Can This Historic Copper–Zinc Mine Make Money Today? | Canterra Minerals CEO Interview

Summary

• Company Overview: Canterra Minerals, listed as CTM on the TSX Ventures Exchange, focuses on critical minerals and gold exploration in Newfoundland, Canada, with a market cap of over 51 million Canadian dollars.
• Share Structure: The company has 344 million shares outstanding, with insiders owning about 2%, and notable investors like Michael Gentile and Eric Sprat each holding 4%.
• Financial Position: As of March 31, 2025, Canterra had approximately $4.8 million in current assets, primarily in cash and marketable securities, with liabilities of $1.1 million, mostly non-debt related.
• Exploration Focus: The company's primary projects include the Buckans VMS camp and the Wilding Gold project, with recent drilling at Buckans returning promising results of 16 meters at 1.7% copper equivalent.
• Investment Strategy: Canterra aims to expand its resource base to 40-50 million tons to attract potential suitors, focusing on high-grade discoveries rather than developing mines themselves.
• Jurisdictional Advantage: Newfoundland is highlighted as a favorable mining jurisdiction due to its supportive local communities, straightforward permitting processes, and existing infrastructure.
• Risks and Challenges: The company faces exploration risk, with a focus on making new discoveries to enhance its resource base, while managing potential shareholder dilution and financial constraints.
• Market Position: Canterra is positioned as an exploration company with potential for significant discoveries, leveraging its strategic land position and technical expertise to attract investment and partnerships.

Transcript

Today on the CEO barbecue, we're looking for critical minerals as well as gold in New Finland in Canada together with Caner Minerals. If you want a bullet point summary of this and all the other CEO barbecues in your inbox once a week, go to resource.com and subscribe to our free newsletter. Now, although the company you're about to hear from has not paid us for the production of this interview, you should still not treat this video as research. Research is conducted by reading the company's official filings, which you can find on zedplus.ca. In any case, please only watch this if you absolutely know what you're doing. This interview is intended only for experienced junior mining speculators because mineral exploration, development, and mining is an extremely tough business where failure is the norm and should be the expectation. This is going to be a conversation that is general and impersonal in nature and it is also going to contain forwardlooking statements. I am not a licensed financial adviser and my business sells content producing services which also makes me biased. Although this company has not paid for the production of this interview, it doesn't mean they won't become a client in the future. They might. So before continuing on, please talk to an independent investment advisor with a good long-term track record because your capital might be at risk. If you're not 100% sure you understand 100% of the disclaimers I just showed you, please go to the last section of this video and do not consume this content unless you fully understand and agree with everything said therein. That all said, Caner is listed as CTM on the TSX Ventures Exchange, where the average three-month volume is about 670,000 shares. The stock's 52- week high is 18 cents and its 52- week low is 4 cents. With a market cap of just over 51 million Canadians and 344 million shares outstanding, today this is a 15 cent stock with a 50 and a 200 day moving average at respectively 10.6 6 and 9.1 cents, which means the stock is now trading well above both of them. Moving on to the share structure, insiders here are noted as owning just about 2% of the company, whereas Michael Gentilele and Eric Sprat each own 4% of the company. And Buckens Resources um with the parent company here, I suppose they own 10% of of um Caner now, which leaves about 80% of the company in the hands of retail and institutions. I also see 35 million warrants and 7 million options with a respective average strike price of 7 cents and 21 cents bringing the number of fully diluted shares to 385.4 4 million. Meaning an increase of about 12% in shares outstanding could happen if if all dilutive securities get exercised, which would then result in about an 11% ownership dilution if that is always a big if, but if all dilutive securities get exercised. And of course, none of this accounts for potential dilution down the road, which is not unlikely given that this is a pre-revenue company that operates in what is a very capital intensive industry. Talking about Capital, I'll now go through their latest financial statement which shows me the numbers as of March 31st, 2025. So do note this is about 6 months ago. They've done a lot of work since, so the financial situation will be different. At the time though, the company had in total about $4.8 million Canadian dollars in current assets. It was mostly in the form of cash and cash equivalents to the tune of $3.6 million. as well as they had some marketable securities recorded at a million dollars at the time and u mostly consisting of Star Diamond Corp shares. Uh the price of Star Diamond though has unfortunately held in the last 6 months. In terms of liabilities, the current liabilities side of the balance sheet shows about $1.1 million on it, but close to half of it is not actual debt. It's a deferred flow through premium liability. Uh which means that's not money they actually have to pay unless they don't spend their money. But again, this is exploration, so nobody's having a hard time spending any money. And uh the actual debt here was about $613,000 at the time, and it was in account payables, but there's no long-term debt whatsoever. Moving on to the P&L for the three months that ended on March 31st, the total amount recorded as expenses showed up as $1.6 million, but that includes um some non-cash expenses, so just under $75,000 of sharebased compensation. So, I'm just going to round it down to about a million and a half dollars um of expenses of which 1.2 million went toward exploration and just under 80% um of of the money that well the 1.2 million is just under 80% of the money that goes toward exploration. So, uh just over 20% goes toward what I call administration. That means that the administrative spend was about $110,000 a month on average during that period with the largest chunk of that money going toward wages and consulting fees for about 46% of the overall administrative spend. And then there's a little bit of marketing and travel representing about 34% of the overall spend as well. Note six of the financials provides us the breakdown of that $1.2 $2 million exploration spend where I can see that um close to 2/3 or 65% to be specific of that money went toward geology and geoysics of the Buckkins mine. Uh and and most of the rest went toward drilling at Buckans. Uh again they have been uh drilling over the last 3 months as well. So so the the actual last 3 months not the last reported 3 months. So that number might be different there as well and we'll talk about that extensively later on. But this puts them again on a roughly 80 to20 split for exploration to administration as well as about a 2:1 ratio for marketing to drilling specifically, meaning twice as much money went toward drilling as it did into marketing. But it is really almost 10 times as much money going into the ground if you count the geology and geohysical work as well. And again, probably different this time, but we'll talk about that later on. As always though, I would also like to remind you to be cautious. Your capital may be at risk. So you have to visit setterplus.ca CA and view the company's full financials for yourself and specifically pay attention to their full year financials once those become available. Enough accounting for now though because I've got a brief overview of the company here and and ultimately the story of Caner is one of of multiple commodities but it it is focused on Newf Finland. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the work uh is now going into Buckkins, which is a brownfields VMS camp anchored by the pit constraint, Lunderberg uh stockwork deposit and multiple neobrite targets uh like sandfill and clementine where by the way recent drilling uh very recent actually just from a couple of days ago has returned 16 mters of 1.7% copper equivalent and this is where the critical metals label comes from as well. So that's something we'll definitely talk about. Second project just briefly Cana has is the Wilding Gold project. It's a 55 km stretch along the Valentine Lake shear zone and it's directly adjacent to Equinox Gold's now producing Valentine mine where for Canara 2025 fieldwork has showed some interesting grab samples which hopefully we'll get to touch upon at the latter part of the conversation as I'd better like to understand whether the optionality here can be realized during what seems to be a gold bull market right now. And also of course we'll talk about other stuff. Metallergy risk, discovery potential, need for money, permits, locus, geology, history, all of that hopefully later on in the conversation. But for this to actually become a conversation, I'll have to shut up already, Chris. And uh I'll give you the word here. But first of all, thank you so much for sitting down with me today. Yeah, thanks Antonio for having me. I'm happy to be here. Well, here's mine. And and since this is your first time on the barbecue, we'll have to go through the smell test first. But uh just before that I I I I I want to ask you kind of a a broad question here which is essentially why should I care about caner at this price given that again in a bull market there there are many opportunities out there you know so buckkins has been worked on in the past has been around I mean it was operation up until 1984 I believe so some other companies tried to bring it back since but but ultimately didn't so why can Now, I think you can uh and and Newfoundland in general is a great place to be developing uh a mine or an exploration project right now. We've seen that with Equinox uh successfully putting Valentine into production. Uh new found buying maritime and our peers Firefly Metals and and you know the massive sulfide deposit style uh having great success in expanding upon that former uh mine at Maine. And so it's really in all of North America, I think, uh, along with Quebec, it's the best place with the least amount of red tape to actively get out, made sure all the dollars go into the ground to exploration, and ultimately make a discovery that could become a mine and you could actually build it. That's a a short and sweet answer. I like it. Uh, and we'll definitely be back to um some of the stuff that you said in there. And I do have to get to that smell test going, but just one thing. Do people ever confuse canara with scent? Yeah, it's a happy mistake when it happens. And I'm like often might not correct them straight away like yes, I'm the CEO of a multi-billion dollar minor. But uh yeah, I didn't pick the Canara name. It already existed. But yes, it happens quite regularly. What does it mean? What does can terara mean? Cuz I mean can has that kind of you know tin vibe I suppose and there's no tin on your project. Yeah I you know terra means earth and can means Canada. So I don't that's as much as I know. That's that's simple enough even for me. Even I can understand it. That's fair. Um, let's do get to the smell test or let's get that going here and I'll be starting off with yourself as a CEO of the company. Who are you and why do you think you're the right man for the job? I'm I'm a geologist by background and training. So, I cut my teeth, you know, jumping out of helicopters, chasing bears all across the Canadian North looking for gold and then copper. And uh then traded my rockhammer for a suit. And ultimately, you know, that armed me with both the technical knowledge and the business side, which um is very important to have as well because you can have the best project in in the world, but if you don't have the right structure um going into it, the company, you know, might not make people money. And so I have both those things which for art what where Canara is and really sort of resource exploration stage I think it's important to have someone that has a sound technical understanding so they can oversee what the technical team is doing as far as exploration and development and you know help guide them and ultimately make the right hard decisions. Um, and I find other CEOs who, you know, maybe don't have the technical background, um, it often hurts the companies in a lot of ways, um, because they fully have to trust their technical people completely and can't really ask the hard questions. Yeah. With having done a couple of site visits myself this year, I do find that jumping out of helicopters is way more fun than jumping on stage to give a PowerPoint presentation. It is a lot of fun. Fraught with risk though and you get you get tired of the risk after a while. So, it's all fun in games early on, but um eventually you start you start doing the statistics in your head and like at some point, you know, my time my numbers going to be up as far as, you know, getting in a helicopter incident, which most the geologists I know that are older than me have unfortunately had to be there. Um, and I I guess I got out before any serious incident. I had a couple close calls, but Helicopters are a wild thing. I mean, the stories that I heard from the guys on site is uh we can do a whole podcast on that alone, I think. Um, yeah. No, definitely we could with the number of close calls and doing stupid things you probably should have said no to or at least foresaw was going to be the wrong decision. And then uh but you know, it's a bit like, you know, motorsports in a way. They're like like race cars in the air. Well, I've been in junior mining now just a couple of years, but I do have my fair share of experience with doing stupid things. So, I'm I'm becoming a bit of an expert in that as well. Do you uh Chris, do you currently hold any other positions, executive or board positions with other companies? Do you do anything else besides canara? I do not. Uh which is proving to hurt me now given like at this point I think we're in a bull safe to say we're in a bull market and having as many irons in the fire. uh stands to