[Music] This is CEO Insights. I'm Marilyn de Guzman with investingnews.com. I'm speaking with Rick Mark, president and CEO of Harvest Gold. Welcome, Rick. Good morning. Morning Marilyn and thank you. Yes, good to have you. So, let's start our conversation with um Harvest Gold's value proposition. Discuss why um you know your what sets you apart. give us the the rundown of uh what your company is. Well, I think in terms of the business of the company, which is gold exploration, um we're I'll just set it up this way,


Marilyn. When people ask, are you do you have any chance at all? I think we do. And I'm going to start it by saying we're in the Abatobi Abati Greenstone belt, which is a very well-known mine producing belt. So immediately investors and geologists know we're in the right place. We're also in the province of Quebec, which I think is a huge advantage having worked in British Columbia and looking now what Quebec offers in terms of the way their government particularly in northern Quebec supports exploration and they


have a long history of support of supporting exploration. So their funding mechanisms are strong. Uh they have excellent workforce. uh the the nature of the property package we have in Quebec uh it's close to things. It's accessible by road and that means the cost of exploration is very or relatively very inexpensive if you're compared to say a helicopter flying in northern British Columbia. So the abbot to be belt is important. Quebec as a as a jurisdiction is fantastic. We're in something called the


urban berry belt as we go further down. Now the exciting thing about the urban dairy belt, it contains a a a deposit called Windfall which uh Goldfields just bought from a Cisco mining. Now the interesting thing about that as well is that the belt itself is basically owned by Goldfield except for the three large properties that Harvest has in the belt. And I invite people to go and look at the opening front page of our website and you'll see the map that describes if you like our neighborhood. And then


within those three properties and it's been the reason that Crescat Capital who is a very well- reggarded institutional investor in this space out of Colorado has supported our work. We are each of our three properties is intersected by a throughgoing structure if you like and in those structures typically in the abatibi it's those structures and the crosscutting spllays across those structures where the big mines are found. So each of our three properties is is intersected by one of these


throughgoing structures totaling about 50 kilometers of strike length. So we're not in moose pasture. We're not in nowhere. We're right in the middle of a known mineralized belt. We're surrounded by a recognized major. Uh and we also then have been able to introduce ourselves to uh the beginnings of support from the Quebec government and funds. The last thing I'll say is that our joint venture partner Vior is uh our partner on our flagship property called Miso. Interestingly,


Vior their management team is basically a Cisco Mining's management team. In January, Vior made a decision to take the Cisco mining group who at Maryland have been working in this belt for 10 years. So, the people that are our partners are actually the most experienced and best partners we could have. as an example their VP exploration is joining us next week with our geo team for the second time in this case establishing drill targets on the masso property and the last thing I'll say in


terms of timing this is the best time to look at harvest gold we spent the last almost two years now preparing for drilling and I think the work we've done to get our masso property ready for drilling is exemplary as we have a tremendous geological team. So that's from the big down to the small and where we are today, Maryland. Right. So um you know you mentioned your current your current flagship is the Muso project. Could you maybe talk a little bit more about that? Why makes it a compelling


asset and why are you focusing that right now? Well, the reason we took it on, we originally started with our second property called the urban berry property which is right on the belt itself. Too immature if you like to uh not enough exploration done on the belt 17 kilometers of strike length. Uh but it it's one that requires from the beginning more work. The nice thing about Miso, the northern area of Misau has been drilled over many years. And if one were to look at the 43101, you would see the drilling in the 80s occurred


every year a little bit of drilling. The nature of the property in those days was that it was owned by many different people, longtime family ownership, prospectors, in some cases uh the Quebec government owned some northern land. And drilling was done half-hazardly, I would say. And uh that was an opportunity for Vior and what they did over 5 years is they amalgamated those various properties into Miso. Now the other interesting part for investors to know is that the central area of Misau has had almost no work done on it. So the


northern area has historic drilling some very nice results. We know gold is there. There's 49 surface samples, which is according to my geologists being beginnings of some attention. And the the uh drill holes that people will look up, they'll find there's some very nice intersections. It hasn't been put together because nobody's seen it as a whole. And so what our geologists have been able to do over the last year and a half is compile the data sets related to the north. and exciting. The central


area which has not been worked on to any extent has now had prospecting and geocchemistry and our news releases just over the last week or so are starting to talk about the results we've got in the central area. So our next news release will talk to the the markets about the specific targets that we have in the central area and the north as we prepare uh for drilling. What's what are the timelines for those? Um could you talk a bit more about that? In a perfect world, what we anticipate doing is going back


to the market for financing in uh June uh and drilling uh in a perfect world starting July the 15th. So the timing is very good for people who have not uh heard about Harvest Gold or are not aware of what we're doing. Right. And I think one of the things um aspects of of a company that investors are always interested in know is like is their technical team the people behind these exploration. Could you maybe highlight some of the of the aspects of your technical team, the track record and expertise? Well, I I


hold our technical team um up against any junior. Uh they've all stayed with me. We have five guys uh at least the the fellows that have worked us in the past. I'll start with Louisie Martan who is our head geo in in Quebec. He's got a tremendous experience across the Abati for 40 years. He came to us through and and Louis been the driver of all the work we're doing. Uh he's a detailoriented guy. Um classic lifetime geologist, very experienced. uh understands this part of the world very


well. He was brought to us by Pat Donnelly, one of our directors who's been with us about eight years. I met Pat when he was working with Solomon Partners in Toronto 20 years ago when I was running BMS Ventures. So, he was on the other side of the line. He's since morphed into managing junior companies. He's been our director, but he's a geologist as well, has vast experience. Uh we added Warren Bates uh about seven years ago and Warren has worked all over the world particularly in gold uh but in


