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Skoonka North

The Property consists of 3 contiguous mineral claims encompassing 6,167 hectares wholly owned by Westhaven Gold Corp. The Property is situated 1 kilometre northwest of the community of Spences Bridge in south-central British Columbia, within the Kamloops Mining Division.

The Property is located within the southern Intermontane Belt of British Columbia, which is dominated by the Upper Triassic Nicola Group, a west-facing magmatic arc sequence comprising the south end of the Quesnel Terrane. These rocks are intruded by Late Triassic and Early Jurassic comagmatic plutons and are unconformably overlain by Cretaceous and Tertiary volcanic rocks and clastic sediments of Spences Bridge Volcanic Belt and Princeton Group. At property scale, the Skoonka North Property is underlain entirely by the Spences Bridge Group basal Pimainus Formation consisting of conglomerates, pyroclastic-dominated volcanic rocks, and andesite flows (previously mapped as fine-grained crystal tuffs).

The Skoonka North claims have some of the highest gold-in-silt results on the Spences Bridge Gold Belt (SBGB), including 1,720 parts per billion (ppb) Au, 992  ppb Au, and 908 ppb Au. These are comparable to the top three gold-in-silt results from Westhaven’s Shovelnose property (1,985 ppb Au, 1,440 ppb Au and 871 ppb Au).  The claims have seen limited exploration work and have yet to be drill tested. Promising target areas have been identified on the basis of stream silt anomalies, and are being explored by Westhaven through infill stream samples, soil samples and prospecting/rock sampling.

The Ridge Zone target has received the most work historically, including trenching, and returned rock and soil assays of up to 2.0 g/t Au and 701 ppb Au, respectively. The soil anomaly has been traced northeast for 260 m and trenching exposed a 55 m-long, east-trending zone of carbonate-zeolite veining assaying up to 1.59 g/t Au. Rock samples taken from the showing contain anomalous gold with fine disseminated pyrite associated with millimetre-scale east-west trending zeolite and/or ankerite veining. Veining is hosted in an amygdaloidal, porphyritic andesite flow. Alteration minerals associated with this zone include pervasive chlorite, and hematite and kaolinite on fractures. Other minor alteration styles include argillic (visible on fracture surfaces) and silica (in the matrix). This showing corresponds to a northeast-trending lineament reflected topographically.

The Property is accessible by ground transport within a 3.5 hour drive from Vancouver, BC. Access to the Property from Spences Bridge, the nearest community, is via the Murray Creek forestry service road (FSR), accessed from Highway 1 on the western side of the Thompson River. Alternatively, the Property can be accessed via the Laluwissin FSR off Highway 12 north of Lytton.

Past Exploration

Prior to Westhaven staking the property, previous workers had collected some 144 stream silt samples, 2,494 soil samples and 310 rock samples from within the current claim outline, as documented within publicly accessible assessment reports.. These silt and soil samples suggested the probable presence of low-sulphidation epithermal gold and silver mineralization  

Westhaven’s Ongoing Exploration

Westhaven’s  2018 exploration program consisted of helicopter-borne magnetic and radiometric surveys over the entire Property, completed by Precision GeoSurveys of Vancouver, BC in November of  of that year. East-west oriented lines were flown at 100 metre line spacing with 1000 metre north-south oriented tie line spacing for a total of 713 line-km.  The magnetic survey delineated strong northeast trending magnetic high and low linear anomalies often extending to 2 km length, as seen in the figure below. .

K% radiometrics show well defined anomalies to the southeast portion of the Property, in the area noted for the presence of felsic intrusives.

In 2018 Westhaven discovered the South Zone on the Shovelnose Property and focussed on that project in 2018 and 2019.  Access to the Skoonka North Property was complicated by a series of unfortunate events beyond Westhaven’s control, including the Covid 19 pandemic (2020), fires that devastated the community of Lytton (2021) and floods that washed out roads and bridges.

During 2022 Westhaven completed an airborne LiDAR survey covering the claims and surrounding area. This data was used for structural, lithological and steam channel mapping. In 2023 Westhaven completed an early spring silt, soil and rock sampling program then, once initial analytical results were received, returned for a fall program to follow-up specific areas of interest. In total, Westhaven collected 147 stream silt samples, 519 soil samples and 185 rock samples. Results of this work further support the presence of undiscovered gold-silver mineralization and helped identify new areas of interest.

In 2024 Westhaven initiated a planned field program of additional mapping, prospecting, sampling and geophysical programs. A total of 70 soil samples were collected before access was terminated due to forest fires in the area. Westhaven plans to continue exploration on the property to develop and prioritize potential drill targets as soon as logistical conditions return to normal.

Total Field Magnetics (Reduced to Pole)