Barkerville Intersects 11.36 g/t Au over 12.36 Metres and 56.31 g/t Au over 4.10 Metres in Island Mountain Phase I Drilling

New Replacement Mineralization Discovered

VANCOUVER, Dec. 15, 2016 /CNW/ - Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. (TSXV: BGM) (the "Company" or "Barkerville") is pleased to announce additional results from the ongoing Phase I Island Mountain exploration drilling program at the Company's flagship Cariboo Gold Project.  Three drill rigs are currently operating on Island Mountain, with a fourth rig on Barkerville Mountain testing the 800 metre long KL Zone gold in soil anomaly.  The results from the new drilling are presented in Table 2.  A drill hole location plan map and longitudinal section are presented at the end of this release.  

Highlights of the new drilling include: 12.91 g/t Au over 2.50 metres in BGM-16-537, 56.31 g/t Au over 4.10 metres in BGM-16-553, 11.23 g/t Au over 2.84 metres in BGM-16-555, 34.72 g/t Au over 2.75 metres in BGM-16-556, 11.36 g/t Au over 12.36 metres in BGM-16-567. Reported core lengths represent 50-90% true widths.

Island Mountain Phase I Drilling

The ongoing 20,000 metre Phase I exploratory and stratigraphic drill program on Island Mountain is having continued success in discovering extensions to and defining new vein systems that were historically never developed or explored, and has also outlined new occurrences of massive sulphide replacement bodies.  At the Aurum and Mosquito Creek mines, past exploration and mining was primarily focused on the replacement hosted gold as opposed to the veining due to the higher gold tenor and as such, the extents of the vein sets were never fully considered.

New Replacement Mineralization Discovered

A previously unknown body of massive pyrite replacement mineralization has been discovered
75 metres northwest of the Mosquito Creek Mine in drillhole BGM-16-553 which averaged
56.31 g/t Au over 4.10 metres. The intersection occurs only 85 metres vertically below surface and opens a new exploration target along strike towards the northwest. Gold grade continuity within this massive sulphide replacement mineralization is remarkably continuous as illustrated in Table 1.

Table 1: Raw assays and length weighted gold composite for drillhole BGM-16-553:

Core lengths represent 50-90% true widths. Rock not recovered by drilling was assigned zero grade and not included in the composites. Top cuts have not been applied to high grade assays.

Approximately 40 metres down plunge of BGM-16-553, drillhole BGM-16-556 intersected additional replacement mineralization grading 34.72 g/t Au over 2.75 metres including 121.00 g/t Au over 0.60 metres. The northwestern extension to the mine stratigraphy was previously interpreted to be truncated at the Aurum Fault and hence mine development was not undertaken to explore for additional mineralization across this structure.  Past operators only undertook widely spaced, shallow exploratory drilling in this area. This new mineralization remains untested down plunge and along strike.

Drilling Continues to Identify New Veining

New auriferous quartz veining was intersected by BGM-16-567 grading 11.36 g/t Au over 12.36 metres including 34.23 g/t Au over 4.00 metres located 70 metres vertically below surface in an undeveloped and undrilled portion of the Aurum Mine. Approximately 70 metres along strike to the southeast, BGM-16-564 also intersected additional high grade veins averaging 41.73 g/t Au over 2.10 metres including 88.90 g/t Au over 0.95 metres. These intersections were further corroborated by drillhole BGM-16-537 which delineated numerous other vein sets including 12.91 g/t Au over 2.50 metres and also 10.83 g/t Au over 2.65 metres located 65 metres footwall to the Aurum Mine at a vertical depth of 330 metres below surface.

Chris Lodder, President and CEO of Barkerville, states that with this initial phase of drilling on Island Mountain now complete, our exploration team has developed a solid geologic understanding to guide drilling though the 2017 infill and exploration programs on Island Mountain.

Qualified Persons

Exploration activities at the Cariboo Gold Project are jointly administered on site by the Company's Project Managers, Maggie Layman, P.Geo. and Wanda Carter, P.Geo. As per National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, Paul Geddes, P.Geo. Vice President Exploration, is the Qualified Person for the Company and has prepared, validated and approved the technical and scientific content of this news release. The Company strictly adheres to CIM Best Practices Guidelines in conducting, documenting, and reporting its exploration activities on the Cariboo Gold Project.

Quality Assurance – Quality Control

Once received from the drill and processed, all drill core samples are sawn in half, labelled and bagged.  The remaining drill core is subsequently stored on site at the Company's secure facility in Wells, BC.  Numbered security tags are applied to lab shipments for chain of custody requirements.  The Company inserts quality control (QC) samples at regular intervals in the sample stream, including blanks and reference materials with all sample shipments to monitor laboratory performance. The QAQC program was designed and approved by Lynda Bloom, P.Geo. of Analytical Solutions Ltd., and is overseen by Paul Geddes, P.Geo, Vice President Exploration.

Drill core samples are submitted to ALS Geochemistry's analytical facility in North Vancouver, British Columbia for preparation and analysis. The ALS facility is accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard for gold assays and all analytical methods include quality control materials at set frequencies with established data acceptance criteria. The entire sample is crushed and 250 grams is pulverized. Analysis for gold is by 50g fire assay fusion with atomic absorption (AAS) finish with a lower limit of 5ppb and upper limit of 10,000ppb. Samples with gold assays greater than 10,000ppb are re-analyzed using 50g fire assay with gravimetric finish, as well as 1,000g screen metallic fire assay. Samples are also analyzed using a 48 multi-elemental geochemical package by a 4-acid digestion, followed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectroscopy (ICP-MS).

Stock Option Grant

Barkerville also announces that it has granted an aggregate of 400,000 options to purchase common shares of the Company exercisable at a price of $0.55 per share for a period of five years, to an officer and consultant of the Company.  The common shares issuable upon exercise of the options are subject to a four month hold period from the original date of grant.

About Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd.
The Company is focused on developing its extensive land package located in the historical Cariboo Mining District of central British Columbia. Barkerville's mineral tenures cover 1,164 square kilometres along a strike length of 60 kilometres which includes several past producing hard rock mines of the historic Barkerville Gold Mining Camp near the town of Wells, British Columbia. The QR Project, located approximately 110 kilometres by highway and all weather road from Wells was acquired by Barkerville in 2010 and boasts a fully permitted 900 tonne/day gold milling and tailings facility. Test mining of the Bonanza Ledge open pit was completed in March of 2015 with 91,489 tonnes of ore milled producing 25,464 ounces of gold. The Company has completed a number of drilling and exploration programs over the past 20 years and is currently compiling this data with all historical information in order develop geologic models which will assist new management and provide the framework to continue to explore the Cariboo Gold Project. An extensive drill program is currently underway with the goal of delineating additional high grade gold mineralization.

Cautionary Statement on Forward -Looking Information
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. This news release contains forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, the Company's objectives, goals or future plans, statements regarding exploration results and exploration plans. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, capital and operating costs varying significantly from estimates, the preliminary nature of metallurgical test results, delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required governmental, environmental or other project approvals, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, changes in equity markets, inflation, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in the development of projects and the other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, and those risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law.

Table 2: Length weighted gold composites for drillholes BGM-16-537 through BGM-16-567:

Core lengths represent 50-90% true widths. Rock not recovered by drilling was assigned zero grade and not included in the composites. Top cuts have not been applied to high grade assays. NSA – No Significant Assays.

Table 2: Drillhole Collar Orientations

To view PDF version of release, please visit: http://files.newswire.ca/1517/Barkerville.pdf

SOURCE Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd.