Australia’s Ardiden Limited

Hunting for gold at four Pickle Lake targets

By Kevin Vincent

When it comes to gold in northwestern Ontario, Red Lake tends to get all the attention. A small Australian company thinks the nearby Pickle Lake region is the forgotten cousin and they are out to prove their theory.

The Pickle Lake Gold Project is 100% owned by Ardiden Limited and consists of four major gold deposits covering an area of 100km x 30km, offering significant upside exploration potential and resourcegrowth opportunities along 120km of prospective strike-length.

The four advanced Gold Deposits located within the Pickle Lake Gold Project are called Kasagiminnis, Dobie, Dorothy, and Esker.

Rob Longley, Ardiden’s CEO and Managing Director has told investment conference interviewers that Canada has similar properties to Australia, which makes it a great place to look for gold. “The investment fraternity, the knowledge, the skill base is all very compatible and interchangeable. It’s about the investment market and the jurisdiction of the geology.”

Red Lake has produced more than 27 million ounces of gold. Historically, the Pickle Lake region has produced more than 3Moz gold since 1935 from four underground operations: Pickle Crow, Dona Lake, Central Patricia and Golden

Pickle Lake is a small town on the eastern shore of the Lake with a population of about 500. It has year-round road access and was founded as a transportation centre for mining activities after gold was discovered in the area in 1928. Ardiden has a maiden high-grade resource of 790,000 tonnes @ 4.3 g/t for 110,000oz gold for the Kasagiminnis Deposit and at a premium grade of 4.3 g/t gold, the Maiden Inferred Resource marks the first step towards the Company’s objective of building a significant high-grade resource base at Pickle Lake and in May 2020 defined an exploration target of 500,000oz to 1.2Moz @ 3.9 – 6.6g/t Au. Resource definition drilling completed a 3,000m ‘Summer’ program at Kas in 2020 with the objective of building on the current JORC estimate by defining additional gold mineralisation along strike and at depth.

Drilling at the Western Hub so far has completed 43 holes for 5,939m of fully oriented diamond core to a maximum depth of 252m, comprising:

1. Esker Prospect – 18 holes for 2,206m

2. Tonsil Prospect – 19 holes for 2,680m

3. Dorothy Prospect – 3 holes for 655m

4. Dobie Prospect – 3 holes for 398m

Ardiden’s drilling in the Western Hub is targeting the Golden Patricia geological sequence both to the north-west and to the south-east of the historical underground mine. The mine was developed to 750m vertical depth over a 3km strike length and extracted 619,796oz Au @ 15.2g/t and ceased operations in 1997 due to poor gold prices. The Kasagiminnis, Esker, Dorothy, Dobie and Tonsil Gold Deposit are just a few of multiple deposit-scale targets and advanced gold Prospects within Ardiden’s 120km of under-explored strike.

Ardiden has also identified 23 Gold Deposit and Prospect areas that will be systematically explored with 20 currently fully permitted for early-stage exploration activities.

“We’re in the same Greenstone belt that hosts Red Lake’s deposits. Red Lake has several gold mines in there, and there’s some new ones coming on stream.

Red Lake has produced about 30 million ounces. Pickle Lake itself has only produced 3 million ounces. We think, as some of our key investors do, that is sort of a forgotten jurisdiction just on the side of Red Lake that offers a lot of opportunity.