benefit. Uh however, I'm a firm believer in if you're going to do a junior explorer, especially if you're going to do it well or do it right, it's really got to be your full uh your full priority. And uh so um I you know, Canara is my entire net worth. Uh well, not entire, but most of it, a huge chunk. And so I'm motivated both financially and with incentives to make to make it work and take advantage of this bull market. So I I stick to Canara and try to, you know, put everything I have into it to try to make it uh successful. I'm glad you brought that up off the bat because it is something I I often times ask about and and the way often times CEOs would would more or less show off to me is like oh I've put 2 million bucks into this company but at the same time I you know I I I wonder and I ask is that significant to you? It's a lot of money to me obviously but is 2 million like if if you have 100 million bucks and that's 2 million is that I mean is that really a lot of it to you? And so I'm happy you put it that way as it it being most of your net worth. Um what do you own? Cuz insider ownership is noted at 2%. How much of that is you? Uh just shy of 1% I think these days. It might actually still be 1%. I haven't looked in a while but um yeah. Is um with what's the average cost of those? Is that bought and paid for or did you get them as incentives? How did that work? Uh both. So, uh, Canara was a pub co originally, uh, and more or less a shell and then myself and a few others, uh, had a private co that had acquired the the gold ground, uh, in Newf Finland joining Equinox from Altius back in 2019. And so, Canara bought uh, the private co that myself and and some other mining people were a part of. So certainly I' I'd shares there and then in our first financing I put for me like a big bet in like 20 grand or 25,000 I don't remember now. Um that's a big bet for me and so my cost basis is probably 10 cents or something like that. Again happy that you're bringing that up as well and that you're being um open about it. I do typically ask what is your cost basis? What's kind of the average um the average there? um 2% insider ownership is in general going to be seen as on the lower end. Uh it not only in the industry but in general I'm sure that's something you hear as well. So now that we we finally seem to be seeing a bit of the light in the bull market and uh again you're planning a lot of work. You've done a lot of work. There's new discoveries and stuff like that that we'll talk about. Do you plan to be or do you have the ability to be in the open market and and buying some uh caner stock? I I was uh just before we started drilling um in earnest this year. Uh it was small buys but I was trying to squeeze in. Uh you know at 7 cents I thought we were screaming by um and hadn't got traction on everything we had achieved in our 5 years. So I started buying but then we started drilling. So of course uh blacked out um until we finished drilling. So certainly once we're we're through blackout here and and through the 10,000 m uh something uh myself and insiders will look to do again. And uh yeah um mentioning some of the some of the other insiders interesting to me as well. Maybe you can talk to me about who's on your board. Uh that's not something that's discussed enough out there in my opinion. So yeah, who's on your board? Have they made money for shareholders before? Yeah. So first and foremost our chairman Andrew Farcom uh investment banker by background and uh so he's uh he's he's very involved uh basically him and I more or less co-founded what is Canara today and have worked together to bring in you know all of our asset base now which now totals seven resource stage deposits deposits pardon me. um basically tying up all the metal in the ground outside of Equinox and Tex farmer former duck pond mine in central Newfoundland. Uh so he's he's very involved and I believe he owns 6 million shares um and he's participated in pretty much every financing uh from since inception uh including our our last one which was a almost a year ago now last in December 2024. Do any of them u or or you personally or any of the other insiders personally own a royalty on any of the projects that you have? No. Uh no. And so you know and the other the other directors uh so that's Josh Surface uh Nick Coleman who's a Newfanlander and uh well respected business person in St. John's. uh Josh Surface. Um, basically what we've done here, Antonio, is Caner had a very um old or senior board, let's put it that way, when uh when I became CEO and uh you know, we we tried to make it more youthful and in in my opinion, you know, when I invest in junior explorers and developers, I if I look at the board management team and like everyone's got 50 plus years, I start to wonder, you know, how hard are they really going to be hustling uh to make this work? Um especially if they've already made money. And so, you know, like the best way to look at Canara's board, you know, myself, Andrew, Josh, Joanne, Nick, um and and Mike Power, not so much Mike because he's a nomine nominee from Buckans, is we're young and hungry. and give me young and hungry every time when it comes to exploration uh and exploration development. But Chris, I thought you're supposed to have a thousand years of combined experience on the board. Yeah, that's right. Every every board has, you know, 100 years or whatever combined experience and uh is the is a tier one team. But uh uh no I you know I look at like you know Integra Gold which Steve De Jong you know was like 20 late 20s when he became CEO and successfully ultimately sold that to El Dorado. Look at Snowline today with with you know Bird Doll and uh and Thomas Branson as BPX you know Thomas is sort of same age as me uh similar background um and so yeah I think you know there's a at a certain stage uh and especially the exploration phase um youth and hunger go a long way as long as there's the operational experience to back it up because so much of the risk in uh in our companies is execution. Um you know most companies have at least a good project. Um maybe not all of their projects are good but one of them is probably you know the flagship and has some potential but it ultimately comes down to e executing whether that's the per you know uh permitting risk or just getting permits. Um, but then also being able to effectively, you know, contract helicopters, drill rigs, and staff them to ultimately execute on on your exploration ideas. I think I'm going to delete that part about Steve being in his late 20s and doing those things with the Integra because it puts me to shame. But, uh, other than that, I it puts me to shame, too. It's it was pretty remarkable. Um, jokes aside though, no, I I I agree and and you do bring up good points and stuff that I've been thinking about as well. Um, talk to me more about incentives though. I mean, incentives specifically 2025 incentives because of what you're doing now and the 10,000 meters of drilling. um how do you how do you measure success internally? And and why I'm asking this because I'm trying to better understand how do you how executive and director compensation is going to be determined to reflect that potential success and and what your KPIs are going to be based on so that