Every once in a while I find myself scanning through a company’s website or press releases and then I have to pause for a moment and go back and re-read something. Instead of the usual content you expect to see, something jumps off the page and you have to make sure you read it correctly and that your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you. Today’s junior mining stock had me doing this a couple of times for several different reasons. The company is unusual (in a good way) and not simply because Eric Sprott beneficially owns 25% of the outstanding shares (even more if warrants are exercised). It also had nothing to do with its location, Newfoundland & Labrador, although that’s why I was looking at it in the first place as I just happen to enjoy reading and writing about this special part of Canada.

The first thing that jumped off the page for me was “Approximately 48,000 metres remain to be completed in the current 100,000 m drill program”. For a junior miner anywhere, that is a giant volume of drilling, which also means there has to be plenty of cash around as well. How about a treasure stocked with C$13 million? Seems like enough to undertake such an enormous exploration program and as the Company states “sufficient funds to undertake all the exploration activities planned for 2022”. The last thing that stood out was the number of projects being actively explored – 5. Most junior mining companies don’t have more than 2 or 3 properties to pursue, often only 1, and even more rare is the resources to be working on all these projects over the next 3-6 months.

Needless to say, I was hooked. I had to find out more about Sokoman Minerals Corp. (TSXV: SIC | OTCQB: SICNF), and let me tell, there is a lot more to learn. The Company’s primary focus is its portfolio of gold projects; flagship Moosehead Gold Project, Crippleback Lake (optioned to Trans Canada Gold Corp.) and East Alder (optioned to Canterra Minerals Corporation) along the Central Newfoundland Gold Belt, and the district-scale Fleur de Lys project in north-central Newfoundland. The Company also recently entered into a strategic alliance with Benton Resources Inc. (TSXV: BEX) through three, large-scale, joint-venture properties including Grey River, Golden Hope and Kepenkeck in Newfoundland. Sokoman controls, independently and through the Benton alliance, over 150,000 hectares (>6,000 claims – 1500 sq. km), making it one of the largest landholders in Newfoundland, in Canada’s newest and rapidly-emerging gold districts. The Company also retains an interest in an early-stage antimony/gold project (Startrek) in Newfoundland, optioned to White Metal Resources Inc., and in Labrador, the Company has a 100% interest in the Iron Horse (Fe) project which has Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) potential.

I’m still trying to figure out what metal or minerals Newfoundland & Labrador doesn’t have as it seems the region has an abundance of everything. Along those lines, the Golden Hope JV with Benton made the first high-grade lithium discovery in Newfoundland in September, 2021. The first assay results from the drilling program that tested the Kraken pegmatite field returned an average of 0.95% Li₂O over 8.40 m with grades as high as 1.76% Li₂O. Not bad when you are looking for gold. The Alliance has proposed a C$3 million budget for a summer drill program testing as many of the known pegmatite dykes as possible, with up to 30-40 holes planned. Camp setup and drill mobilization are expected in mid-June.

But as interesting as this is, for today I think will focus on where the bulk of the drilling is being done, and that’s the Moosehead Gold Project where visible gold has been intersected in drilling over a 2 km strike length. From 2018-2021 Sokoman completed ~73,000 m of drilling with ~360 holes, leading to the discovery of 4 significant zones, all of which remain open. Highlights from these zones rival some of the findings from their neighbors to the east, New Found Gold Corp. (TSXV: NFG | AMEX: NFGC) another Eric Sprott backed gold miner in Newfoundland:

Western Trend • MH-18-08 • 1.05 m @ 207.5g/t Au from 8.5 m; and 2.28 m @ 42.36 g/t Au from 33.1 m

Eastern Trend • MH-18-01 • 11.9 m @ 44.96g/t Au, including 5.65 m @ 93.56 g/t Au from 115.2 m

75 Zone • MH-21-23 • 44.8 m @ 17.56g/t Au, including 2.75 m @ 30.59g/t Au from 44.75 m

South Pond • MH-20-12 • 35.0 m of 26.87 g/t Au, including 2.15 m @ 60.59 g/t Au from 47.0 m

Heading into 2022 is where things get really exciting. Results last week, some of the first holes from the 100,000 m 2022 program, expanded the 75 Zone and essentially linked it with the main Eastern Trend/Footwall Splay mineralization (see picture below). In addition, MH-22-418, completed last week (assays pending) intersected the deepest occurrence of visible gold to date on the property at a downhole depth of 352 m.

Source: Sokoman Minerals May 19, 2022 Press Release

It would appear there will be a steady stream of drilling results coming from Sokoman Minerals over the following weeks and months, not only from Moosehead, but Golden Hope and Grey River with JV partner Benton Resources Inc. There is a lot going on at this well funded, junior gold (and now lithium) explorer. With a market cap of C$66 million it’s not hard to imagine plenty of upside when one of your comparables is New Found Gold at a market cap of C$1.2 billion.

