Towards a New Era of Gold Production in the Historic Barkerville Camp

Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. ("the Company") is a public company traded on the TSX Venture Exchange (BGM) . The Company is focused on the historic Cariboo Goldfields, terminus of the famous Cariboo Gold Rush.
The Company commenced operations in the Cariboo District in 1994 and since that time has focused on the exploration and development of its gold properties. Mineral tenures in the Historic Cariboo Goldfields encompass approximately 1,065 square km (106,484 hectares) over a 60 km long by 20 km wide belt. In the Barkerville Gold Camp, 101 creeks have reported placer gold production. Recorded gold production from the area totals more than 3.8 million ounces, including an estimated 2.64 million ounces from placer mining and 1.23 million ounces from lode mining.

Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. has recently consolidated the Cariboo Goldfields by acquiring the contiguous projects of Lions Gate Energy Inc. and Golden Cariboo Resources Ltd. The Cariboo Gold Project now encompasses (from northwest to south east), the former producing Hardscrabble Tungsten Mine, Mosquito Creek Gold Mine (now on care and maintenance), Aurum Mine, Island Mountain Mine, Cariboo Gold Quartz Mine, Bonanza Ledge (proposed mine), the Cariboo Thompson Gold & Silver Mine and the Cariboo Hudson Mine.

On February 4th, 2009, Barkerville Gold announced it had entered into a non-binding agreement in principle with Cross Lake Minerals to acquire a subsidiary of Cross Lake, holding all of Cross Lake's interest in the QR Mine and Mill.

The 900-tonne-per-day QR mill, which was fully operational until February, 2009 (now on care and maintenance), is a CIP mill designed for an output of 70,000 ounces of gold per annum for that location. The mill is located 110 kilometres by road from Wayside's Cariboo gold project and proposed Bonanza Ledge mine. Following a positive feasibility study in 1994, Kinross Gold Corp. constructed the QR mill with capital costs estimated at over $40-million.

Cross Lake commenced operations at the QR Mine in 2007, after spending over $34-million in the preceding 24 months on project acquisition ($4.3-million), exploration and development ($20-million) and refurbishing the mill facilities ($10.3-million). Cross Lake expended an additional $3-million on asset retirement obligations, including having BC Hydro bring three-phase power to the project. It is Barkerville Gold's objective to process material from its proposed Bonanza Ledge mine (subject to receipt of all necessary permits) at the QR mill, in addition to recommencing operations at the QR mine.

The Company is currently working to delineate multi-million ounce gold resources across the trend, further consolidate mineral tenure, and begin production at the proposed Bonanza Ledge open pit mine and recommence production at the QR Mine. To date, the Company has completed more than 50,000m of drilling and while the Company continues to augment and refine the geological model, large areas have never been explored.