you can keep everyone again motivated and and hungry and hustling as you said. Yeah. So, uh, you know, the board just as of last year gets DSUs. So, it previously wasn't compensated at all. You know, you were just there um to be a part of what we were building in Newf Finland. So, a new critical minerals uh the second largest critical minerals resource stage at least uh developer. Uh and now now that you know we've got the resources under our belt and you know there's more more requirements out of the board from quarter to quarter uh they're getting compensated as DSUs to keep our hard dollar cash burns. So we're paying with direct share units um which will you know hopefully incentivize them to continue um uh contributing at the board level to make those DSUs ultimately worth something. uh when we're successful at the drill bit in making a new discovery or and or ultimately bought out. Uh and then from like the employee side, so the exploration staff, myself, you know, we we do an annual equity incentive grant um which which uh everyone sort of gets uh the compensation committee determines, you know, the ultimate quantum that's appropriate and then uh it's up to the board uh to determine the the KPIs as you put it. Um and for exploration that's did we make a new discovery um or you know significant significant gains on getting to that point. Um uh and then you know even if not you know there's there's some uh there's some points granted for uh you know executing efficiently being on budget uh or even under budget and then ultimately um you know being first and foremost delivering safe programs um and keeping ourselves uh in line as far as permitting and uh looking ahead because we have such a large land position. Uh to uh to uh you know mitigating that risk as much as possible by uh effectively you know spreading our expenditures efficiently around um so that you know our our our I guess our risk as far as dollars uh to hold all these deposits um is kept as low as possible. you bring you said something there that made me think which is a rarity for me uh but it's a come on now you said selling or or developing this asset and this is a good segue into talking specifically about the business plan here um going back also to some of the things that you said at the beginning there about Newfoundland but what is the business strategy here for Canara where where where do you really want to take this are you looking to become you know a developer yourself or would you be see seeking sort of, you know, an an exit hopefully during this bull market. That's a good question. We're we're not built as a developer right now. Like, if you look at our board and technical composition, none of us have ever built a mine. Um, and so, you know, I I'm a firm believer that, you know, an exploration company that suddenly decides they're just going to go build it, that's probably not going to go well. or at least in my experience, I've never seen it go real well. Um unless, you know, then they do something to restructure everything as far as the team. Um which then, okay, fair enough. Uh so we're set up to explore. Um you know, yes, we have resources 26 million uh tons in indicated uh and they're across seven deposits. And so in these VMS or massive sulfide districts often times you have one big deposit which for us is buckans and that anchors de a development decision if it becomes big enough and or high enough grade and then all the other satellite deposits uh are more or less paid for and can work into a hub and spoke uh mining methodology um as you sort of progress down the track. And so to answer your question directly, um, right now we're at a point where 26 million tons of indicated plus, you know, a little bit of inferred isn't big enough. Um, in in my opinion and so we're we're exploring. We acquired these asset because assets because we think you know there's the potential to get to 40 million tons or that's sort of I think the uh the the test mark for a VMS uh uh VMS sort of series of deposits or district um and uh you know so to get there we need to explore and so that's what we're doing and that's what we're built to do. Talk to me more about that point. I want to follow up on that because 40 40 million tons of yeah between 40 and 50 million tons I suppose is where the magic number is for VMS's. What what else does a deposit have to look like from a from a grade as well as the t tonnage perspective? But also you said is it is it is it one deposit? Is it multiple? And how do you see that happening for you? I think yeah like if you look at the past mines that have operated in central Newfoundland district uh it was Buckans so that was 16 million tons at incred in incredibly high grade uh you know average 28% combined base metals which is incredible. This is one of the highest grade mass of sulfide mines in the world uh during its operating history. And then from there, you know, an order of magnitude smaller, the next mine with duck pond at 5 million tons. And it operated at about 3% copper equivalent um or yeah, like 15% zinc equivalent, something like that. And it was 5 million tons. So, you know, an order of magnitude smaller buckans, but it was still, you know, a successful underground mine. So, uh either you know we you know Buckkins right now is the biggest at 17 million tons and so to uh we we believe there's you know there's room there. We could get to 20 million tons probably no problem. That was a resource done in 2019. But uh why we we purchased it and gave up you know uh 60% of Canara uh to get it um is we thought there was the potential there for a significant discovery on the order of the massive sulfide lenses they used to mine there. So another 5 million 5 million ton ore body of that ultra highrade 28%. And so if we're successful in making that discovery, um there's already positive economics around the London stockwork resource which you highlighted in the preamble. Um but if we're successful in making even a million ton high-grade discovery, that fundamentally changes the economics behind sort of the bulk tonnage Lundberg resource. So that's I guess there's sort of two goals there, right? make the the high-grade discovery um to augment the existing resource base um and sort of the the million ton range or make a whole new mass of sulfide lens discovery which in the Buckans camp was sort of uh 3 million tons to 5 million tons and so that's what we're doing right now with these 10,000 mters might be worth talking about if it works out the way you hope it's going to Who does this who's a potential suitor? I mean, Equinox is just put something in production in in in Newf Finland uh close to your other project as I mentioned earlier, but but they're there. Um and and they're a bigger company. Uh we see New Gold themselves. Uh it'll be interesting to see what they what they achieve with their uh what is it 23 pits I think they're dealing with. So, so who who who does Newf and Lendland in an asset like the one that you're hoping to discover, who does that fit with? Is this a midsize company that we're talking about and and yeah, who who would be a potential suitor if you do go the the exit route? Uh, it's a good question. You know, VMS was often or massive sulfide deposits in recent times weren't really