Red Pine Exploration Inc. (TSX-V: RPX) has received partial assay results for 135 holes from historic core from its Wawa Gold Project that the Company is sampling as part of its 2018 sampling program. The Company has received assay results for a total of 7,600 of the 11,000 metres of historic core logged this year and found >0.1 grams per tonne (“g/t”) of gold in 51% of the sampled holes.

Sampling Highlights:

• 8.78 g/t gold over 2.28 metres (calculated true thickness) at the Surluga Deposit in  U0728L5;
• 9.36 g/t gold over 0.7 metres (calculated true thickness) in S174W;
• 2.31 g/t gold over 4.88 metres (calculated true thickness) in U0645L5;
• 1.55 g/t gold over 3.8 metres in U0683L5;             

Quentin Yarie, President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Pine stated, “Our sampling program continues to highlight the shortcomings of the current deposit model at Surluga as these historic holes were unsampled and therefore assigned a “0” gold value with the areas considered sterilized within the current resource model. Sterilizing an area removes any ability to extrapolate mineralization to that area within the model.  These historic holes were drilled primarily underground within the geologic constraints of the existing deposit model.    Since we are seeing gold values in 51% of the holes sampled to date, any value other than “0” assigned to these areas will have a positive impact on any future resource model.”

Sampling of historic core

Since December 2014, Red Pine’s sampling of 42,000 metres of historic drilling (from 318 underground and 119 surface drill holes) continues to add gold in many of the sampled historic boreholes in the Jubilee Shear Zone, as well as in the footwall and hanging wall of the Surluga Deposit. The spatial distribution of the historic boreholes with notable gold weighted average increases will positively change the current deposit model (Fig 1).

On-going Drilling Program

Red Pine’s 2018 diamond drill program is focussed on in-filling strategic areas of the Surluga Deposit where the sampling of historic holes is not possible, or in areas that were not drilled historically. The Company, assisted by Golder Associates, has devised a drilling program that is designed to maximize its impact on the Surluga Deposit.

Table 1 – Highlights of the historic core sampling program

*Calculated using the calculated true width of the intersection

Wawa Gold Project Background

The Wawa Gold Project consists of over 5,500 hectares and hosts several former mines with a combined historic production of 120,000 oz gold¹.  To date, the largest gold deposit on the property is the Surluga Deposit, which hosts a NI 43-101 Inferred Resource of 1,088,000 oz gold at an average grade of 1.71 g/t (using a 0.5 g/t cut-off) contained within 19.82 million tonnes².

Since December 2014, Red Pine’s exploration work has involved the ongoing sampling of 42,000 m of historic core that was never sampled by previous operators of the project, and aggressive drilling campaigns. To date, the Company has completed over 52,000 m of drilling and made four discoveries along the extension of the Surluga Deposit: the Surluga North Zone; the Hornblende-William Zone; the Minto Mine South Zone and; the Grace-Darwin Zone. These are part of the Wawa Gold Corridor, a gold-mineralization zone that extends for more than 5 km.

Red Pine’s on-going drill program is designed to potentially expand the size of the existing inferred gold resource and connect the other zones of gold mineralization along the newly-discovered Wawa Gold Corridor.

The Company is well positioned to fund its share of the Wawa Gold exploration program.

As such, the sampling and drill programs are expected to continue through 2018.

On-site Quality Assurance/Quality Control Measures

Drill core samples were transported in security-sealed bags for analyses to Activation Laboratories Ltd. in Ancaster, Ontario. Individual samples are labeled, placed in plastic sample bags and sealed. Groups of samples are then placed into durable rice bags and then shipped. The remaining coarse reject portions of the samples remain in storage if further work or verification is needed.

Red Pine has implemented a quality-control program to comply with best practices in the sampling and analysis of drill core. As part of its QA/QC program, Red Pine inserts external gold standards (low to high grade) and blanks every 20 samples in addition to random standards, blanks, and duplicates.

Qualified Person

Quentin Yarie, P Geo. is the qualified person responsible for preparing, supervising and approving the scientific and technical content of this news release.

About Red Pine Exploration Inc.

Red Pine Exploration Inc. is a gold and base-metals exploration company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Red Pine has a 60% interest in the Wawa Gold Project with Citabar LP. holding the remaining 40% interest. Red Pine is the operator of the project and is focused on expanding the existing gold resource on the property.