North of the 60th Parallel

0:08 Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's panel, North of the 60th Parallel, hosted by 6. The focus of today's discussion, as you may guess, is going to be around the unique advantages and challenges posed by mining in the North, as exemplified by some of the innovative strategies employed by the companies represented here today. Today's panel is being recorded and will be available to watch in the coming days as an on-demand video on six.com. I encourage you as the audience to ask questions of our panel today using the Q&A chat found on the right-hand side of your screen at any time. With that, I'd like to introduce each of our speakers here today. From Contango Orr, we have Rick Van Nuenheise. From Fireweed Metals, we have CEO and Director Brandon McDonald. And from White Gold Corp, we have David D'Onofrio, CEO and Director. Before we dive in, I'd like to go around the room though and each have our speakers each provide the audience with their two-minute elevator pitch just to help orient us to the companies and the jurisdictions that we'll be reviewing and talking about through today's conversation.

1:05 But with that, Rick, over to you. Thanks Cam. So Contango Ore is working in Alaska. We have a joint venture with Kinross. We sold them a 70% interest a couple of years ago on a project we have called Manchot. It's unique. It's high-grade. It's about 8g per ton. We've just completed a Feasibility Study on the project.

1:30 And the plan is to truck the ore up to the Fort Knox mill. We're on the Alaska highway or just off the Alaska highway on land owned by the Tetlin tribe, one of the Alaska native tribes here in Alaska. And so that's what's unique. We're not building a mill, we're not building a tailings facility. We're just simply mining on site, putting the high-grade ore into trucks and then trucking it up to Fort Knox Mill and back processing it there. As I mentioned, we just completed a feasibility study, made a construction decision. So in the second half of this year, we will start doing some early work construction on the project. Again, there's not a whole lot to build, so somewhat unique in that standpoint. Our second project, which we own 100% of, is called the Lucky Shots, high-grade underground operation.

2:21 We're doing exploration work right now and drilling the vein down dip from where it had been historically mined, where they mined about 40 grand material, ounce and 0.5 per tonne Gold from a high-grade vein. We expect that to be our second mine project that we'll work on. Manshaw, we own a 30% interest, planning to produce about 67,000oz of Gold per year over the next 5-years, with the start of production in 2024.

2:53 Again, a pretty unique development stage story where we don't have to build a mill in a tailings facility and will generate pretty significant cash flows with a $900 all-in sustaining cost coming out of the Feasibility Study. I'll end it there and we'll look forward to hearing from the others. Thanks a lot, Rick. Brendan, tell us about Fireweed Metals. Fireweed Metals is focused on exploration and development for critical minerals projects in northern Canada. We have 3 projects located in Yukon and Northwest Territories. Our flagship projects are almost kind of 1.5 projects. This is the MacPath Zinc Project, which is one of the world's largest undeveloped zinc projects that's on the eastern part of Yukon territory. Immediately adjacent to that is a recent acquisition, the MacTongue Tungsten Project, representing one of the world's largest undeveloped and highest grade tungsten project. Tungsten, for those not familiar, a critical mineral dominated by Chinese supply that's essential for electronics, hardened metals, etc.

3:55 And also on the NWT we have an exploration project called Gainer River, which is a zinc exploration project in the foothills of the Mackenzie Mountains.

4:05 So we're progressively advancing and exploring these and pushing particularly Mac Pass and Mac Tung towards permanent and eventual production. All right, Thank you. And David, over to you. Thank you. So White Gold Corp, our projects are focused in Yukon, Canada, and we are in the Dawson District, also known as the Klondike District. And this area was initially sort of put on the map from a mining perspective 125 years ago. It was the epicenter of the infamous Klondike Gold Rush, where copious amounts of plaster gold were discovered right at surface. It brought tens of thousands of people there. And to this day, it continues to be a very active plaster mining hub, which has produced over 20Moz of Gold right along the surface.

4:55 We have gone and consolidated a very, very large package in that area. And the thesis there is with that much Gold at surface, there's hopefully a high probability of more Gold beneath the surface. And what's ironic is that notwithstanding that it's in Yukon, such a great mining jurisdiction, for 100 years, really from the inception of that Gold Rush, there was no modern exploration. And there's a few reasons why, partly because that area has not been glaciated, no outcrops, so typical prospecting techniques really aren't very effective in that region. It was just overlooked, I guess. It wasn't until about 15 years ago when Sean Ryan, the infamous prospector, said he had his thesis.

5:42 There's got to be a lot more gold here. I'm going to figure out how to find it. And he went there and he's cracked the code and he's made several very significant discoveries, including the Golden Saddle discovery, which we own, along with a couple other satellite discoveries. That's about 1.8 million ounces. The coffee deposit, which is now owned by Newmont, they're advancing that to production. And we ourselves are focused on growing the size of our global resources, which I mentioned are 1.8Moz. We think there's a lot of upside, really just scratching the surface.

