Fireweed Metals Corp. July 5 announced that in conjunction with the largest-ever planned drill program at Macmillan Pass, the company will conduct reconnaissance prospecting, mapping, and sampling across a series of gold anomalies on this Yukon property best known for its zinc-lead deposits.

A road-accessible project adjacent to Yukon's border with Northwest Territories, the 940-square-kilometer (363 square miles) Macmillan Pass project blankets a roughly 55-kilometer (34 miles) trend of zinc, lead, silver, and copper mineralization.

The two more advanced deposits on this district-scale property – Tom and Jason – host 11.2 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 6.59% (1.63 billion pounds) zinc, 2.48% (620 million lb) lead, and 21.33 grams per metric ton (7.7 million ounces) silver; plus 39.5 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 5.84% (5.08 billion lb) zinc, 3.14% (2.73 billion lb) lead, and 38.15 g/t (48.4 million oz) silver.

The 2023 program will utilize five diamond drill rigs, targeting over 16,000 meters of drilling between Boundary, Tom, and Jason – more than double the roughly 7,000 meters drilled in 2022.

You can read more in-depth details on Fireweed's 2023 drill program at Fireweed starts largest drill program ever in the June 9, 2023 edition of North of 60 Mining News.

"The Macmillan Pass Project is a large and structurally complex package of sedimentary, intrusive, and volcanic sequences which are ideal hosts to precious metals with multiple proven high-grade analogues," said Fireweed Metals CEO Brandon Macdonald. "We are located within the Selwyn Basin which is home to some of the most exciting precious metals exploration and development projects in western Canada."

Recent drilling within the Selwyn basin – and within the Tombstone-Tungsten gold belt in particular – have begun a new rush of gold exploration on projects surrounding Fireweed's claims in 2023.

More specifically, this new wave of gold exploration has been fueled by the new discoveries by Snowline Gold Corp. of reduced intrusion-related gold mineralization, roughly 30 to 90 kilometers (18.6 to 56 miles) away from Fireweed's Macmillan Pass project.

Previously, gold exploration was undertaken in the eastern Selwyn Basin due to gold discoveries in the northwest by ATAC Resources Ltd.

From 2011 to 2013, roughly C$6 million of early-stage gold exploration occurred on Fireweed's Macmillan Pass project by its previous owners, and datasets gathered during this work, together with Fireweed's own data, are currently being leveraged by the company to generate possible targets for gold.

Fireweed will conduct a three-week reconnaissance exploration program in search of gold mineralization similar to what is being drilled at Snowline's nearby Rogue. The team will conduct prospecting, mapping, and sampling to follow up on prospective areas around intrusions, geochemical soil anomalies, and geophysical signatures indicative of potential gold mineralization.

While the primary focus of the 2023 season for Fireweed remains firmly on the roughly C$20 million (US$15 million) drill program focused on step-out drilling of zinc-lead-silver zones at Tom, Jason, and Boundary, this C$250,000 reconnaissance greenfields gold program will serve to systematically test gold anomalies and utilize reduced intrusion-related gold exploration models that were not the prime focus of the previous wave of Carlin-style gold prospecting.

Fireweed Metals Corp.

Click image to see larger map showing Macmillan Pass in relation to neighboring exploration properties.

"While Fireweed's primary focus is a large drill program targeting the impressive zinc, lead, and silver endowment of the property, the potential for significant gold mineralization is too great to remain untested," said Macdonald.