everyone wanted poor free copper, wanted the big deposit, right? really it was like Hud Bay um that really only made a name for themselves and but now we're seeing they're coming back in vogue as you know mark uh you know capitalization or capex costs uh of big pfrey deposits kind of get out of control in this inflationary environment. Uh so small tonnage but highgrade mass sulfide deposits you know that's that becomes more attractive and so you're seeing like the bolins of the world be really successful making more purchases for VMS deposits. South 32 you know likes VMS deposits and operates operates them um across the world. Um, and maybe there's room for, you know, an emerging mid tier that starts putting some of these together. But, you know, for the moment, you know, you look at sort of South 32, Bullet In um, and other companies like them, Hud Bay, uh, that has sort of made their bread and butter on on massive sulfide, uh, mining. Going back to what we talked about, you know, having maybe a a board with more gray beards on. What they also have is friends in high places oftent times. And it is a bit of an old buddies industry. I mean, there's no there's no going about that. What about yourself? Do you have any old old buddies or do you have an open line of conversation with some of the companies you're mentioning here? Yeah, I mean lots, you know, Randy Turner who, you know, he was the CEO of Canara, uh, Caner was a diamond explorer. He's still on our technical board. He's he's been around a long time. Sold Snap Lake to Debeers um really successfully and and uh and and some other, you know, he's had some other gold wins. Um so yeah, keeping like our technical advisory board uh sort of with a lot of the gray hair um is important. Uh but also it just comes back to sort of uh you know myself, Josh and Andrew have an extensive network in mining because it is you know it is who you know as you say. Um and so you know certainly you know I think I don't want to speak to exactly you know what CAS we have or don't have but um you know Buckans when you talk about a master sulfide deposit Buckkins is one of the best and so all the major mining companies know it and uh you know the feedback I've I get over and over again about Canara is you know oh yeah you put together all those those massul ified deposits in Newfoundland. Uh, and then I tell them, "No, we actually bought Buckans after we put in sort of the smaller ones." And then then they're like, "You own Buckans?" And so that's, you know, that immediately registers with um, you know, anyone who who's wellversed in in massive sulfide development. And yet the they all agree to call it buckkins and not Bouans or something like that, which to me would actually make more sense. Uh yeah, jokes aside though, uh to the point of of Buckins, you said Buckins was um you know, one one of the best ones, one of the ones that you start thinking about when you start thinking about VMSS. Talk to me about the history of the asset as that may open a broader perspective as well. But again, as I mentioned earlier, produced up until 1984. What happened since and and why isn't it producing today essentially? Yeah, it's a good question. uh a sarco uh discovered it. It was one of the first sort of geoysics discoveries I think uh one of the lenses was anyway like rudimentary geoysics in the early 1920s. So 1924 I think uh uh lucky strike the where the head frame still exists today was discovered by Sarco and then they put it in production somehow by 1926. So uh and then they discovered oriental and and some of the other deposits. So a sarco then mined it for you know 50 years and then it was tapering off and as you point out by 84 that was uh that was it. Uh they closed it mostly because uh you know metal prices had obviously collapsed in the late '7s there. But ultimately you know they had uh they had mined out Lucky Strike and then chased the mineralization down to around 900 m kilometer and a bit to the northwest. And uh so uh you know they they kind of reached the end of the the ore that they had known about at that time. Well, when there's nothing else wrong with it then in that case I mean community relations or something else. Uh maybe talk to me about in your case like how many groups are you dealing with and and uh what does that look like right now? Your agreements and everything. Uh so sorry the question was just like there was really no question. I should have put it better. You're right. You're right. That's fair. But uh I was how are community relations there for you now? And are there any type of legacy issues with the community? Uh, it's a good question. Not one I'm asked often, but the the town of Buckkins was built to support the mine, right? A Sarco built it um to to uh to actually, you know, de be able to develop those 50 years. Uh and so today, the mayor has the head frame on his business card. Uh the town obviously isn't as flourishing as it was although now Equinox has helped that a bit. Uh but you know it was a couple few thousand people let's say and now it's like 600. Uh so they they desperately at least the messaging we always get is we hope you're successful in making a new discovery here. Um and and that would revitalize the town. Uh uh but also you know uh central Newf Finland as a whole like has seen after Duck Pond closed um and up until Equinox uh you know it's just dwindling population as more people move to sort of St. John's and some of the bigger cities, Cornerbrook, Gander. Um um and yeah, I guess from you know, community relations like in town, uh you know, I you know, the restaurant, the one restaurant there is is certainly happy for our business and we employ, you know, we employ, you know, quite a few of the town's people because they're all the best the best part about central Newf Finland is they've worked in Buckans, they worked at Tech Duck Pond thereafter. So, they're well-versed in mineral exploration and mining, so they're technically capable. You know, when we first started in central Newf Finland, uh the mayor of the small town just down the road was our core logger. She had worked at Duck Pond, and that's the first time in my career that's ever happened. I'd never had like a geologist uh who was acting as mayor of the small community uh who I could actually hire and instantly have that community relations win. Um, and then the second part of your question, the legacy issues, the the best thing about Newfoundland, Labrador as a province is with all of these former mines, um, Buckkins, Hopebrook, uh, there's probably some others on the on the island, uh, they took liability of the historic site. So the the old head frame um and uh and some of the other uh 1920s through to 80s issues that had cropped up. And so uh they the Newfoundland Labrador government have uh have now full liability of the historic site. And so only when if we're successful in making a new discovery that can prove to be a you know a new mine then you work with the government to uh sort of figure out how the mine plan can uh you know remediate you know or utilize the old head frame probably not but uh something like that is I'm going to follow up on what you just said but as you were talking I was actually looking up the town of of Buckkins And and the