6:20 And the other focus of our company is doing some Greenfields exploration on this incredibly large land package. But it's a land package that's seen a lot of work now over the last 10 years. It's gone through the similar protocol that Sean used to make these first few discoveries. We're now in the drilling phase. We've made our own discoveries. So we're looking to expand on those. We've been really successful. We've been able to attract the interest of Agnico and Kinross as our partners, along with portions of the Sprott Group and the Power 1 Group as well, who co-founded this company about 5 years ago with Sean Ryan. So that's a bit of an overview for us. Awesome. Thanks guys. I really appreciate it. Now that we're all properly introduced to that and the audience might have a bit more of a feeling for what we're talking about today.

7:06 I'd like to dive into some questions talking about what it is to be north of the 60th parallel. To start with, can we dive into a conversation about what are the fundamental differences that you face due to your work in the North? What are the inherent benefits that you see and you value? And at the same time, what are the challenges to working where you do?

7:27 David, maybe you want to start us off. Sure. Well, I guess I'll start with what are the benefits? It's something I alluded to. Not a lot of people have been there to look. It's a lot easier to do prospecting and you can drive across a paved road in a pickup truck in Nevada. These areas are pristine. I think our example is the best. There was 20Moz of Gold that people literally were stumbling across in the riverbeds. And even with that, nobody had gone up there with serious sort of modern day exploration techniques to go look for it. So I think that is the unbridled opportunity is what brought us and all these other companies up there. So that's the reason why we're there. There's just such a tremendous amount of opportunity. What are the challenges?

8:13 There's a number of different things. Obviously, climate is one thing, right? It's seasonal where we are, you're dealing with extreme cold temperatures in the winter, which in reality are not so much of a problem, especially with the technology in this day and age. Light and darkness is a different issue. In certain points of the year it's almost all dark, which is probably more of a challenge than the cold. But the flip side of that is these unique attributes has really forced people like Sean Ryan to be very innovative in how they do their exploration. And that's led to approaches, which maybe we'll get into a little bit later on, that has literally revolutionized the way exploration is done. It's allowed for exploration to be done in this type of a jurisdiction. It's been phenomenally successful, having found multi-million ounces of Gold. And now we see that these evolutions being used in exploration literally across the globe. So like any other industry challenges, they breed opportunity when they're addressed and innovation.

9:17 And I think, you know, ourselves, we're certainly a benefactor as is the entire industry. So it's actually very exciting to be working in this type of place for all these reasons. Absolutely. Rick Brenner, what do you think?

9:33 I'll jump in. We're in Alaska and I think Alaska, as David says, you come here for it's a land of opportunity. It says it on the license plate, north for the future. The challenges, obviously it's dark and cold in the wintertime, and it is somewhat of a seasonal season for most purpose exploration projects, but we're underground at Lucky Shot so we can do that year round. We were all set up with infrastructure. I think probably that's the biggest challenge in the North is in general, it's lack of infrastructure, lack of power. So you've got to have a project that has grade, is probably above the average quality to be able to pay for that infrastructure.

10:19 I think that's an important thing for investors to understand. Fortunately, I think both the Yukon and Alaska offer those kinds of opportunities. They're good-grade deposits. In Alaska, we're just blessed with a lot of very high-quality deposits. Red Dog is the largest Zinc mine in the world. Donlon is one of the largest Gold deposits in the world. Pebble is a huge Copper project. Cantercot was the highest grade Copper project, or one of the highest grade Copper projects in the world. We have a lot of superlative quality deposits up here. The Manchot deposit will be the highest grade open pit mine in the world when we start operations next year. So

11:07 this is what you come to Alaska and the Yukon to look for and we have the goods. So clearly there are challenges. I think we approach it from a safety standpoint that, you know, when it's cold and dark, you take different protocols to make sure your employees are safe. And that's the key thing. Yeah, I'll echo, I think what has already been said, but

11:41 the challenge of the lack of infrastructure also creates the opportunity that Dave mentioned, that there's not like there's been a roadside where a prospector can just rock up and take a look at the outcrop, right? So that you're flying in by helicopter to take a look at something maybe means you're the first person to have eyes on it. But it also means you have to build a road to it if you eventually want to construct a mine there, which is not trivial, right? So that's the double-edged blade there that creates the challenge and opportunity of working in the North. But it also creates the need for sharp execution. When you're working with a high degree of seasonality,

12:25 it's not so easy to just say, oh, I'll start my program a month later because of a delay and just run it a month later into the fall. It's like, well, you may be wintered out, right? So losing a month at the beginning may mean losing a month total off your program.

12:41 So I think it creates discipline and exploration that may be lacking in jurisdiction where they can have a little more flexibility. You know, we're super happy to be exploring in the north for sure. I think you get, you know, by virtue of the communities being smaller, there's more a direct relationship with the communities. And I feel like you have more potential impact, positive impact on a community that's small and seeking economic opportunities. So I think that can't be understated. I think that's an excellent point that you make, Brandon, because that's, I think, something that's oftentimes overlooked. These are small remote communities. It's not hard to develop relationships early.

13:28 And our motto has always been, you know, meet early and meet often. And that's, I think that's a bit is a bit of a unique feature of the North, that you just come into a small town or village and tell them who you are, what your plans are, listen to their concerns, do a lot of talking and just walking around. Don't come in a suit and Gucci shoes, just come in and hear what's happening in town and what their concerns are.

