Red Lake Area Properties

Red Lake Mining Division

The Red Lake area in northwestern Ontario has produced over 30 million ounces of gold and is one of Canada’s most prolific gold mining districts. The discovery of gold under the roots of an upturned tree, by brothers Lorne and Ray Howey, in the summer of 1925 led to North America's last great gold rush and by 1926 over 3,000 people had converged on the Red Lake area to seek their fortunes.

Today, the Red Lake District comprises five communities, all built around 28 past-producing or currently operating gold mines. This mining-friendly, politically stable jurisdiction has a skilled labour force and infrastructure built to serve the mining industry. The latest Red Lake wealth-creating success is Great Bear Resources, and their Dixie Gold discovery, purchased in February 2022 by Kinross Gold for $1.8 billion.

Silver Dollar currently has two discovery-stage projects in the Red Lake Camp. 

Pakwash Lake Property

Silver Dollar owns a 100% interest in the Pakwash Lake property, subject to a 1.5% net smelter returns ("NSR") royalty. Located approximately 30 kilometres (km) south-southeast of the town of Red Lake, the 4,252-hectare property is situated in a structurally active area of the Red Lake Mining Division where exploration activity was re-energized with the success of Great Bear (now owned by Kinross Gold) and the numerous high-grade gold discoveries on the Dixie property located ~7.5 km to the north. Other active neighbours in the area include BTU Metals who have been drilling untested IP anomalies on their Dixie Halo property for potential base metals (Cu-Zn) as well as gold and silver at their prospect called the TNT Target near the northern boundary of the Pakwash Lake property (see Figure 1).

 Figure 2: Pakwash Lake Project - Deep Penetrating Regional Lithoprobe Seismic Survey

 

A high-resolution airborne magnetic (MAG) survey completed by Laurentian Goldfields in 2011 identified the numerous geophysical features on the property including two dominant east-west trending MAG lineaments. These lineaments are interpreted to be the Pakwash Lake Fault Zone (PLFZ) and Sydney Lake Fault Zone (SLFZ). These faults are considered deep-seated crustal-scale features from a 2006 deep penetrating regional lithoprobe seismic survey and important markers for exploration in the region (Figure 2) and warrant further investigation. 

 

 Figure 3: 2011 MAG Survey with Interpreted Tracing of the PLFZ and SLFZ Structures Crossing the Property 

The Pakwash Lake and Sydney Lake faults and splays run through the property (Figure 3) and orogenic gold deposits are typically associated with crustal-scale fault structures. However, the most abundant gold mineralization is hosted by lower-order splays from these major structures (Kerrich et al. 2000).

Longlegged Lake Property

Silver Dollar owns a 100% interest in the Longlegged Lake property, subject to a 1.5% NSR royalty. Located approximately 30 kilometres (km) south of the town of Red Lake, the 2,597-hectare property is situated in a structurally active area of the Red Lake Mining Division ~15 km south of the Dixie Gold property. Other active neighbours in the area include BTU Metals, who staked a large claim package adjoining the northern boundary of the property (Figure 1) to expand their Dixie-Halo property (referenced above); and Golden Goliath Resources, who reported their Kwai property to the north-east of the property (Figure 1) along the PLFZ has been found to host a repetition of the same sequence of rocks that hosts the LP Zone on the Dixie property. 

 Figure 4: Longlegged Lake Project - Deep Penetrating Regional Lithoprobe Seismic Survey

Silver Dollar completed a heliborne high-resolution magnetic (MAG) survey on the property that identified dominant northeast-southwest MAG lineaments interpreted to be the deep-seated crustal-scale PLFZ (Figure 4). The MAG survey, which included a total of 1,837 line-km on 25-meter line spacing, also identified many curved lineaments (Figure 5) which could be related to shearing and folding where dilation zones may have enabled mineralization to occur. 

Figure 5: 2019 MAG Survey with Interpreted Tracing of the PLFZ and Curved Lineaments Crossing the Property

To further evaluate the anomalous gold in soils along the PLFZ, Silver Dollar completed prospecting and soil sampling of areas interpreted to be prospective to host gold mineralization. A till sampling program of 30 samples was completed to assess the potential of gold in the basal till down-ice direction of the PLFZ. Gold grains within the samples were classified according to their shape and size to help determine proximity to the potential source, and the sampling results were integrated into the exploration model.

 

In other locations within the Red Lake area, sulfide mineralization is associated with gold values so an induced polarization (IP) survey was carried out on two areas (Figure 6) selected using the airborne MAG to identify potential sulfide mineralization within or adjacent to the PLFZ. Interpretation of the IP data defined several anomalies with elevated chargeability and coincident elevated resistivities, with the East Grid having significantly higher chargeability values than the West Grid. Future target development work may include prospecting and sampling of the highest-priority anomalies to identify any mineralization at surface, along with soil geochemical surveys over the areas.

 Figure 6: IP Survey Areas

 

The technical information on this webpage has been approved by Mike Kilbourne, P.Geo., an independent Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.