restaurant that you were talking about, is it on 12 Main Street? I think so. I I don't know. It's just like it's one block from the the only hotel. It's like a reddish building, is it? Yeah. It's every everything in Newf Finland's always for Central Newfoundland's for sale. And it's it's 150,000 Canadian. Um, which is well, being being in in Western Europe myself, it's it's a surprising price for real estate that can also be used commercial, but it does look like a cool restaurant. So, um, yeah, I think it's called the Buccaneer, I want to say. Uh, oh, I have something else. I have the Boardwalk Bistro. Maybe there's Oh, maybe maybe it was called the Buccaneer and it's renamed. Um, interesting little thing. Uh, cool looking place. Uh, it seems like the town is is is okay. I mean, it's not as as as um as bad or anything as I would imagine. Uh, how close are you to the town or like how close is is the is the historic mine as well as what you've been drilling recently? How close is it to the town? And why am I asking this? Because I'm thinking, could that be could that be an issue? Could you be too close? Uh, yeah. It's uh so you know we've been drilling like the head frame is literally like from the restaurant there or the or the buck in um it's literally like a 5minute walk to the head frame like everything is built around the mine. And so where we've been exploring is sort of in and around the head frame a bit where the resource is. But now more in the latter half of this year um we're you know we stepped out 800 m to the north um in an area that's you know wasn't mined and now we're currently drilling uh just like a kilometer uh a kilometer and a half south and then moving over you know 4 km to the west. So, uh, we're starting to get some distance, but to answer your question directly, it it would be very much like a Valdor situation, um, like with Mel Arctic where the town is right there. Um, and at least with the resource that's is right now constrained an open pit, obviously everything at Buckkins was historically underground. Um, thus the head frames, uh, and so the open pit would be different. And so much like Malarctic, you would you would build a burm. Um, and as you pointed out, housing housing's quite inexpensive there. And so certainly, you know, that you'd have to buy a couple houses, but you'd build a a burm then to separate sort of the open pit uh noise pollution as it were andor activity uh to uh to separate yourself from the actual, you know, where people live. it it's only inexpensive if I don't see the PA and go and buy 10 houses right before you have to buy them and then I sell them to you in a higher price. Uh that that would be a very industrialist move there. That would be a very industrialist move. But unfortunately it wasn't RPA just to be clear that was the predecessor company way back in 2011. So you know probably it would it would certainly change a lot with the drilling we've done now. um and uh sort of modern metal prices and whatnot. Um so yeah, maybe your house purchase decision might not be in the right spot to leverage that opportunity. Well, that is an interesting point actually. When when do you think I'm going to know though? When do you think you can have that P? Uh we're we got to do a resource first. We have to update the resource. Uh right now the resource is 2019 dated. Uh and so obviously copper price in particular has moved a lot and precious metals uh which we do have some credits for in in the stock work. Uh, and so I think in 2024, you know, get through these 10,000 mters first, see where we land, see what the outlook looks like, and then in 2026, um, see, you know, whether it makes sense to pull a trigger on a resource update or whether, you know, there's still some lowhanging fruit to drill first. So that'll be a 2026 decision. Talk to me then in that case more about the open pit element of it all and and the government or from the government's perspective. What would it take in terms of uh permits or be it environmental or whatever else may have you in order to um to make that plan work with an open pit element to it? Yeah. And so I mean Equinox is a great example. Um all of their deposits are conceptualized as open pit. Uh and uh we have the added benefit of already being on a disturbed site. So it's a brownfield site uh which means you know it's past mining. So it's been disturbed. Um it's not a pristine environment. You know there's there's old there's the hallmarks of old mining sort of everywhere on it. And so um the barrier to entry would be much lower because it's actually already a mining lease. So it would, you know, if we're successful here, it would be it would be much more straightforward than Equinox. And that was probably the fastest mine per minute I've seen in North America. Um I think what from the marathon resource discovery to uh to development here and ultimate first pour was 6 years or just over something like that. That that that is impressive. I think the average is probably close to 20. Um, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But so in terms of tailings or something like that, you wouldn't have you wouldn't have issues permitting that or or or I mean community opposition is because it is, you know, the the the dog the stigma of of tailings, I suppose. Yeah. And so there's there's that's the one I mean the head frame is still one of the head frame one of the four head frames is still there. I mean, you probably can't use it. I don't know. I'm not a mining engineer. I shouldn't say that. But one thing that does exist of useful infrastructure, unfortunately, the mill is all gone. Uh, is the tailings facility. So, uh, certainly, uh, you could utilize that. Uh, again, I'm not a mining engineer. this is getting out, you know, out of my area of expertise, but and sort of what, you know, the the internal PA that was done that would be utilized in the future because it's already existing for any uh new development. Well, don't worry, Chris. I'm not a mining engineer either, so you could lie to me and I wouldn't know. Um, what what do you what do you think is the biggest challenge or risk for the Buckkins project between now and and you having answered those unanswered questions that you said like, "Oh, that's something for 2026." What's the biggest challenge or risk for you between now and then? It's really quite simple, Antonio. It's all exploration risk right now. you know, we we have our we did that gigantic 3D geoysics survey, you know, was $1.2 million to hopefully help us see through cover and identify, you know, the next major uh mineral discovery uh in this former in this former mine project. And so, you know, now we're executing on the targets generated from that and and drilling them. So it's that's that's the risk here is uh you know we're unsuccessful in making a new discovery but then you know this year we've already made near resource discoveries that will augment the existing resource space. So that is something that I do want to touch upon but you also talk about transported or in your presentation. Maybe you can talk to me more about that in general. But also what I'm really wondering here is how do you how do you predict the location or or differentiate the source of the in C2 resource relative to to the