13:58 And it's fairly easy to have those dialogues. Yeah, that's totally a great way to approach it and something we share as well. And I think the other thing is the statistic reality. There's less people, less inhabited, right, which is also, you know, makes that part of the process easier in terms of managing these relationships. Obviously, they're not most important, but the extent that there's less of them, that makes life easier all across the board.

14:32 Yeah, I was one of the guys that was brought up in one of these small mining towns up in Red Lake. And back in the days when I was a kid, the community and the mines had, it was just the beginning of close relationships. The mine sort of enveloped all of us and we were all part of a big project. And everyone in the community worked to keep that mine alive because that was our vision to the future. If the mine didn't exist, we didn't exist. So developing these relationships is really important. And as a Canadian, I think that the fly-in camps are a two-edged sword. I think fly-in camps are good in one way, but in another way it's nice for Canada to have communities spread around and claim our north the way it should be claimed.

15:19 Fair enough. Thanks for joining us, Don. Sorry to hear about the technical issues with you entering. Just to catch everyone in the audience up, of course, we're also joined by Playfair Mining's CEO, Donald Moore, now with us. Gentlemen, this is a, I'm already liking the direction that we're going in. And you've all mentioned the communities that are around you and the importance of them. But

15:43 given the focus of the ESG investing in today's world, how did each of your companies specifically get local buy-in? You know, I mean, you've all just mentioned the importance and the significance of that, but what are some of your projects, issues and concerns that you deal with, and how do you approach those issues and concerns with local communities?

16:04 I'll go ahead and start maybe. So as I said earlier, sort of meet early, meet often, and listen. Find out what the concerns are. Just specifically with our project, And this is something that's maybe a bit unique about Alaska that in 1971, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was passed that settled the aboriginal rights and title of Alaskans, original Alaskans, native Alaskans. And they set up for-profit corporations, non-profit corporations, and tribal governments. And in our case, we're dealing with the Tetlin tribe. They're probably the most unique of the tribal organizations in Alaska because they own surface and subsurface titled the 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 acres. That's about the size of Rhode Island. So they own private land, surface and subsurface over a huge area.

17:01 And

17:03 it was virtually unexplored because they owned that land for since the 1920s. So they didn't, they weren't open for prospecting. USGS had not been there. The state geologists had not been invited to be on their land. But we were able to work out an arrangement, long story short, and make a very significant discovery right next to the highway, which will now long-term benefit them and benefit, of course, our shareholders in the state of Alaska. I think just working, going and meeting often. In our case, we have an agreement. They own the service and subservice. But even when you don't have any sort of legal ownership or legal requirement, it just makes sense to go into the local communities and let people know what you're doing and sort of bring them along in the process and make them part of the process by understanding what their concerns are.

18:04 Yeah, Playfair entered Norway. We're north of 60 in Norway, but it's a slightly different north of 60 than Canada. Climate's a lot easier, infrastructure's a lot better. But what we did, we got a local representative, Radar Gopas. He was well known in the country to begin with. Didn't know anything about mining, but he knew a lot about community. And through Radar and some of the people that we've had engaged over there, we've managed to make head roads. Norway has not been exploring for over 50 years. They've been rich in oil and gas. So

18:35 there's no real backup in the mineral industry at the moment. NGU puts out good product, but the infrastructure and the laws of the country are still kind of tough for people wanting to just explore. Things like off-road permits just for bringing our machinery in are difficult to get and they have to say adapt to our presence and we have to adapt to ours our motto is find a way not an excuse because they provide plenty of reasons to come up with an excuse.

19:03 Yeah, I think that what you said there, Don, I think the old way of doing mining and exploration was to show up and say, this is what I intend to do. I think now the new way is really to show up and say, this is what I would like to accomplish, how do we do it together? So rather than prescriptive approach to it, a conceptual approach and engage in participatory design to make sure that they have feedback, the communities and indigenous groups have feedback in your approach, which makes sure you don't do a whole lot of planning towards something that they don't want.

19:44 So that's what's been lacking in the past and is emerging now as I think the new approach. And I think we're all, it's a learning process, you know, and Cam you ask, how do we get buy-in or how have we got buy-in? And when you're in exploration stage, you don't have buy-in for a mine because you don't know what your mind looks like yet. So all you can really do is get buy-in for your exploration and engage them in the communities and how the mind might look as you progress. So I think that's important. I think that's a great point that Brandon made. Go ahead, Don. No, go ahead. Sorry, go ahead. No, I just want you to know what Brandon sort of, you know, his sort of approach of incorporating, you know, the other stakeholders early on is the right way to do it, right? That's to ensure you're buying all the way through.

20:43 And, you know, from our perspective, we look at our local communities, First Nations, as a full stakeholder partner, just like anyone else, just like a shareholder, just like the government, the local, municipal, territorial, federal government. You really need to have everyone sort of on the right page to make a project a success. And the earlier you start laying that groundwork, it takes a long time, people have different objectives, you have to sort of be fully open-minded for that.

