Island Mountain Phase I Drilling

VANCOUVER, Nov. 15, 2016 /CNW/ - Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. (TSXV: BGM) (the "Company" or "Barkerville") is pleased to announce additional results from the ongoing Phase I Island Mountain exploration drilling program at the Company's flagship Cariboo Gold Project (CGP).  Three drill rigs are currently operating on Island Mountain, with a fourth rig on Barkerville Mountain testing the 800 metre long KL Zone gold in soil anomaly.  The results from the new drilling are presented below in Table 1.  A drill hole location plan map and longitudinal section are presented at the end of this release.  

Highlights of the new drilling include:  10.34 g/t Au over 11.50 metres (including 14.52 g/t Au over 7.60 metres) in DDH BGM-16-527, 74.31 g/t Au over 2.15 metres in DDH BGM-16-529, 23.73 g/t Au over 4.75 metres in DDH BGM-16-530, and 18.81 g/t Au over 3.60 metres in DDH BGM-16-533.   Reported core lengths represent 50-75% true widths.

Island Mountain Phase I Drilling

The recently initiated 20,000 metre Phase I exploratory and stratigraphic drill program on Island Mountain represents the first major campaign of its kind since it was last explored in 2009.  The program is intended to determine the extent of the vein systems that were historically undeveloped or unexplored, and is aimed at discovering new occurrences and extensions to the massive sulphide replacement bodies.  Past exploration and mining was primarily focused on the replacement hosted gold as opposed to the veining due to the higher gold tenor and as such, the extents of the vein sets have never been investigated.

The area with no prior drilling or historical development (between the Aurum and Mosquito Creek mines) has again yielded previously unidentified vein-style mineralization confirmed by BGM-16-530 which intersected 23.73 g/t Au over 4.75 metres.  This new instance mineralization is located 90 metres vertically below the 4000' level of the Mosquito Creek mine at a vertical depth of -200 metres below surface, and has not been tested at depth or along strike. This drill hole also intersected a new 30 metre wide corridor of vein and fault-fill hosted mineralization highlighted by 9.67 g/t Au over 0.70 metres and 5.25 g/t Au over 1.25 metres.   Until now, this portion of the Island Mountain stratigraphy has never been drill tested and this new mineralization has generated a new exploration target outside the known mine geology. 

Additional veining was also intersected by BGM-16-527 grading 10.34 g/t Au over 11.50 metres (including 14.52 g/t Au over 7.60 metres. The veining in this area remains untested by drilling in all directions.

Averaging 9.80 g/t Au over 2.65 metres, drill hole BGM-16-534 intersected a previously unidentified vein set 240 metres vertically below surface.  This intercept is significant in that it has extended the width of the corridor that hosts the veins to 170 metres from the previously interpreted 100 metre wide stratigraphy, and is untested in all directions.

Chris Lodder, President and CEO of Barkerville Gold Mines remarked: "The results of this first pass of widely spaced exploratory drilling have to date generated abundant targets with respect to the size and grade of this essentially untested gold system.  We intend to drill 50,000 metres on the Phase II drilling program in 2017 to generate a maiden resource on Island Mountain."

Qualified Persons

Exploration activities at the Cariboo Gold Project are jointly administered on site by the Company's Project Managers, Maggie Layman, P.Geo. and Wanda Carter, P.Geo. As per National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, Paul Geddes, P.Geo. Vice President Exploration, is the Qualified Person for the Company and has prepared, validated and approved the technical and scientific content of this news release. The Company strictly adheres to CIM Best Practices Guidelines in conducting, documenting, and reporting its exploration activities on the Cariboo Gold Project.

Quality Assurance – Quality Control

Once received from the drill and processed, all drill core samples are sawn in half, labelled and bagged.  The remaining drill core is subsequently stored on site at the Company's secure facility in Wells, BC.  Numbered security tags are applied to lab shipments for chain of custody requirements.  The Company inserts quality control (QC) samples at regular intervals in the sample stream, including blanks and reference materials with all sample shipments to monitor laboratory performance. The QAQC program was designed and approved by Lynda Bloom, P.Geo. of Analytical Solutions Ltd., and is overseen by Paul Geddes, P.Geo, Vice President Exploration.

Drill core samples are submitted to ALS Geochemistry's analytical facility in North Vancouver, British Columbia for preparation and analysis. The ALS facility is accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard for gold assays and all analytical methods include quality control materials at set frequencies with established data acceptance criteria. The entire sample is crushed and 250 grams is pulverized. Analysis for gold is by 50g fire assay fusion with atomic absorption (AAS) finish with a lower limit of 5ppb and upper limit of 10,000ppb. Samples with gold assays greater than 10,000ppb are re-analyzed using 50g fire assay with gravimetric finish, as well as 1,000g screen metallic fire assay. Samples are also analyzed using a 48 multi-elemental geochemical package by a 4-acid digestion, followed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectroscopy (ICP-MS).

About Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd.
The Company is focused on developing its extensive land package located in the historical Cariboo Mining District of central British Columbia. Barkerville's mineral tenures cover 1,164 square kilometres along a strike length of 60 kilometres which includes several past producing hard rock mines of the historic Barkerville Gold Mining Camp near the town of Wells, British Columbia. The QR Project, located approximately 110 kilometres by highway and all weather road from Wells was acquired by Barkerville in 2010 and boasts a fully permitted 900 tonne/day gold milling and tailings facility. Test mining of the Bonanza Ledge open pit was completed in March of 2015 with 91,489 tonnes of ore milled producing 25,464 ounces of gold. The Company has completed a number of drilling and exploration programs over the past 20 years and is currently compiling this data with all historical information in order develop geologic models which will assist new management and provide the framework to continue to explore the Cariboo Gold Project. An extensive drill program is currently underway with the goal of delineating additional high grade gold mineralization.

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. This news release contains forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, the Company's objectives, goals or future plans, statements regarding exploration results and exploration plans. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, capital and operating costs varying significantly from estimates, the preliminary nature of metallurgical test results, delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required governmental, environmental or other project approvals, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, changes in equity markets, inflation, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in the development of projects and the other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, and those risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.

Table 1: Length weighted gold composites for drillholes BGM-16-523 through BGM-16-536:

*Core lengths represent 50-75% true widths. Rock not recovered by drilling was assigned zero grade and not included in the composites. Top cuts have not been applied to high grade assays. NSA – No Significant Assays.

Table 2: Drillhole Collar Orientations

SOURCE Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd.

Image with caption: "Island Mountain Drillhole Location Map - November 2016 (CNW Group/Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd.)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161115_C6003_PHOTO_EN_818640.jpg

Image with caption: "Island Mountain Vertical Longtitudinal Section - November 2016 (CNW Group/Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd.)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20161115_C6003_PHOTO_EN_818642.jpg