reflows essentially like are you are you getting a better hand on the structural controls now or is there something else simply that helps you understand what's going on? Yeah, it's a great question. And so we've put a lot of time and effort into understanding the structure because that was that's the reason you know Buckans has come back since shuttering is uh at the end of the mine life they started recognizing that everything had actually been thrusted um in the southward direction and what that created an opportunity where the ore horizon that they successful so success successfully mined for 50 year has been repeated multiple times across the project area. And so that wasn't really understood until like maybe the early 80s and then they shuttered the mine. So they never got out and explored it. And so that's why we did completed that big ticket item with the 3D IP is to get another layer of data over those areas where we have that or we think we have at least it's mapped that way the repetitions of that of that or horizon that haven't been tested. Uh, and so that's been, you know, one of the bigger sort of eureka moments, I guess, for the project that might lend it lend itself to making a new discovery. Um, that along with relogging, you know, 200,000 m of the 400,000 m of historic drill core, which is an incredible resource. And then ultimately it's been about mining the data um because there's so much of it you know almost 100 years the mine was only open for 50 but exploration in the region you know probably 100 years of data. So that's really where AI and machine learning came into it to do what a human geologist couldn't at least in an effective amount of time and really try to highlight areas we should be focusing on and uh and then ensure our exploration efforts uh encompass those areas uh to give us the best chance of making a new discovery. H. So maybe it wasn't the risk of um fieldwork that pushed you into the CEO position. It was the risk of AI taking over your job. So you're kind of preparing nicely because I don't think AI can pitch stories as well as CEOs can. Not yet, though. It could probably take what I do and put it into other languages very effectively. It does. It doesn't on YouTube. I'm sure people are watching this in a different language. Like I know German is is is popular to to translate it in and just for the sakes of it sometimes I turn it on and and I sound even worse than I do in English. So uh funny but but it does happen. And um but so you what you what you're drilling have you drilled more transport dominated targets or did you first kind of factor into the INC2 sources? How did that work for you? Uh so first at the beginning of this year we were more focused on an in an insitu source that uh we thought some of the transported mineralization was vectoring us towards. Uh it turned out uh it just kept continuing being transported which is okay because the transport of mineralization that's what makes buckkins kind of unique is uh 50% of the ore that was mined was actually in transport which means debris flow in this case. So picture like a a mass of sulfide is essentially a black smoker on the seafloor uh at least in this case and that will it will fail or collapse and then be redeposited down across the seafloor and there's canyons on the seafloor. So, um, you know, it gets tricky to chase it back. And so, the the transported mineralization is is kind of key to vectoring, um, often times, but in Buckans, they actually it was almost half the ore they mined, which is unusual in a VMS system. Normally, you have the insitu mound or black smoker. You mine that. Maybe the stock work is high enough grade, maybe it isn't. Um but in this case the insitue or or sorry the transporter was so substantial that it there's more tons than there is in situ material. So the question begs where did all of this transported mineralization or debris flow mineralization come from. And so that's that's why we were trying to drill it to to vector back to an a new insitue high-grade mass of sulfide um deposit. Uh and you know that that work is still ongoing as part of our targeting work. But so far you know we've uh we were only able to successfully just increase the footprint of that transport and mineralization and are still chasing it down plunge. Um, Buckkins is is very interesting based on what I what I saw in in prepping for this conversation as well as what you're telling me here. It seems like it is very interesting and it also seems like we could do a whole podcast on that alone as well. And maybe maybe we we will once you have some of some of the results and then we can talk about everything in between. Um, trying to maybe jump a little bit through topics here but just thinking about potential risks or stuff like that. When I think VMS multi- multicommodity VMS essentially what I'm thinking about is or you know poly metallic nature of the VMS deposits in general metallergy uh that that's kind of the one of the first things that pops up for me. Does that worry you in any way? Uh it would certainly in in other VMS systems uh and some of the smaller deposits we have south of the lake are are going to be certainly more complicated than Buckans um as far as the metal energy goes. Um not impossible. I mean there's similar to Duck Pond which was a was a successful little mine. But buckkins, that's one of the sort of outstanding features. And what what made it such a great deposit is it's uh it's almost entirely devoid of pyite, which uh makes the metal energy um good. Uh you don't have all those dilitterious elements and you don't have to, you know, do ridiculously fine grind sizes. Um, and then it's the mineralization is all in what's called sort of blue gray ores. Um, and so it it produces a really clean concentrate. Um, and that's what sort of why it stands out from other VMS deposits is the metal energy. It's quite clean. It's an unusual VMS deposit. Um, the the only other analog really is Helier um in in Tasmania. Hm. I was pretty close to that one actually. I I just want to show off a little bit. That's why I'm telling you. But uh yeah, I know. Um I I' I've seen the rocks from it. Um in the Ontario uh the Royal Museum there in Ontario in their rock collection. They have some Helier rocks and and I looked at it before they even told me it was Helier and I was like this looks exactly like Buckans. Um but so yeah, normally in VMS, yes, metallergy is part of the conversation. I mean it's it it's usually workable but uh at Buckans it's it's just it's very straightforward and and the but the challenge because it is you know pyate poor uh is that's why previous explorers postmine closure they would come in and do what all VMS explorers would do is do like EM or uh you know a type of geoysics survey that's sort of works well for VMS electrical. Um, so it picks up, you know, the the the sulfide grains pyite predominantly, you know, touching each other. They would come in and do big EM surveys, wouldn't find anything or there'd be no big conductors um specifically and say, okay, there's nothing left here. But because it's pyite poor, Buckan's high-grade mass of sulfide mineralization is a poor conductor. And so that's why we've gone to doing 3DIP and we're working backwards not just from the