Work History

Originally staked in the early 1930s as Whale cl by J.H. Carpenter and W. Forbes, who trenched until 1937. Re-staked as Free cl 1-32 (Y44182) in November 1969 by Tanzilla Exploration Ltd., which carried out geological mapping, geochemical sampling and trenching in 1970.

Re-staked as Gnat cl 73-100 (YA25004) in August 1979 by Esperanza Exploration Ltd., which sold its interest to Arctic Red Resources Corporation. Arctic Red explored mainly west of the Whale occurrence.

Re-staked as Goldy cl 1-20 (YA81524) in March 1984 by Yukon Revenue Mines Ltd., which carried out geochemical sampling, geological mapping, trenching and road building in 1984-1985 and optioned the property to Durham Resources Ltd. in December 1985. R.A. Granger tied on Brad A cl 1-4 fr (YA93124) and Dur cl 1-22 (YA94623) to the southeast in 1985 and 1986.

Durham Resources staked Goldy cl 22-31 (YA93001) in 1986; carried out geological mapping and geochemical sampling in 1986 and 1987; and bulldozer trenching in 1987. The company was subsequently renamed Dominion Explorers Inc.

Rea Gold Corporation (60%) and Verdstone Gold Corporation (40%), which carried out excavator trenching, geochemical rock sampling and drilled 14 holes (1,130.1 m) later that year at the Goldy occurrence (MINFILE occurrence 115I 182), optioned the claims in 1988. The Goldy, Brad and Dur claims were transferred to Dominion Explorers Inc. in July 1992 and transferred back to Yukon Revenue Mines Ltd. in March 1996.

Re-staked as Goldy cl 1-24 (YC18716) in June 2000 by Midnight Mines Ltd. (B. Harris), who carried out prospecting as well as limited rock and soil geochemistry in 2000.

Northern Freegold Resources consolidated the claims in 2006 as part of their Golden Revenue property and performed a property wide VTEM and magnetic airborne survey, including the Whale occurrence.

Triumph Gold acquired Northern Freegold Resources in 2015 and the property that includes the Whale occurrence is now termed the Freegold Mountain Project.

Regional & Property Geology

The occurrence is partly underlain by Yukon-Tanana Terrane (YTT). The rocks of the YTT in this region consist of Early Mississippian metamorphic rocks separated into meta-sedimentary and meta-igneous suites. The meta-sedimentary suite consists of micaceous quartz-feldspar gneiss, schist and quartzite. The meta-igneous package is comprised of biotite-hornblende feldspar gneiss and coarse-grained granodiorite orthogneiss with lesser amphibolite.

The YTT basement rocks are cut by numerous plutonic and volcanic events from the Mesozoic (Murray & Friend, 2018), including:
1. Early Jurassic Long Lake monzonite to syenite plutonic suites;
2. Mid-Cretaceous Mount Nansen Suite andesite to diorite;
3. Mid-Cretaceous Whitehorse granodiorite, quartz monzonite and granite;
4. Late Cretaceous Casino quartz monzonite;
5. Late Cretaceous Prospector Mountain syenite; and,
6. Quartz feldspar and feldspar hornblende porphyry dykes and plugs.

The major structural feature in the area is the Big Creek Fault with steeply-dipping, northwest-trending dextral faults parallel to the more regional Tintina and Denali faults (AR 097175).

Mineralization & Results

The Whale vein strikes west and cuts Early Jurassic syenite porphyry. Quartz-healed breccia zones, fractures and some blue-grey quartz veins containing fine-grained pyrite and arsenopyrite, which returned low gold values cut a white, quartz-feldspar porphyry dyke. This may be the same dyke described in 1934 as 10.9 m wide and extending across three claims (AR 091893; AR 092104; Paulter, 2006).

Two chip samples across 9.1 m reportedly assayed 12.3 g/t Au and 6.9 g/t Au. Trench sampling by Tanzilla in 1970 returned values of only 0.17 g/t Au and 1.4 g/t Ag (AR 060608; Paulter, 2006).

The 1987 trenching and sampling program returned results of 815 ppb Au and 9920 ppm As over 4 m. A soil sample taken near the first grab sample returned 24 ppb Au (AR 092104).