21:11 The more time you give yourself to work through those, the better you're optimizing your chances of success. And you really do have to sort of take an approach. These are traditional territories of people that have lived there for generations. They have a unique perspective. And, you know, we were very fortunate from our perspective that, you know, Sean, he sort of lived in the Dawson district for 20 plus years. He had great relationships with the entire community. People part of our team are from First Nations communities, have worked in different levels of governments. We really were able to sort of integrate that very early on

21:44 as part of our fabric. We're also fortunate that there's been this plaster of mining culture there for 120 years. So the idea of mining is not foreign, it's just sort of maybe some other areas. But I think the big thing is just view everyone as a full stakeholder, respect what their objectives are, what our objectives are, what everyone's objectives are, and work together as early as possible. To the extent you have more clarity, at the end of the day, we want to create value for our shareholders. And to the extent that there's alignment from people going on, you're de-risking your project the same way you're de-risking it like anything else with permitting or with your drilling or whatever else. It's just another component of risk.

22:30 And it's something that should be managed as equally as important as anything else. I think it's good, I think Brendan mentioned it, you don't have all the answers up front, it's exploration, you don't know exactly the path you're going, and oftentimes you do get questions from community members about, you know, that are sort of in advance of where you really are. So part of the job of, as we see it in terms of community engagement, broader community engagement, it's kind of managing expectations as well. Sort of guiding people along the path of, you know, here's the process of exploration, development, you know, all the time it takes to get there as well. And obviously that's, this can be a challenge in particularly in cyclical markets where, you know, have a lot of capital at some times and less capital at other times.

23:19 So, but managing expectations is an important component of community relations.

23:25 Yeah, it's sort of, you, it's good that they want economic opportunity when they do, but then you have to also remind them you can't be everything to everyone. You know, a project cannot, you know, if it proceeds it's not going to necessarily be everything that everyone wants, right? So that's, you know, as you said, Rick, managing expectations that you want to provide opportunity and you will provide opportunity, but it may not be everything they're hoping for. John, I think you had something to say there as well. The exploration potential in Norway is... Yeah, I'd say the exploration potential in Norway is immense but they haven't been engaged with the mineral exploration for for numerous decades in even now they're they're reading and you know any act and make it more you'll by experts in mind the that of the whole system in making the community up with the mining as in 1600s

24:29 and early 1900s made much different than today. And in that we hear how to asset any it's a bring up the data mining is we brought her. Don, if you can hear me, sorry, you're breaking up a little bit.

24:52 Don, why don't you just 10, 15 seconds. I'll just sit here and be quiet. But no, That's all right, Don. I would just ask that you refresh and come back in. Just keep talking, that's not hard to do. Fair enough. Gentlemen, I mean, you're all talking about- Sorry, Cameron, you'll have to say that again. Sorry about this, everyone. You're breaking up for me too. I'll just sit here and be quiet.

25:22 Thank you, Don. I would recommend that you refresh and come back in and hopefully it'll work out nicely. But gentlemen, we've been talking effectively, I think, about, you know, and David, you said it, the culture of mining and the importance of that, you know, managing expectations. And then clearly, like, I think that this is turning out to be a bit of a keystone from each of your perspectives. So first of all, I'd, you know, I'd love to know what other keystones you think exist working in the North, if it's things that are unique to working in the North. But maybe to sort of to grease that a little bit, if you were speaking with a potential shareholder looking at any of your projects, what would you consider to be the most critical elements that they should look at with a critical eye themselves?

26:07 What do you think a potential shareholder should judge first when looking at a project in the North? A friend of mine, he said his first approach to any project was looking at it on a map and just deciding is that feasible, right? What are the extra challenges given its location? We're lucky that we have a road, but there's no escaping that we have an 800 kilometer drive to port. So in terms of shipping concentrate out, that's a long way. So I think that any potential investor needs to look beyond the grade and scale of some of these northern projects because there's a lot of, I mean, it's not just the North, it can be all over the world, but the North in particular, some fantastic discoveries that are massive but are stranded.

27:03 An investor has to be critical and look at that and not be grade blind or size blind. It's always quality when you're looking at an asset that doesn't have infrastructure, for example, doesn't have power, doesn't, you know, just can't go tap into the power line that's a few kilometers away. So, you know, you've got to have you have to have high grade be focused on that. Investors need to, I think, sort of differentiate when between a big, low grade deposit in the middle of nowhere is worth a lot less than a small high-grade deposit in the middle of nowhere. I think those sort of differentiators are important for investors to take a first-pass look at. As Brandon says, you just look at the map and see where is this thing? If you're talking about something that's 0.3g out in the middle of nowhere, And people point to that all the time, they say, well, Fort Knox is a nice operation. That was really low grade.

28:07 But yeah, but it took a lot of people's capital to make that into a mine. It wasn't a mine the first time around. So you've got to just be realistic about what you're focused on. In today's world with an inflationary environment, it's even more critical that investors focus on quality. And that's what I would advise investors to take a look at. Just take a look at the quality of the deposit. Good point, Rick. I hope I'm back in line here. In Norway, what we're chasing are VMS deposits. We're looking for underground deposits. I don't think there's much of a chance of making a big open pit in Norway ever. So the underground is the place to be.

