Northern Shield: Giant Hunting and the Drill is Turning
After a whole season of encountering visible gold all over the top of a huge IP anomaly on its Root & Cellar property, Northern Shield (NRN.V) announced yesterday they've officially begun drilling.
tl;dr:
NRN.V has just announced it has commenced a high-impact drill campaign on its Root & Cellar property. With holes being only ~50m, results aren’t far away.
Tickers mentioned: NRN.V
I first came across Ian Bliss and NRN just a month or two back, and after chatting with Ian a couple times I was impressed by his exploration approach and ability. So it shouldn’t be surprising the little drill program that Ian just announced has begun has me excited. I believe Ian when he says he’s onto something interesting here, and with drilling underway, it won’t be long now till we find out just what that is.
I have to admit that NRN is breaking a general rule I have, as I generally try to avoid getting wrapped up in true, greenfield, pre-discovery plays. They’re just too spicy for me. But man can they ever be alluring. If there are people out there who invest in this sector and don’t ever dream about being part of a big discovery, I’m not one of them. And this is one of those times.
As always when this happens it isn’t the property that is the hinge of my decision making, but the geo (though by extension of this the drill target does look pretty exciting). As I have said before, I like Ian. He’s sharp and goes for gold (figuratively and literally, I suppose). This isn’t about squeezing a few more ounces out of an old mine. Ian is here to make a legitimate, large, greenfield discovery.
And while Ian maybe hasn’t located the fire quite yet, boy is there smoke all over this property (or “steam” if I want to lamely riff off the 50M+ deep boiling zone he’s currently targeting). I mean, the headline below from Friday, Sept. 15 drilling announcement sure makes a point doesn’t it? There’s metals to be found around here.
As for the drill campaign, at $500,000 margins for error and further exploration are tight, and the meterage is costlier than otherwise as Ian is opting for diamond core vs. a cheaper RC rig. But I like this call. Ian continues to work to deepen his geological understanding and data layering of this property and that decision allows him to do so.
But it is obvious that this ~500m campaign means a lot to the company’s coffers and plotted course, so I didn’t mind the news last week that NRN closed a small, ~$200k financing to add some wiggle room if it felt it needed to chase mineralisation, or add another hole or two.
In terms of what it is targeting, this campaign is looking to try to lance into the boiling zone of an alkaline related epithermal system that Ian tried for once before but missed. In the time since that campaign in 2021, Ian’s understanding of the property has literally deepened and by using the new IP data from deeper down, he believes he has critically recalibrated his drill targeting.
So Conquest and its theorised boiling zone will again be the primary target, with Ian believing it to be located starting about 50m beneath the surface. However, there are other targets worthy of a couple of holes in addition to Conquest - the Creston zone has a big Tellurian hit as well as Cu from among its grab samples, and Ian is still trying to work out the source of the boulders that assayed 100+ g/t of Au near Conquest as well.
Ian has a following of true longs who know the story well. I am excited to get in for these drill results because like them I believe in Ian’s vision and in his ability to realise it, even if the odds are always against anyone ever making a new discovery. It isn’t the end of the road by any stretch for NRN if the current campaign doesn’t work out - they still have a couple other targets both at Root & Cellar and other projects that are worthy of a drill campaign of their own - but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pumped for the results here. We all have our favourite plays, and this one has fast become one of mine. I guess sometimes you just have to take your shot, so here I am - chips in, waiting for the drill bit to do the talking. And it won’t be long before we find out what it’s got to say.
Thanks.
-JRI