Yukon Metals Acquires Premium-Quality Berdahl Property Portfolio & Begins Trading as 'YMC'

VANCOUVER, BC, June 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Yukon Metals Corp. (CSE: YMC) is pleased to announce the closing of its transaction to acquire Lapie Mining Inc. from the Berdahl's private family-owned prospecting company, 18526 Yukon Inc. See May 30, 2024 closing news release for details. As with Snowline Gold (SGD), this property portfolio is built on over 30 years of prospecting by the Berdahl family.

"Completing the acquisition of these high-quality exploration assets in the Yukon marks an exciting beginning for Yukon Metals" said Rory Quinn, President and Chief Executive Officer. "We have tremendously exciting properties that we'll work to responsibly and systematically advance, from copper-gold and silver-lead-zinc, to precious metals focused assets. Given my substantial experience in the precious metals royalty and streaming space, I am very much familiar with the significant value creation potential of byproduct gold and silver as part of copper-gold and silver-lead-zinc projects."

"I am honored to lead an experienced and knowledgeable team and look forward to announcing important appointments and news in the coming days and weeks. With a healthy treasury after raising in excess of C$15 million, a comprehensive exploration database and key permits already in place, we are ready to hit the ground running! I look forward to building value for all stakeholders as we advance exploration toward discovery."

About Yukon Metals Corp.

Yukon Metals represents a property portfolio built on over 30 years of prospecting by the Berdahl family, the prospecting team behind Snowline Gold's (SGD) portfolio of primary gold assets. The Yukon Metals portfolio consists primarily of copper-gold and silver-lead-zinc assets, with a substantial gold and silver component. The Company is led by an experienced Board of Directors and Management Team across technical, exploration and finance disciplines.

Yukon Metals is focused on fostering sustainable growth and prosperity within Yukon's local communities, while simultaneously enhancing shareholder value. Our strategy centers around inclusivity and shared prosperity, offering both community members and investors the chance to contribute to, and benefit from, our ventures.

The Yukon

The Yukon ranks 10^th most prospective for mineral potential across global jurisdictions according to the Fraser Institute and is host to a highly experienced and conscientious local workforce, created by a long culture of exploration coupled with deep respect for the land. Recent major discoveries with local roots such as Snowline Gold's (SGD) Rogue Project - Valley Discovery, demonstrate the Yukon's potential to generate fresh district-scale mining opportunities.

Yukon Metals owns the AZ, Barite Mountain, Birch, Carter Gulch, Clea, Eva, Expo, Faro North, Fox, Gem, Star River, Nut, Pete, Risby, Talbot claims, and the Venus claims and crown grants located in Yukon for a total land package of approximately 18,000 hectares.

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EXPO

The Expo is located in the Finlayson VMS district near the past producing Wolverine Mine and the proposed mine, Kudz ze Kayah. The Expo property has geology similar to the nearby Kudz ze Kayah property and is 4,575 ha in size (Figure 2). Abundant historic data exists, a small 1990's drill program intersected volcanic massive sulfide (VMS) mineralization and a property wide electromagnetic and magnetic airborne geophysical survey was flown in 2014 at 100m line spacing. YMC has been granted a Class 1 exploration permit to conduct work on the project for the next year.

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AZ

Initial exploration efforts discovered copper and gold mineralization occurs in skarned limestone and greenstone on the property. The source of auriferous chalcopyrite-bearing magnetite-epidote garnet skarn occurs in float on the property and has not been fully explored. Rock float assays returned an average of 10% Cu, 126 g/t Ag, and 7.08 g/t Au from four samples in 1993¹. Much of the exploration work requires follow-up compilation and new exploration to confirm older results and expand on the historical soil sampling and ground geophysics that was previously completed on the property in the 1990's. 

BIRCH and TALBOT ARM

The Birch property has seen exploration work in 2011-2012 with geochemical and geological mapping. Ryan Gold Corp. took 1271 grid soil samples on the property and reported a gold in soil anomaly area (Assessment Report 096342).

The target of historic exploration on the Talbot property has been for Cu-Mo-Au porphyry in the 1970's.  Recent exploration in 2011 and 2012 (Ryan Gold Corp.) reported a 4km gold in soil and talus fines anomaly and float quartzite rock sample #40868 assayed 3.67 g/t Au, 832 g/t Ag and 1800 g/t Cu. Float quartzite rock sample #40870 assayed 3.59 g/t Au and 2170 g/t Cu.² The regional plutonic rocks in this area and extending from Alaska to the southeast have numerous porphyry minfile occurrences noted in Yukon government databases and reports (Fonseca and Bradshaw, Open File 2005-5).

Both projects are proximal to Burwash Landing and Destruction Bay on the Alaska Highway and are easily accessible by helicopter from nearby roads. Destruction Bay is 260 km west of Whitehorse.

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STAR RIVER

Star River project is road accessible with many previously developed trails on the property.  There is an all-weather airstrip nearby. YMC has been granted a Class 1 exploration permit to conduct work on the project for the next year. The mineralization described to date on the project is polymetallic veins, carbonate replacement and mantos. There are 16 historical surface showings of mineralization on the property (Figure 4). The Lap 10 showing is a vein on surface that has a surface length of 137 metres and is a fairly continuous band with galena about 30 cm wide. Historic assays from Silver Key Mines reported a grade of 1200 g/t Ag and 38% Pb on the Lap 10 vein. In the same rocks as the Lap 10 vein, historic reports from the 1960's indicate similar mineralization present at the K3 showing where three adits were dug in the 1960's, future exploration work by YMC intends to explore with modern methods to determine any mineralization present in this area. Drilling has been limited on this project with many prospects seeing minimal exploration work.³

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NUT

The Nut property is within the Mayo plutonic belt, the central zone of the Tombstone-Mayo-Tungsten plutonic belt, Yukon. The project is immediately east of Emerald and Rogue plutons on one of three separate intrusions. Prospecting and work by Eagle Plains Resources and Canamax Resources found skarning, contact breccia surrounding the pluton and quartz-sulphide veining on the edges and within the pluton.⁴ Rock samples traversing the pluton, which is in the north center of the property, found 2.1 g/t Au in sample Nut #26 and 1.77% Cu in sample Nut #10.  Mineralization is associated with accessory elements of bismuth, tungsten and minor base metals.