as many of these guys do Marilyn and they're all guys uh uh they've been all over the world in various commodities uh Warren has been extremely helpful. We took two years to find this opportunity. Two years. Uh and and we're very pleased that we did that and that team was able to do it. Henry Amac we met five years ago. Um Henry and his partner Dave Cfield founded Equity Equity Explorations. Brilliant guy uh low-key uh but insightful. They've all been involved. And then the last guy I want


to mention is Neil Richardson who worked with me at VMS Ventures. Neil is now the VPX for Hud Bay. His budgets are something we could only dream about. Neil actually worked on the windfall project years ago. So when we first looked at the urban berry project, it was Neil who said, "Ricker, we got to get this. Uh, these cross cutting structures look interesting." And so that's the group that comes together. We call them together every couple of months. Louie and I and Warren do the


the the hard work of the day-to-day and then we bring the team together and as I mentioned now we have access to the Vior team and uh their experience specifically in this belt Maryland is remarkable. So I put that geo team against anybody and I would say to investors you better check to make sure the go team is strong because that's the business that's the business of the company. So I am I say to our investors these guys are tremendous. They're experienced and they make the right decisions. No. And obviously I think any


investor who's interested to know there certainly know more about the bios and the track record there buyers are listed on your website. I I I seen that. So I wanted to get your um maybe you could comment like obviously the go gold gold prices have been um you know near all-time high records. How are you leveraging that um uh that high that bull market to advance? It's interesting because um as I talked to other guys running these um junior companies, it hasn't filtered down to the junior


financings as well as we might expect and as well as we know historically it did. My premise there is I think the the certainly the Vancouver brokerage area to a large part is aged out. There are fewer younger brokers who are in, excuse me, in this space. They made a lot of money on marijuana. Uh there's a a lot of money made on NASDAQ. Uh you know, play Nvidia instead of a gold exploration company. Uh Bitcoin, crypto. There's all kinds of places where the returns are, if you like, in the same


neighborhood as discovery returns. That's not to say discovery returns are not as they always were. Uh the discovery moment in a company's history will make investors a great deal of money. And so I think the audience has been reduced. It's interesting. We have Crescat who own 20% of the company. They spoke of us last Friday on their uh weekly broadcast. I was very pleased to know they're watching. We don't bother them uh often. Although I'm going to be speaking to Quinton again next week


because we're at a point again where we can use Quinton's feedback and other great geologists in our final drill targeting selections. So that's important. We've also found our way into Europe organically. We I found a group of retail investors who I would describe as tremendously sophisticated. These guys uh do their work and that's the dream investor. someone who understands the junior space, the early stage exploration companies, understands the return that's available to you, which is


dramatic. Um, I I've experienced it as I mentioned VMS Ventures was our lead company. I I think I mentioned VMS. We made a copper discovery, a high-grade copper discovery in Manitoba early in our first role program, very much ex where where harvest gold is today. So if I showed you our map with the structures running through the the uh properties, our map describing the opportunity with VMS Ventures was a road uh between uh Thompson and uh Snow Lake and Flintflon. Uh and above the road there was no till


cover, no soil cover Maryland and all kinds of discoveries had been made. below the road was the soil cover and our premise using that map was that there's deposits hiding below the till. So we went into Toronto, raised money at 6 cents, announced a discovery uh Griffith McPernney at the time invested at 6 cents and they they brokered our $150 financing when we raised $20 million in that same year because in our early drilling we made a discovery and that's the kind of hope that juniors


bring to the table. So we're still sitting with this map and Quinton's the technical uh leader at Crescat his comment that's why this is important these guys are sitting on these structures in each of these properties and now 6 months later we're able to point to specific targets along those structures on mass and that's why this is such a good time for investors to look at us ahead of drilling. Interesting. So, I think you've alluded to it uh earlier. Maybe you can uh talk


a bit more about some of the upcoming catalysts investors should expect in the coming months from the company. Well, I don't think there's any question. We want to get the targets out to the investment audience so they understand that we've got uh some wellthoughtout opportunities here. Uh we've got at this point a 5,000 meter program laid out approximately a million dollars. or drilling in July under our plan and results will come out sometime in uh um uh September, October. Uh I think again


you want to be holding the stock before results and that's kind of where it is. And I you know it it's as as investors we need to be careful that we don't put our life savings into a junior. It's a high-risisk opportunity. What I mentioned at the beginning, Marilyn, and walking down from Abatibbe to Quebec to urban berry belt to our partners, to our team to the opportunity and clearly a goldbearing environment is that we're if you like derisking it as much as possible, but obviously there's still


risk. But after discovery, you find that it's more difficult for a company to keep making discoveries and the stock may not move the same way it does that first time. So, we're in the business of discovery. That's what Harvest Gold is doing. And we're looking uh to make that discovery first in Misau. And one of the things Neil pointed out uh to me very early is there's I said to him, "Are we going to find 500,000 ounces and truck it down to the windfall operation?" He


says, "No, no, no, no. We're looking for multiple deposits on masso." uh and so that's the optimism one needs and it can be backed up and I think there's a certain level of uh confidence by the work that we're doing that that optimism is real that there is a great opportunity here. Uh, it's still risky though, Marilyn, and I think your viewers probably understand that if they're watching this program, right, we'll leave it at that and looking forward to speaking with you again down


the road once uh, you know, you've got some more results and um, you know, these catalytes come to come to uh, fruition. Very nice to meet you and uh, I look forward to having a chance to talk again. And to the audience, thanks for watching. Please take a look. the symbol is HVG and uh happy to talk to you at any time if if you'd like to reach out. Thank you, Marilyn. Right. And thanks everyone for watching. Join us again next time for another edition of CEO Insights.