VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – TSX-V-listed project developer Strongbow Exploration has agreed to sell its 65.74% interest in the Skoonka Creek gold property, located within the prospective Spences Bridge gold belt (SBGB), in British Columbia, to Westhaven Ventures.

Strongbow's joint venture partner on the Skoonka Creek project, Almadex Minerals, has also agreed to sell its 34.26% interest to Westhaven, adding 2 738 ha of mineral claims to Westhaven’s existing 100% holdings over 33 000 ha within the SBGB, the companies announced on Wednesday.

Under terms of the three-way deal, Westhaven will issue two-million common shares to Strongbow and Almadex, of which 1.3-million common shares will be allocated to Strongbow and 700 000 common shares will be allocated to Almadex, valuing the acquisition at about C$210 000, based on TSX-V-listed Westhaven’s stock closing price on Tuesday.

Almadex will retain a 2% net smelter return royalty in the property.

“With the addition of the Skoonka Creek gold property, Westhaven has 100% of what are arguably the three best properties on the SBGB. It is management's belief that the SBGB has district-scale potential to host epithermal gold deposits. The SBGB is a very underexplored epithermal gold district which is the probable source of some of the placer gold deposits of the Thompson and Fraser Rivers first discovered in 1857 to 1858,” Westhaven director and CFO Shaun Pollard stated.

There has been a limited amount of drilling on this belt since modern exploration began 17 years ago. In 2005, Strongbow drilled 20.2 g/t gold over 12.8 m at the Skoonka Creek gold property confirming the presence of high-grade epithermal gold mineralisation in the SBGB. Westhaven has identified multiple drill targets and will look to commence exploration once permits are in place, the company advised.

To date, more than C$4.5-million has been spent on prospecting, mapping, soil sampling, geophysics and diamond drilling of the project, resulting in a 3 000-m-long X 5 000-m-wide structural corridor encompassing many gold and/or pathfinder element (arsenic, antimony, mercury, molybdenum) soil and rock geochemical anomalies.

Some of the drill results include 20.2 g/t gold over 12.8 m; 28.6 g/t gold over 3.31 m; and 7.48 g/t gold over 4.10 m. Mineralogical, textural and geochemical evidence suggests that mineralisation encountered to date represents the upper portions of a shallowly eroded low sulphidation epithermal system, with good potential to discover more consistent and higher gold grades at greater depths. Mineralisation remains open along strike and to depth, Westhaven says.

The SBGB is a 110-km -ong northwest-southeast trending belt of intermediate to felsic volcanic rocks dominated by the Cretaceous Spences Bridge Group. Westhaven has been working intermittently on the SBGB since 2011 and believes this relatively underexplored terrane is highly prospective for economic gold-silver deposits.

All its properties are close to existing major transportation arteries and other infrastructure allowing for cost-effective exploration. Westhaven's management owns approximately 46% of the shares outstanding.

Strongbow is already a shareholder in Westhaven through the previous sale of the Shovelnose gold project. The sale of Strongbow's interest in the Skoonka Creek gold project will allow Strongbow to continue to focus its efforts on the South Crofty tin project in the UK, while retaining exposure to future exploration success at Skoonka Creek, Shovelnose, and the SBGB in general, through its ownership of 3.5-million Westhaven common shares, after closing.

Westhaven’s stock climbed 10% on Wednesday following the news, to C$0.12 a share.