Tenajon Intersects High Grade Gold on S.B. Property

Since the glory days of the old Premier mine north of Stewart, a belief persists among the local mining fraternity that had this corner of British Columbia been a little less rugged and a little more favorably located, it would have camps to rival any in Eastern Canada. And producing not just gold, they say, but copper, silver, lead and zinc.

Wishful thinking aside, the potential of northwestern B.C. is being demonstrated today by a growing number of new mine projects and exploration ventures. Among the latter is the S.B. property, a 50/50 joint venture between Tenajon Silver Corp. (VSE), a junior in Donald McLeod’s Northair Group, and Esso Minerals.

During the recent underground development program on the property, operator Tenajon intersected a high sulphide structure while driving a crosscut into the 35 zone. Channel sampling across a true width of at least 33.0 ft averaged 0.883 oz gold and 2.43 oz silver per ton uncut (cut to 1.0 oz: 0.742 oz).

Although no assays have been received for copper, lead and zinc, the company states “there are visual indications that significant values in these metals may be expected.”

According to Tenajon, the structure is well defined; strikes north to south and dips between 80 and 90 degrees . About 25 ft before reaching the 35 zone, the crosscut intersected a 3.3 ft parallel structure that assayed 1.24 oz gold.

President Donald McLeod said a number of zones exist on the property. “But we’re not sure at this stage if they are faulted-off structures or parallel zones.”

McLeod said a 7000-ft underground diamond drill program designed to provide data for tonnage and grade calculations is now under way on the site.

The S.B. property is crossed by the Granduc Road, which translates into lower exploration costs than normally incurred in northern B.C. Infrastructure shouldn’t be a problem either as the property lies between two significant deposits being readied for production by Westmin Resources; the Big Missouri to the north and Silbak to the south, known together as the Premier Gold project.

Since the adit intersected the zone in late June, Tenajon has done about 500 ft of drifting to the south and parallel to the zone. Drifting in the hangingwall of the zone is continuing with drill stations being cut at 80 ft intervals. The new drill program will be conducted from these stations.

The company says an 8,000-ft surface diamond drilling program is also under way, about 1,000 ft south of the current underground workings where previous drilling indicated a strong structure with significant values in gold. Of five holes completed, assays from two are in. Due to faulting, no values were encountered in the first while the second encountered 2 ft of 0.612 oz gold within a wide silicified zone with values ranging from 0.03 oz to 0.13 oz.