Engineer Gold Mines Ltd. (TSX-V: EAU | OTC: EGMLF | WKN: A3EEVJ) has announced that its 2026 Phase I exploration program is now underway on its 100% owned Engineer Gold Project, located 30 kilometres southwest of Atlin in northwestern British Columbia. The project encompasses 18,319 hectares covering a 25-kilometre contiguous claim block and hosts the historic Engineer Gold Mine, the TAG Property, the Wann River Prospect, and numerous other mineral occurrences.
The Phase I program comprises soil and rock sampling at the Engineer Mine, soil geochemistry at TAG, and an in-depth core review and resampling at TAG. The company is fully permitted to follow this with a Phase II program consisting of diamond drilling, excavator trenching, and induced polarization geophysical surveys in the Engineer Mine area. Phase II plans will be announced once finalized.
The Engineer Project hosts multiple styles of mineralization, including high-grade epithermal gold-silver veins, polymetallic veins, and structurally controlled bulk tonnage style gold systems. Phase I work at the Engineer Mine is designed to expand the high-grade gold mineralization and adjacent bulk tonnage targets along strike of previously identified structural corridors labelled Shear A and Shear B. These structures have been traced by geophysics and geochemistry for over 3 kilometres to the south of the past producing mine.
At the TAG Property, located 6 kilometres north of the Engineer Mine, Phase I work includes a rigorous core review and infill core sampling program. From 2006 to 2008, a total of 11,520 metres of diamond drilling in 69 holes was completed at TAG. Recent on-site core re-examination has indicated that several drill intercepts crossing the identified mineralized trend were not fully sampled, and in some instances, samples were not collected adjacent to those hosting significant gold values. Once the infill and expanded drill core sampling is completed, a detailed model of the TAG results will be produced to target areas for potential expansion of the gold mineralization and to facilitate completing an updated resource estimate for TAG. Additionally, soil geochemical sampling will be completed at TAG as prior sampling returned anomalous gold and silver values uphill from the known mineralization, indicating the potential for a subparallel second mineralizing structure.
The Engineer Gold Mine is a past-producing underground gold-silver operation with historical production between 1910 and 1952 totalling approximately 14,263 tonnes grading 39.4 g/t gold and 19.5 g/t silver (BC Minfile 104M014). In 2011, a historical inferred mineral resource, including only the Engineer and Double Decker veins, was completed (Snowden, 2011, amended and restated in 2018, O’Brien et al - www.sedarplus.ca). The historical resource, based on a 5.0 g/t gold cut-off, gave an inferred mineral resource of 25,000 ounces of gold at a grade of 19 g/t. A Qualified Person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as current mineral resources, and the company is not treating it as such.
The TAG Property is associated with a 6 km long structurally controlled mineralized system related to splays off of the Llewellyn Fault. Significant historical diamond drill intervals from TAG include: Hole TAG06-23 which assayed 1.7 g/t Au and 5.1 g/t Ag over 26.7 m (including 3.52 g/t Au over 4.7 m); hole TAG07-29 which assayed 1.3 g/t Au and 5.9 g/t Ag over 35.0 m; TAG08-51 which assayed 1.8 g/t Au and 7.4 g/t Ag over 24.3 m; and TAG08-59 which assayed 1.5 g/t Au and 8.05 g/t Ag over 42.1 m (Fekete and Simper (2009), Fekete and Skinner (2007); ARIS reports #30931 and #29581). At the Wann River Prospect, 4 kilometres south of the Engineer Mine, previous work identified a mineralized corridor approximately 800 metres by 180 metres, with a quartz grab sample returning 263 g/t gold and 1,350 g/t silver from the Lum showing (Aspinall (2011); ARIS Report #32004).
Linda Dandy, P.Geo., is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical content in this news release.
