The fully funded, U.S.$4.0 million exploration program will consist of approximately 50 holes or 15,000 metres of drilling focused on four brownfield targets and six greenfield targets, additional soil and rock sampling and metallurgical testwork. Drilling is scheduled to begin in early July and will run through November 2017.

With the recent land consolidation of the Rattlesnake Hills District, the Company is taking a district approach to its 2017 exploration program which is designed to meet the following objectives:

  1. Expand the strike and explore for off-set extensions of the known mineralized trends at North Stock and Antelope Basin which includes further testing the linkage between the two deposits;
  2. Follow-up on and test the strike and depth continuity of the 2016 discovery at the Cowboy target (Hole RSC-185: 0.84 grams of gold per tonne (g/t Au) over 38.1 metres);
  3. Further test a large (400 metre by 750 metre) gold, silver and arsenic ("Au-Ag-As") soil anomaly at Blackjack and test the strike extension of Hole NVJ-001: 1.33 g/t Au over 33.5 metres;
  4. Test six high priority, kilometre-scale greenfield targets to discover new zones of gold mineralization; and
  5. Complete further soil and rock geochemistry and metallurgical testwork to develop a maiden resource in H1 of 2018.

Brian Skanderbeg, President and CEO commented, "We are excited to take an aggressive exploration approach to a district that we believe is highly prospective and regionally untested. The 2017 program will include both brownfield and greenfield exploration with the objective to expand the areas of known mineralization and to discover new zones of gold mineralization within our 135 km property. Our technical team has significant alkaline gold deposit experience and is applying similar strategies that successfully added over six million ounces in resources in the Cripple Creek Mining District. Following this year's program, we will have nearly 100,000 metres of drilling in the district and will work to develop the first ever mineral resource in the Rattlesnake Hills District. Timing of a maiden resource is expected to be completed in the first half of 2018."