I quite enjoy the opportunity to write for InvestorIntel as it allows me to look at some interesting stories that wouldn’t otherwise be on my radar. There are thousands of publicly traded stocks out there and I certainly don’t have the focus or the drive to actively try and review all of them. And with being more or less locked down for the last two years one could also safely travel the world from their armchair while reviewing the plethora of small cap stocks listed on Canadian exchanges. I’ve explored parts of Fiji, Columbia, Indonesia and Chile to name a few but it seems I’m heading back to Newfoundland & Labrador fairly regularly. Ironically, I’ve actually visited “The Rock” numerous times and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in spectacular, rugged scenery, icebergs and super friendly people. But it’s the wonderful geology that the region is blessed with that has me returning time and again on behalf of InvestorIntel.

You’ve probably guessed by now that I’m having a look at junior miner with a prospect located on the western shores of Newfoundland. The company is so fond of this prospect they recently changed their name to reflect this becoming their primary focus. York Harbour Metals Inc. (TSXV: YORK) rebranded from Phoenix Gold Resources Corp. (TSXV: PXA) in February of this year. York Harbour Metals is an exploration and development company focused on the York Harbour Copper-Zinc-Silver Project, a mineral property located approximately 27 km from Corner Brook, Newfoundland. The area is known to be prospective for copper-zinc-silver-gold-cobalt volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits. The known mineralization exhibits characteristics consistent with classic mafic-type flow dominated (Cyprus-type) VMS deposits. You’ll have to go to their website to better understand the previous two sentences but they do a decent job explaining it in terms I can understand with links to additional resources if you really want to nerd out.

There are a couple of things about this particular company that I find interesting. The first is the history of this property. This is a classic story of revisiting an old, existing mine site with very little modern exploration having been carried out on the sizeable claim holdings. Copper and zinc massive sulphides were first discovered at York Harbour in 1893 where shaft sinking began in 1897 and mining continued to 1918. Activity resumed in the early 1950’s through to 1970’s where previous owners began a Sea Level Adit to enhance exploration and to become a main haulage level but it was never completed due to lack of funding. A total of 2,134 metres of underground drifting and development have been completed for which documentation is available. Drill core logs and sampling data are available for a total of 19,323 metres of historical drilling that tested eleven lenses or zones of copper-zinc-silver-gold-cobalt-bearing sulphide mineralization. I’m always attracted to companies that have a lot of historical workings they can review to preserve and optimize exploration capital.

The next thing that puts York Harbour Metals on my radar is the stock price action over the last 6 months. Junior mining stocks haven’t exactly been setting the world on fire. They tend to perform even worse when the macro market is looking weak as nervous investors have a habit of dumping their riskier investments first. Since November 2^nd, YORK/PXA is up 161% posting higher highs and higher lows along the way, forming a great up trending channel. It also seems to be finding great support at the 50 day moving average. Not to say this is the only junior mining stock doing well, but I can’t say there are many (if any) that are down 25% or more over that same period that I have on my watch list.

Source: StockCharts.com

Lastly, I always like a steady stream of drill results, although I probably didn’t need to remind readers of this fact given how many times I’ve brought it up. York Harbour Metals have been pumping out the numbers over the last 4 months and there are plenty more to come. Phase 1 drill results were released Jan 17^th and led to a decent spike in the share price. Highlights from that press release include YH21-06 with 52.2 metres of 0.85% copper, 91.8 g/t cobalt, 0.53% zinc and 1.75 g/t silver and YH21-09 with 11.6 m of 1.41% copper, 202.94 g/t cobalt, 0.10% zinc and 2.41 g/t silver. Results from the Phase 2 program released March 17^th and March 26^th also saw decent jumps in the share price with the latter resulting in a nice gap up. Highlights include YH21-18 with 25.00 metres of 2.70% copper, 9.04% zinc, 17.78 g/t silver, and 163.6 g/t cobalt and YH21-24, grading 5.25% copper, 436.5 g/t cobalt, 8.97 g/t silver, and 0.801% zinc over a drilling length of 29.0 metres. The latest price spike on April 18^th came on an update on the Phase 3 diamond drilling program where the Company confirmed completion of 28 NQ-size diamond drill holes totaling 4,980 metres with visual pyrite, chalcopyrite and sphalerite of varying degrees in almost all of the drill intercepts.

If the assay results are anywhere near as good as the market’s interpretation of the visual estimates of the copper (chalcopyrite) and zinc (sphalerite) indicators we could be in for more good times at York Harbour. The last thing that I like is that it has a relatively tight share structure, with only 48.8 million shares outstanding. That makes the market cap C$62.5 million, which seems a little high to me for a junior miner without a resource estimate. However, the stock action would suggest that those a lot more knowledgeable about geology think this could be the real deal.