28:53 And that's the type of geology that we've been able to acquire over there, 3 different geological terrains. And the nice part about it being that far north and that unexplored and that close to infrastructure gives us a really good punt at coming up with a discovery. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, just being in the north, you know, just sort of, you know, quality should be the investor's first barometer of what they're looking for. Greatest King, you know, everyone's already heard that. You have to take that a little bit more seriously when you're working in environments that are maybe a little bit new or a little bit less accessible. So that's just something, you know, it's economics. How do these things all boil? Like Rick mentioned, where do the costs land? How does it all come into an economic model?

29:41 But one thing that's particularly exciting, so when you're looking for quality, the less work that's been done in an area that's, you know, increases the probability of new grassroots type high quality discoveries. But the technology and the evolution of things that have been happening the last number of years, which I see accelerating, I think will create a fundamental shift in these opportunities. Now if you start with something as small as communications, right? It wasn't very long ago it was dial-up, satellite phones. Now we have satellite, now we have internet in camp. The internet's not great. Well you know what, we're gonna get Starlink next year. Game changer, right? Now you have real time data communication, especially when you're in a seasonal type opportunity. You do some stuff, goes back to whatever, the lab, gets studied.

30:28 And now you're turning your, what's a truncated season, you're expanding that. That's again, adding to value, stretching your dollars further. Energy, that's huge. There's been a lot of advancements in renewable energies to power camps, to power operations, these small nuclear facilities. That might be a little way off. I don't know. But that's coming. At some point, when you're talking mining terms, you need a bit of a longer runway. But that will totally change. You plunk one of those things on a deposit somewhere, You don't have to worry about diesel and trucking and shipping and all these kind of things. So there's a lot that's happened and that's continued to happen that I think will be a game changer for all these things and make these opportunities even that much more exciting.

31:15 Yeah, I think that's a great point, David. We've been following the Micro nuclear reactor story for a while. We're actually just outside. I live in Fairbanks, Alaska and just outside here The military is is installing 1 in in one of the military facilities here. It'll be the first one. So it's obviously a trial basis, but that is an exciting sort of new front for remote power generation, not only for remote mine sites, but also for remote communities. These are basically big salt batteries that generate steam. I've kind of gone in a different direction in terms of how we approach exploration now in terms of infrastructure, lack of infrastructure. I've been involved with, We made the discovery at Donlan 25 years ago, and it's still not through the permitting process and not a mine yet because of that remoteness. It's just, it's taken a long time to really put that project together. I'm still a shareholder, So I'm still hopeful, but I'm sticking to the road system. That's why our projects at Tetlin and at Lucky Shot are right along the road system.

32:26 And I'm getting older and I wanna get to cash flow sooner. So, but I do think there are some great new innovations coming to the industry. And I think in particular, from a power generation standpoint, the nuclear reactors are really a good space to watch. Another cool technology is just the drones. The stuff you're able to do with drones now, run these magnetic surveys, that used to be you need a fixed wing, you need a chopper, it's expensive, there's weather, there's landing, there's seasonality. Now you got one of these things, you got a small window, you charge it up, you zip it around and then you're done. And that's a fraction of cost. So again, de-risking, more cost efficient, more time efficient, the value is just tremendous.

33:15 There's a lot of really great stuff happening. Yeah, we've used the drones both for the surface work, but also for underground. And it's very quick. The drone just guides itself underground. And obviously you get a good picture of all the historic workings but you also get texture of the rock so you know where the good ground is, where the tough ground is, where the fault zones are because you're effectively doing a lidar survey underground in 3 dimensions. So it's it is pretty cool technology that's out there now. And as you say, David, it's not very expensive. It's quick and it's pretty efficient. Yeah, and it's very user-friendly from the point of view of the local community is not worrying about helicopters buzzing or planes flying over.

34:02 And we've used it in Norway and went basically unnoticed and it gave us a lot of really good information. Absolutely, gentlemen. I mean, that all sounds extremely interesting. And I mean, speaking about what's going to be happening in the future, but also what you're doing now. Maybe we can turn the conversation more to what the current economic climate looks like these days, and some of the key innovations or strategies that you're employing, not only to convince shareholders that you can provide the key results that you're promising, but also some of the plans you guys might have in regards to inflation, if we'd like to touch on that, how that affects your business operations. I'll go ahead and jump in there.

34:50 Go ahead, Don. That's a guy who's been in exploration. That's not one of our main concerns other than the cost of actually doing the projects. When you're at the exploration end, where we are the most risky end, those kind of concerns are sort of minimal compared to the reward of finding a new deposit. So we're in a kind of a different game. But overall, the inflation, I've lived through 22% mortgage rates in the past, and we have a couple of generations that don't know anything about it. So this inflation battle that we're in is serious, and it's got to be beat back. And it is going to affect all of us in many ways. And us in the mining game only have 1 really great thing going for us, and that's the electrification of the planet that everybody's looking for, and they need our minerals in order to make that happen. So it's going to be a two-edged sword, but I think that at the end of the day, the mineral industry has got a good 10 or 20 years ahead of it, regardless of what inflation is.

35:48 And I was I think I'll echo those those comments on the green energy future. That's I think that's a lot of what is causing inflation, because it's a huge transition. It's a huge amount of global capital that will need to be expended to achieve the objectives of the Paris Climate Accord and more recent discussions in Glasgow. But as they affect our project, again, because we're not building a mill and a tailings facility, we don't have a lot of things that are going to inflate. I think that's a smart outcome of our arrangement with Kenross and using the existing facilities at Kenross. Unfortunately, we have a grade, 8 grams per ton, that's high enough grade to be able to pay for the trucking costs up to the mill, which is roughly a gram and a half. So we still got 6.5g left to make a profit on. So I think these are just different approaches, different innovations to use to sort of work your way through the system. And for us, it's to get into production and getting the cash flow. We're generating 67,000 ounces of gold a year, our 30% share of the joint venture, and $900 is our all-in sustaining cost, we should be over $50 million of free cash flow.

37:11 Obviously, it's great for investors. We've only got 6.8 million shares outstanding, so you can do the math, and that's a pretty high ratio of cash flow per share. So what we go do with that is probably our next area to be starting to address. And that's why we've got the Lucky Shop project, which we think is a good follow on high grades, modest capital investment to get into production. We've got to first find the ore, but so that's the step we're in right now. But I think this inflation wave is going to be with us for a while, unfortunately. I think broadly, we're certainly into a recession, whether they're officially declaring it 1 or not.

38:00 I think anyone who had looked at the last 10 years of the mining downturn with only blips of activity, when the broader market was doing so well, was on such a long bull run. Nobody had a risk appetite for mining and certainly not exploration. When blue chips are paying you 12% a year return, where's the appetite for risk? Why do you need to take on so much risk for yield? So that their softening hurts us because we go down with them initially. But I think the sector rotation into real assets and to commodities and true value investing from growth investing is coming.

38:46 And I think it's important to be positioned for it. And it's a question as of right now, I think we all feel a little beat up, but certainly I think if we weren't optimists, we wouldn't be in this industry, but I think we all feel that the turn is coming. And I certainly felt like that we were going to need to take pain with the whole market before the sector rotation occurred. So I'm glad this is, I'm kind of glad the pain is here, although I don't like it, of course. And I'm hoping that the sector rotation happens and how we deploy capital in a inflationary environment. You know, for an exploration co-ed, this sounds kind of simplistic, but you just kind of need to raise more money, right? You know, it's, there's, certainly We've seen substantial wage inflation for geologists and technical staff because they're in short supply. Not surprisingly, we've driven a lot of quality people out of the industry.

39:41 You know, not a lot of people have the tolerance to put up with the ups and downs of this industry. So who you're left with, the capable people amongst that population are expecting to be compensated. Right? And that's the challenge. You know, you can't, project specific knowledge is so important. You can't just replace your crew every year and expect to make meaningful advancements. Right. So certainly something we're grappling with, and aware of and trying to plan for the future. But, You know, if the downturn continues, you know, as the expression goes, the market tells you how fast to go. So if the downturn continues, we'll slow down. If the sector rotation occurs and commodities get a bid, we'll speed up. Right. And that's what we have to do. I think single single mindedly advancing your project irrelevant of market conditions is how you end up with a jillion shares out at the end of the day and no true shareholder returns right so you get your mind but nobody made any money and That's not what we're here for.

40:48 Brad, you make a point I think that is something for the whole industry is that one of the things I think the biggest challenges for the whole industry is people. Particularly if you put into context the scale of the metals required for this transition to a non-carbon future of energy and transportation, the amount of metal necessary for that, all metals, whether they're, you know, whether, and it really starts with copper, but it includes pretty much everything on the periodic table. There's just a tremendous amount of capital that has to go into achieving that directive over the next 20, 30 years. And we need more people to come into the industry and whether it's geologists and engineers, metallurgists, et cetera, to be able to accomplish that transition.

41:42 And I think we're, as Brandon said, we're a bit behind the 8 ball on that as an industry. And I think governments need to step in and start to realize if they want this transition to take place, there's other things that need to happen along with that. And it really starts, it always starts with people. One thing I'll add is this sort of situation of increased costs going forward and maybe under investment in the last 10 years is creating a tremendous opportunity from an investor's perspective as it relates to making a return when investing in companies that have proven high quality assets like the companies around the table here. There's been a tremendous lack of investment.

42:30 The number of deposits out there have declined. All the producers, there's this great need that we've touched on. The producers have declining reserves. The need is going to go up. I think lots of commodities are going into deficits. I think that's going to continue. So Where are the companies going to go to replenish their ore? Well it takes at least 5-10 years to make a discovery to delineate something economic. So they're going to have to go to the projects with already existing fundamentals. And that's the real opportunity. When that sort of reality kicks in, I think we're going to see a big rating potentially in companies that have quite high quality assets. They're going to be picked up, put into production. That is a very, you know, we're in a sort of a time now where kind of the baby's being thrown out with the bath water here. Everything's down.