   Table 1 Rock samples on Nut project (Kreft, 1998; AR 093926)

Yukon Metals' Board of Directors will consist of the following:

Rory Quinn, CEO and Director

Mr. Quinn has over 20 years of capital markets experience in the global mining space and was the former CEO of E79 Resources Corp. Prior to his CEO roles he was Director, Investor Relations at Wheaton Precious Metals, previously Silver Wheaton. During his tenure at Wheaton, Mr. Quinn worked on acquisitions totalling over US$6 billion as the company built its precious metal business. Mr. Quinn has been involved in the review of hundreds of mining companies and mining assets from majors to earlier stage developers and explorers in assessing high-quality investment opportunities around the globe. Prior to joining Wheaton, Mr. Quinn worked in Toronto at Castle Gold, which was sold along with its flagship, El Castillo Gold mine, to Argonaut Gold. Before switching his focus to the resource capital markets, Mr. Quinn started his career with the consumer products giant, Gillette Company, now Proctor and Gamble.

Patrick Burke, Chair

Mr. Burke is currently a Special Advisor for Capital Markets, Canaccord Genuity Corp. (Canada). He joined Canaccord in October 2015, serving as Head of Canada Capital Markets, bringing more than 25 years of experience and extensive institutional relationships to his role. Prior to joining Canaccord, Pat served as Global Head of Equity and Co-Head of Global Investment Banking for Scotiabank. In that role, he was responsible for oversight of equity sales, trading, research, prime brokerage, equity capital markets, equity derivatives and investment banking. Before that he was Managing Director and Head of Canadian Equities for Merrill Lynch, having held various roles of increasing responsibility since 2000. From 1990 to 2000, Mr. Burke worked in institutional equity and fixed income for Bank of Montreal.

Dr. Darryl Clark, Director

Dr. Clark has decades of global exploration and operating experience in the mining industry. Through his career, Dr. Clark has held a wide range of executive roles across a number of metal and mineral sectors, with both junior and major mining companies. His experience consists of periods working in gold, copper, uranium, coal, and oil sands. Dr. Clark's precious metal experience started at Great Central Mines during the period of rapid resource discovery in the 90's that transformed the West Australian Goldfields. Additional greenfield and project experience was gained at Sunrise Dam Gold Mine, Ivanhoe Mines Mongolia, Vale and SRK consulting where he was involved in several greenfield discoveries. Dr. Clark has over 10 years of experience as a Non-Executive Director on ASX & TSX listed companies. Dr. Clark holds a PhD in Economic Geology from the University of Tasmania and is currently the Executive Vice President Exploration and Development for IsoEnergy Ltd and the Non-Executive Chairman for Waratah Minerals Ltd.

Jim Coates, Director

Mr. Coates has spent over two decades conducting mineral and scientific exploration across Canada and the world. Mr. Coates has completed MSc and PhD-level research in geography specialized in permafrost, with years spent in the field operating a drilling and geophysics company, as well as Yukon Geological Survey and independent exploration work in the Klondike Goldfields, which provided comprehensive exposure to many aspects of the mineral industry. A fascination with innovative design allowed Mr. Coates to optimize low-impact exploration methods both for clients and use on his personal mineral properties. Mr. Coates' experience growing up in small northern community continues to inform how the social license of resource projects affects their success.  

Daniel Vickerman, Director

Mr. Vickerman is a seasoned institutional sales and corporate finance professional with 25 years of experience in the financial industry, currently acting as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, Board member of Blackrock Silver, and Board member of Discovery Silver. He joined the Board of Discovery in 2019 through the merger with Levon Resources. where he was Board Chairman. Formerly Mr. Vickerman was Managing Director, Head of UK Edgecrest Capital. Before joining Edgecrest Capital UK, Mr. Vickerman was Managing Director; Co-Head of Canadian Equity Sales UK at Canaccord Genuity Corp. Mr.  Vickerman has extensive experience working with mineral exploration and development companies, raising equity for public and private companies during their exploration and development. Mr. Vickerman spent over 4 years as a London based alternative asset manager (part of Man Group plc), trading commodities, and foreign exchange.

For more information about Yukon Metals, please contact:

Rory Quinn, President & CEO
Yukon Metals Corp.
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 604-366-4408

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This news release contains certain forward-looking information, including information about the incremental release from escrow of the Consideration Shares, the resumption of trading of the Common Shares and the Company's future plans and intentions. Wherever possible, words such as "may", "will", "should", "could", "expect", "plan", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict" or "potential" or the negative or other variations of these words, or similar words or phrases, have been used to identify the forward-looking information. These statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management as at the date hereof.

Forward-looking information involves significant risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those discussed or implied in the forward-looking information. Such factors include, among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to the incremental release from escrow of the Consideration Shares; the resumption of trading of the Common Shares; and other risks and uncertainties. These factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking information. Although the forward-looking information contained in this news release is based upon what management believes to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure readers that actual results will be consistent with the forward-looking information. The forward-looking information is made as of the date of this news release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise the information to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.

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SOURCE Yukon Metals Corp.