporation in order to promote the economic and social well-being of our shareholders and future shareholders, to strengthen our Native way of life, and to protect and enhance our land and resources. Our investment in Tectonic is our mission in action," said Doyon President and CEO Aaron Schutt.

Originally announced in April, Tectonic is raising C$3 million through a non-brokered private placement led by Crescat Capital LLC, in association with renowned geologist Quinton Hennigh.

"Tectonic has assembled an enviable portfolio of high-quality gold projects in Alaska, all ready for drilling," said Hennigh, the geological and technical adviser at Crescat. "They have a very strong technical team able to execute on multiple exploration campaigns, and importantly, they have a drill available for the 2022 season."

Under the financing, Tectonic plans to issue up to 50 million units at C6 cents each. Each unit consists of one share and half a warrant, with each whole warrant exercisable into an additional share for C10 cents for two years, subject to early expiry conditions.

While the exact amount of units being purchased by Doyon has not been disclosed, the investment is expected to be significant and will increase the ANCSA corporation's already substantial Tectonic share ownership.

"As Tectonic Metals' single largest shareholder since 2020, Doyon recognizes that the company shares our core values – values that today are embraced as 'ESG' principles but which our people have adhered to for thousands of years," said Schutt. "We welcome the opportunity to reinforce our support for Tectonic and are confident that their professional, diligent, and respectful exploration process will prove successful."

With the funds raised during the current financing, Tectonic plans to carry out drilling at its Tibbs gold project about 22 miles (35 kilometers) southeast of Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s Pogo Mine in the Goodpaster Mining District; and Seventymile, a roughly 150,000-acre land package between Yukon's Klondike and Alaska's Circle Mining District.

The drilling at Tibbs will focus on Michigan, a zone where previous drilling has encountered high-grade gold, including 28.95 meters averaging 6.03 grams per metric ton gold; one meter of 104.5 g/t gold; 6.12 meters of 7.69 g/t gold; and 1.52 meters of 57.1 g/t gold.

Oriented drilling carried out last year identified an interpreted steep structure that controls high-grade mineralization at Michigan. Testing this structure will be one of the primary targets for the 2022 drill program at Tibbs.

At Seventymile, drilling will step out from high-grade gold mineralization, such as the 1.1 meters of 205.89 g/t gold previously drilled in tension veins at Flanders and 1.07 meters of 29.3 g/t gold in shear veins at Flume.

In addition to drilling, the company plans to carry out metallurgical work and surface exploration at Flat, an exciting gold property leased from Doyon in September.

Located in the Kuskokwim Mineral Belt about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the 39-million-ounce Donlin Gold project, Flat hosts intrusive-hosted, sheeted quartz vein gold mineralization above two creeks – Flat and Otter – that are estimated to have produced more than 830,000 oz of placer gold since 1908. When you add in other streams draining Chicken Mountain on the property, this total is more than 1.3 million oz of alluvial gold.

Tectonic Metals Inc.

There have been 6,907 meters of historical drilling in 55 holes at Chicken Mountain, the primary exploration target at Flat. This drilling has cut long sections of 0.5 to 1 g/t gold mineralization, with shorter sections of high-grade gold. The historical drilling, along with soil and rock sampling, has outlined a roughly 4,000-meter-long mineralized zone with gold to the 200-meter depth of the previous drilling.

The metallurgical work at Flat is being carried out to confirm previous testing that shows the gold is not refractory and to test for the potential for heap leach extraction of the mineralization.

"Flat also has the potential for free-milling gold, implying a simpler, less energy-intensive extraction process upon mining," said Reda. "This, in combination with historically mined placer gold deposits in creeks draining the property, points to an opportunity with a low-cost path forward."

Author Bio

Shane Lasley, Publisher

Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.

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