43:22 But I think these junior exploration companies, if you look at where they are now, compared to where they were a year ago with gold at roughly the same price, they're at 30-40% down. I think there's a big re-rating from that perspective on its own. And then from an M&A perspective, when these companies that are making good money now start to act on the fact that they need to replenish their reserves. They have to, That's their business. And to the extent you have good quality assets, you're sitting pretty ready to do that. And with exciting exploration type of pipeline, that's what's going to keep it replenishing that pipeline going forward. So The sector here is maybe a little bit lackluster, but I think there's certainly a lot of reasons for being excited about brighter times ahead. Yeah, look, there's no shortage of bad.

44:10 Sorry, go ahead, Don. Yeah, I was gonna say that David's point there, but we're talking about north of 60 here, and I think a lot of those minerals that everybody's going to be looking for are now going to be looked for farther north. And it's people like ourselves that have got a familiarity with it that have opportunity. Like Greenland is a great place to be now. There's lots of money going into Greenland. The northern Canada is still wide open, basically unexplored. In spite of all the work that's been done, it's basically unexplored. So there's a lot of opportunity north of 60, basically right around the world, but particularly here at home in Canada. And I think that the people sitting at this table here, you represent some of the biggest potential this country has. The huge mineral resources that you guys are uncovering is really truly a benefit to all of us, this country and our children and grandchildren.

45:05 Keep up the good work guys. Awesome. Gentlemen, I'd like to like to take a moment just to speak to the audience and remind them that if you have any questions, please ask them in the Q&A chat found on the right hand side of your screen. You know, it's been a great conversation so far. I do wanna dive into a couple of questions we've received from the audience and people in the community in advance. But to begin with, maybe an interesting, maybe it's a short answer, but how much do the seasons affect your work cadence throughout the year? What are you able to do or unable to do for that matter, for instance, when there's just snow on the ground? Yeah, I mean, for our project, we're set up to, at Manchota, work year round. Again, we're right off of the Alaska highway.

45:56 We don't have the typical remote project issues. Obviously, in the wintertime in Alaska and in the north, it's dark and cold. So again, from a safety perspective, I think that's the number 1 thing we focus on is just making sure that everybody's, as you transition from the warm summer months, and it's a quick transition into the fall and winter that you just take the appropriate precautions and your protective gear, Daylight's a big thing. So when you don't have daylight, you either have to turn lights, you have an outside light on to make sure you keep your work area safe. So I think that's the main driver for us. And of course, in the Lucky Shot project, we're working underground. So you're kind of always in the dark and you just adjust your, your exploration approach appropriately. But I think safety is the big driver for us in terms of the special conditions that you need to worry about, whether it's having appropriate, you know, whether it's skis or or snowshoes if you're running around on the snow, you just, you know, just take different precautions and work safely.

47:13 Yeah, I think that, you know, the seasonality, of course, we choose not to work over winter. We're working over winter. We're not sipping margaritas or anything like that in Mexico all winter. But it gives us that downtime. It gives us a lot of time to review data and plan the following season. Could we operate in winter? Yes, we could. The challenge is the cost inflation. So trying to get more done in summer is not, it's like it's not a 100% win situation because if I say I want to have 4 rigs in summer instead of 2 rigs year-round. That means a bigger camp, a bigger permit, more complicated logistics, more compressed schedule, which creates its own challenges. But then 2 rigs year-round means you're drilling in winter, you got freezing lines, you're trying to heat your h So each approach has its we've decided that the ri us is is to kind of bl and get as much as we But that may change, right? So that's at least how we approach it.

48:23 Absolutely. Another question, sort of dealing with the physical realities on the ground. This question is, what's the situation, if any, with wildlife interacting with your projects? Are there any sort of precautions on that front that are necessary? Yeah, we put up bear fences around all of our projects around camp. So that's, I think the mosquitoes bother people more than the bears. But, and then I think the other thing, again, this again gets more back to community relations and what's important for small villages is they rely on some of these animals, in particular caribou and moose, to feed their families. So that's important to recognize.

49:14 And Of course, when you get to a mining operation, as Redmond has done very well, they work very closely with the local communities on when the caribou are migrating and shutting down truck traffic and during that month-long period of time when that happens. So again, you know, just kind of being aware of what's important to the community. Of course, we're working on lands owned by the Tetland tribe. And so, you know, hunting and fishing is just not something that people do in camp. That's just because that's that that land is owned and everything on it is owned by the tribe. So we respect that and so when you come to camp you know you're there to work not to go fishing and hunting at night.

50:04 Fair enough. Norway's got great herds of reindeer, mainly owned by the Sami, but there's wild reindeer. And we've run into issues with, particularly with the thing using off-road vehicles and helicopters during reindeer hunting season. So we have to get out of there to allow the locals to do their hunt. So I think it's a global thing that we're all learning. Back in the old days, it wouldn't have even crossed our minds, but now it's up front and we have to respect all these various little idiosyncrasies that we meet across the planet here as we do our exploration and mine development. Well, it kind of reflects how things have changed. I think a generation ago, this is not something that a typical mining exploration company would have paid attention to.

50:53 But now, it doesn't cost a lot to get some biologists to do a desktop study of your project and identify potential species affected and build a plan to mitigate impacts there. And certainly it doesn't cost a lot to do a nest survey or something before you put a, you know, it's just someone walking around looking for bird nests before you build a drill pad. And it's a different way to approach things. And I think that it is the new way and it's good that companies are getting on board with this and listening to community concerns. I think With your interaction with the communities, there's a lot of local knowledge there, so just use it. Yes, you do need to have official surveys and things like that, but there's a lot of local knowledge that I think companies can take advantage of effectively for free.

51:50 So, and develop that relationship with the community along the same path. Well, I think sometimes people are afraid of doing surveys because they're afraid of finding something, right? So, you know, it's kind of like, you know, if I don't survey, it doesn't, the caribou don't exist. It's like, well, no, they still exist. And they will be found and identified before you build the mine, right? So understanding that the limitations of your of a potential endgame mine helps you focus your exploration as well. Absolutely, gentlemen. Another question, did COVID have a bigger or smaller impact, do you think, on the working communities in northern climates and on your own projects as well, for that matter?

52:46 Well, actually, in Alaska, the mining industry and the oil and gas industry were the 2 industries that did the best during the whole COVID shutdown. Tourism and fishing did very, very poorly. So I think, you know, and I think the reason really is that we already have all these safety protocols in place and it wasn't a really difficult transition to add on the specific COVID protocols. Now, a lot of companies and ourselves included decided not to have an exploration program because in our case, we are right next to the Tetlin community and we share the common road to get up to the project. And we just decided that we didn't want to risk the relationship with the community by being responsible or potentially responsible for bringing COVID into the community. That would be a horrible outcome.

53:43 So we proactively decided not to have a program. But all the mining operations in Alaska continued, and they all did quite well. I mean, again, from just a 30,000 foot business perspective. They ran their operations. It cost them more money, of course. But you know, the tourism was shut down. All the, you know, all the restauranteurs were shut down. All the services businesses were shut down. So the only thing that really made money in Alaska during COVID was mining and oil and gas. Yeah. And Yukon's economy grew in 2020 and 2021 because of mining. This is while the tourist industry was basically shut down. I mean, we're an industry that is very familiar with PPE.

54:33 Adding a mask to some newer situations or different situations was not a big ask for most people who have been accustomed to working in the industry where hard hats and vests and steel-toed boots, et cetera, are the norm. But I'll reflect, Rick, you said we chose to fly over the community in 2020 instead of drive things in, which was a bit of a cost inflation for some things, but it meant that we were not exposing, potentially exposing the community. And these small communities do not have access to healthcare like we do in big cities. There was some vaccine hesitancy in small communities. So you wanna, you know, that's bringing COVID to town is a great way to torch your social license in a real hurry, right?

55:23 So you have to be very careful. Actually, it's an interesting point. Maybe a little off topic, Brandon, but the Yukon growing over the last couple of years because of mining. We're talking about being North of 60. We're not the first people going here for the first time. This could happen for a long time. And now we're really starting to see the fruits of the labours of the last 20, 30 years. So these are Northern. We're not really sort of the first guys on the frontier. Canada's newest mines are probably, I would say the highest percentage of them are probably north of 60 in the last little while. And so it's happened, there's a roadmap for this all happening, and we're just sort of leveraging the benefit of a lot of the work that's already been done. So just something to bear in mind when you're sort of taking this all back in light of also, you know, look at these incredible mining jurisdictions that we're talking about. These are places that are generally safe. They have rule of law. And from an investment perspective, I think those are equally as important as the quality of the assets themselves. You want to be invested in a project that you know there's a pathway of how that's going to come to production.

56:30 And that is what, at least to jurisdictions that all these guys are working in, along with ourselves, it's something that it certainly represents. I know the Yukon particularly is a top 10 Frazier ranked mining jurisdiction for years and years and years and years. So it's something to bear in mind when boiling this all down after the call. In Europe, in Scandinavia, there's been a lot of interest in mining development for the last couple of decades, and it continues to grow. When we went over there, COVID had a major impact on us. When we started out, We had to quarantine our drill crew for 8 days before we could even step into the country. But once in, things worked really well. Norway was one of the few countries that didn't have a lot of restrictions. And as far as exploration went in that north of 60, it was sort of business as usual.

57:20 In fact, when we came to bring our drill crews out, I was over there in a big major market in downtown Oslo and found that there was only 3 guys in the whole market square with masks on and that was us guys because we wanted to make sure we didn't get COVID going back into Canada to get on the plane. So our experience with COVID, it was really quite limited in Norway, but it's strictly a different atmosphere than what you guys are talking about with the small communities up north. And I really respect what you guys have done in regard to that. I think it's really good. Well, listen, gentlemen, I think that's a good note to end on for today. I want to thank you, of course, for joining me and talking through all of your projects.

58:07 It's been great to listen. I also want to, of course, thank everyone in the audience for joining us today. If you have any questions that you think of after the fact, feel free to reach out to us or any of the companies. They're all available online. You can find their websites. They're all listed companies. But with that, gentlemen, again, thank you. For now, we'll be wrapping up and I hope you