Vancouver’s Taku Gold Corp. (TSX-V:TAK) said Tuesday morning that it has become the second largest claim holder in the Yukon’s white gold district, where North America’s new gold rush is taking place.
Taku said it purchased a 100% interest in five individual properties located 50 kilometres southeast of Dawson City from a Yukon-based staking syndicate.
The properties, which are in the Klondike goldfields of the Yukon, include 1,522 claims or 31,505 hectares.
Including its existing properties, Taku now has 2,544 claims or 52,660 hectares in the white gold district.
Taku is buying the five properties for 1.8 million common shares, and will also pay up to $380,500 in invoices submitted by third-party contractors for staking costs.
Zachery Dingsdale, Taku’s president and CEO, told BIV the company will be conducting 5,000 soil samples on each of its two existing properties this year using a $1.5 million exploration budget.
Those properties, known as the Dan and the Rosebute, were optioned from Shawn Ryan, who is the rags-to-riches gold explorer widely credited with spurring the latest gold rush in the Yukon. Ryan is also conducting the soil samples for Taku.
Toronto’s Kinross Gold Corp. (TSX:K), which acquired Vancouver’s Underworld Resources Inc. (TSX-V:UW) for $139.2 million in July, has the largest land claims in the region. Vancouver’s Kaminak Gold Corp. (KAM:TSX-V) also has sizable claims in the area.
Dingsdale said Taku has $3.5 million in working capital and no debt.
"The white gold district is as an area play in early stages,” said Dingsdale. “[But] it’s becoming one of the biggest new gold districts in North America. All of this new ground that we have staked covers some of the richest placer gold producing creeks in the Klondike.”
At Taku’s current share price of $0.36, the deal including staking costs, is valued at a little more than $1 million.
BIV previously reported on B.C.-based companies helping fuel the Yukon’s latest gold rush (See “Kinross in bid for Underworld” – issue 1065; March 23-29, 2010).
Taku’s share price range during the past week: between $0.32 and $0.37; 52-week high: $0.38; 52-week low: $0.06.