Dolly Varden Silver (TSXV:DV, OTC:DOLLF) continues to have success at the drill bit, judging from the initial results from expansion drilling at Kitsol vein and Torbrit — part of a 55,000-meter drill program at its Kitsault Valley silver and gold project, located in the Golden Triangle region of northwestern British Columbia.

Location of the Kitsault Valley project within the Golden Triangle

The land package, which includes the Dolly Varden silver property and the Homestake Ridge gold-silver property, hosts one of the largest undeveloped high-grade precious metals projects in Western Canada.

The combined resource is currently estimated at 34.7 million ounces of silver and 166,000 oz of gold in the indicated category, and 29.3 million oz of silver and 817,000 oz of gold inferred.

Kitsault Valley resource estimate

While the resource is already impressive at this stage, the more fascinating aspect of the project is its rich history, which can be traced back to the early 20th century when Scandinavian prospectors first made the silver discovery in what is now the Stewart Complex.

Within the boundaries of the company’s original property are two past-producing silver mines: Dolly Varden and Torbrit, which formed a prolific silver mine camp starting in 1919 that produced more than 20 million ounces in the span of 40 years, with assays as high as 2,200 ounces per tonne.

It should be noted that Dolly Varden was among the most important silver mines in the British Empire during its heyday.

Other historically active mines in the area include North Star and Wolf, which remain underexplored to this day. Together, the four deposits comprise about 90 square kilometers within the Stewart Complex.

While these deposits were already enough to work with, DV always believed that the Kitsault Valley property is prospective for hosting further precious metal deposits, being on the same structural and stratigraphic belts that host numerous other high-grade deposits on the same trend such as Eskay Creek and Brucejack (see map below).

High-profile projects found within the Golden Triangle, some along the same trend as Kitsault Valley.

Towards the end of 2021, the company further consolidated its position  with the acquisition of Homestake Ridge, which occupies the northern half (~75 sq km) of Kitsault Valley. This project features a high-grade gold and silver resource from three known deposits, that the company believes can be converted into higher-confidence categories.

2023 exploration

Kitsault Valley trend with 2023 exploration drilling targets

Two drill rigs are presently targeting the Wolf vein, and two are at the Kitsol vein. A fifth rig has been mobilized, thereby expanding the original 45,000m 2023 drill program to 55,000m. Over 70 drill holes have been completed to date this season.

Highlights from the Kitsol vein in the Torbrit deposit area include:

• DV23-334: 297 g/t silver over 8.32 meters including 1,090 g/t Ag over 0.90m at Kitsol;
• DV23-336: 342 g/t Ag over 18.00m including 2,270 g/t Ag over 0.50m and 995 g/t Ag with 3.6% lead (Pb) over 0.60m at Kitsol;
• DV23-337: 496 g/t Ag over 9.57m including 1,100 g/t Ag over 0.73m at Kitsol;
• DV23-348: 334 g/t Ag over 3.50m including 672 g/t Ag over 1.34m at Torbrit Main, south extension.

“As the flow of results from our fully funded 2023 exploration drill program have started, we continue to see successful resource expansion drilling at the Kitsol Vein, intersecting high-grade silver mineralization over wide intervals, that is potentially amenable to bulk underground mining methods,” said Shawn Khunkhun, president and CEO of Dolly Varden Silver, in the Aug. 8 news release. “We are excited to have the fifth drill turning as it will allow us to allocate extra meters to exploration drilling on our priority list of targets along the Kitsault Valley trend.”

According to the company, holes DV23-334 and 336 extended the plunge extent of the wide, high-grade silver mineralization at the Kitsol vein for an additional 40 meters towards surface. The plunge direction has been extended to over 250m from the furthest southwest intercept, down plunge in drill hole DV22-323 (Figure 2).

Drilling has identified a consistent high-grade-interval within the wide vein interval, associated with multiple phases of brecciation.

Figure 2. Kitsol Vein longitudinal section with plunge of high-grade silver shoot and 2023 results.

Drill holes DV23-335, 337, 341 and 343 tested the high-grade shoot along strike. Hole DV23-337 was a 41-meter step-out, up plunge from DV18-131, confirming the consistent vertical dimension of the shoot to be 50-75 meters, along the length of the plunge. The remaining holes intersected the Kitsol vein, either above or below the higher-grade mineralized shoot.

Exploration holes to the west, testing for new structures in the hanging wall of the Moose Lamb fault, encountered a block of the Kitsol vein in drill hole DV23-338 within a fault splay. Further modeling with the new oriented core data will guide targeting of the possible offset of the Kitsol vein across the Moose Lamb fault.

At the southern end of the Torbrit Main deposit, drill holes DV23-348 and 350 were collared as 31-meter step-outs testing for the mineralized horizon. DV23-348 intersected mineralization consistent with the lower sequence of the basin fill-style silver zone at Torbrit, within potassic-and chlorite-altered volcanic tuff.

Figure 3. Drill hole DV22-336 (74.00m to 85.55m) from the Kitsol Vein deposit showing breccia vein-style mineralization with argentite, native silver in a dark silica matrix and vein breccia fragments.

 Figure 4. Kitsol Vein plan view showing drill hole locations with lithology.

In addition to the fifth drill rig, Simcoe Geoscience has started a magnetotelluric (MT) geophysical survey, to be run over post-mineralization sedimentary rocks at the center of the valley.

Dolly Varden plans to perform more surveys to the area west and north of Homestake Ridge, where extensive gold-in-soil anomalies coincide with strong quartz-sericite-pyrite (QSP) alteration. This is interpreted to suggest a possible source at depth for the structurally-controlled gold-silver mineralization at the Homestake Main and Homestake Silver deposits.

Dolly Varden Silver Corp.
TSXV:DV, OTC:DOLLF
Cdn$0.72, 2023.08.08
Shares Outstanding 254.6m
Market cap Cdn$183.3m
DV website

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