Bald Eagle Gold plans to drill test a ‘very promising 600m geophysical and soil anomaly’ in their search for Silver in Idaho

As inflation rages in the U.S. with an 8.5% CPI reading for March 2022, real assets continue to perform very well. Silver is not only a precious metal asset that hedges against inflation, it is also an industrial commodity with many uses, including in the green energy sector. This means silver can do well at many stages of the cycle. Silver also tends to follow gold, another key real asset known as a hedge against inflation.

Bald Eagle quote: “Solar panel, electric vehicle and 5G chips alone are anticipated to require an incremental 150 million ounces of silver supply/year over the next 10 years.”

Today’s company is a junior miner exploring for silver in Idaho, USA.

Silver has hit a 4 week high on U.S. inflation concerns, which more than offset expectations of higher Federal Reserve interest rates and higher Treasury yields

Source: Trading Economics

Bald Eagle Gold Corp. (TSXV: BIG) (Bald Eagle) is a junior miner focused on the exploration and development of their 100% owned Hercules Silver Project, located in northwest of Cambridge, Idaho, USA. The Project lies mostly on State land, with grandfathered mining, milling and exploration rights. Idaho is a very mining friendly state, ranked 1st in the world for its mining regulations, taxation regime and permitting policy.

The Hercules Silver Project

The Hercules Silver Project lies on a 4,246 acres property located in Washington County, Idaho, just 2.5 hours northwest of Boise International Airport by Highway. The Property has a history of exploration with over 300 drill holes completed between 1965 and 1988. Historical drilling along strike has returned significant Ag-Pb-Zn-Mn (Cu) intercepts. One of the best historical intercepts (not yet to be relied upon) was at Hole 80-1 which intersected 30.48m of 335.6 g/t Ag, 0.17% Pb, 0.54% Zn starting from 73.15m.

Two key mineralized areas (Hercules Adit and Fishpond zones) are exposed on surface and have been defined by historical drilling and remain open for expansion, with anomalous geophysics and soil samples along strike. There is also significant mineralization in 4 other targets areas. Bald Eagle states: “The best intercepts occur within the higher-grade cores of the Hercules Adit and Fishpond zones, which are surrounded by lower grade halos.”

Past geophysics results show “strong chargeability values (>35ms) underlie the best silver-in-soil anomaly on the Property in an area which has never been drill tested.” The area of potential is between Grade Creek and Hercules Ridge (red area in the chart below) which has not yet been drill tested.

The red area between Grade Creek and Hercules Ridge shows strong chargeability suggesting potential mineralization

Source: Bald Eagle Gold Corp. company presentation

Also supporting the geophysics results above were recently announced soil samples, showing the highest values matching up with the areas of positive geophysics results. Summary points of the news were:

• “High-grade silver-in-soil up to 305 ppm (8.9 ounces per short ton)
• Consolidation of district through the acquisition and staking of an additional 2,116 acres, bringing total contiguous land position up to 4,256 acres.
• New soil sampling verifies historically reported soil survey values of silver, lead and zinc.
• New high-grade zone discovered below cover increases total strike length to over 5.5 kilometers.
• Largest and highest-grade soil anomalies remain untested at Belmont South and Grade Creek; Future drill programs to test these targets.”

Bald Eagle CEO and Director, Chris Paul, stated on March 24, 2022: “A 600 meter long coincident IP geophysical and soil anomaly between Hercules Ridge and Grade Creek currently represents the largest untested soil anomaly on the Property, with values consistently exceeding 1 ounce per ton silver (35 ppm). Finally, the new high-grade soil discovery 2.6 kilometers southeast of Belmont brings the total target strike length on the Property to 5.5 kilometers and demonstrates the significant scale of silver mineralization at Hercules.”

Investors can also view a recently announced Goldspot Discoveries Corp. 3D geological model for the Hercules Silver Project here.

The next step for Bald Eagle is to conduct a 3,000m 2022 drill program (June-August) to potentially discover new silver mineralization, notably at the strong geophysics target discussed above. The goal is to achieve a maiden inferred mineral resource estimate. Additionally, Bald Eagle plans to complete metallurgical test work and bulk density testing in 2022.

Images of Bald Eagle Gold Corp.s Hercules Silver Project in Idaho, USA

Source: Bald Eagle Gold Corp. company presentation

Closing remarks

Bald Eagle has BIG plans to match their TSXV ticker “BIG”. The key event in 2022 is the drilling campaign from June-August to test some large geophysics anomalies. All going well by late 2022 a maiden resource will be delivered.

Meanwhile, real assets such as silver and gold are looking to be very worthwhile investments at times when inflation is reducing your cash value by as much as 8.5%pa.

Bald Eagle Gold Corp. trades on a market cap of just C$8.5 million. One to watch.