transport mineralization but also from the stockwork mineralization where we can the stockwork mineralization does have pyite in it uh at least in the halo and so that would show up in a 3D IP survey and while that's not really economically significant in the halo uh it would show up as a good chargeability anomalant in a big survey like we've completed and so we can use that and to identify new areas where there's stockwork mineralization that could potentially have fed uh a high-grade insitue mass of sulfide mount. And so that's what we're doing right now with the drilling. I'm glad you're explaining it that way because when I think IP, I think porefreeze and and and not VMSs. And so yes, it's not not the normal course of action. Although with 3D IP systems it has like I think for used it successfully. Um and it's really yeah you can get a lot of depth penetration which is sort of what we're after here as well as we're we're going to be looking deeper down um for the most part. Do you think um you might get variability like lithologically or minologically at depth? Like would it would it change? Would the metal RG be different at depth? Is there any indication for that? Uh no real indication. I I don't think I can really comment on that like now. I mean what will what will change or will be sort of surprises hopefully pleasant maybe some unpleasant is uh you know mapping down you know 4 600 m geological mapping our understanding of the strategraphy um won't be as good because there's just not as many drill holes down there especially in these newer areas. So, you know, you you could drill down and hit and hit like a magnetic basult that could be responsible for a chargeability anomaly. Um, so it's part of that is just part of the game like you're you're rebuilding or reinventing the geological map and adding new information. Um, but uh yeah, this is I mean ultimately this is why we do this. we we generate, you know, the best targets that have all the hallmarks of the mind trend as far as geohysical response, geology, um the right alteration. Um but at the end of the day, you're you're throwing, you know, a core barrel down into the abyss and you have some control, but it's going to tell you whether you're you're right or not. That's um that's essentially part of the game, as you said. That is the game of exploration, I suppose. uh and coming up with targets and then actually drill testing them and uh you know truth testing them if you will. Um exactly. Yeah, it'll be it'll be good to to have catch up conversations on on the geological um potential and everything that's going on because Buck is as I mentioned earlier it does look interesting at least geologically. Um just jumping to another thing that does it worry you kind of thinking about or what I wrote in my notes here. Does it does timing worry you? I mean, entering the kind of you as a company going into 2026 and potentially entering that dip of the Lan curve, right? Right. On on essentially on the onset of a bull market. Um, that sounds scary to me, but I mean, you don't look afraid. So, how come? No, because we're still we're exploration stage. Yes, we have resources. So, we're still going to be an exploration discovery and you know what we're targeting buckan style mineralization that that would be a incredibly high-grade discovery that you know if you look at snowline and um and for discovering Tesla or even Firefly in their success at in and around Maine is you know high-grade discoveries sort of uh the on curve doesn't really seem to apply at that point or at least you know we'll be at we'll still be on the upper the upper trend of it. Um and then it'll be a while before we've you know be able to determine in you know by 2026 we'll you know hopefully we'll be able to say we have a new discovery and and we're proving it out. Um and then you know that'll take time and then you know ultimately you get into sort of the the de development choice which is the dip and or the killing fields I think as Pierre recently called them. uh um uh maybe not so much anymore with this bull market, but uh no, you can't uh you can't time the market. Um and all you can do is do what we're we're paid to do and why people invest in us and why I invest in this business is for that big discovery. um that uh you know you know my last success was that I invested in was Reunion Gold and uh it had all the hallmarks I hated. It had a bloated share structure like a billion shares out and uh you know in Guyana which is great jurisdiction but uh they uh you know they made a 7 million ounce something like that gold discovery and so none of the none of the negatives I normally when I look at a company to invest in like it it they didn't matter cuz it was a significant discovery and you know was a whatever a billion dollar buyout at at the end of the day. So, um, with the right deposit discovery, um, most of those timing and or structure matters, it it means potentially maybe you won't it, you know, reunion wasn't a great bear um because of the structural problems or or the the company, you know, capital structure, but uh, at the end of the day, it was a win um, all around. If I gave you a credit card with with a limit to it and and the only condition is that you have to deliver that PA under the limit of the credit card, how much would you want me to set that limit on? Essentially, what I'm asking you is how much money is it going to cost you to answer that unanswered question? So, like how many how much drilling um and the cost of that? Yeah, essentially. That's a be at least 30,000 m I would think from where we are today. What's a meter cost to get there? 165 all in right now. But to get to the PA level, you're going to have to probably up that to 200 because you're going to have to do a lot more detailed work on the on the core as far as MET and everything else. That's Canadian. Yeah. 200 Canadian all in six million bucks then. Yeah. Yeah. What how much money do you have right now? Uh again, I mean I read that March quarter, but that was a long time ago. You've done a lot since. How much money do you have now? Probably just shy of 2 million if not 2 million. Okay. Actively drilling though, so actively depleting that. What are you How much are you budgeting for GNA as well? I mean, I mentioned something like 100 110,000 bucks a month. Is that where you want to keep it or what do you see? Yeah, I we like to keep it lean. You know, we were set up during the pandemic. So, we never had an office, never had sort of office people. Uh, and, uh, we we've kept it that way um, to keep the money in the ground, which is, you know, this business is hard enough with, uh, you know, money going into GNA and and not actually going into drill meters. And I I prefer for, you know, the money we raise to go directly to drilling because a discovery will will make sort of, you know, the funding piece easier ultimately. Um, and in order to make a discovery, you have to drill. You know, I'm a big fan of Shawn Rosen and the Cisco group and the shut up and drill stupid, right? Uh um it's just what you have to do, you know, providing you've done all the technical due diligence correctly. Suds, that's the that's the framework there. That's the right framework in my opinion as well. Um I do see that you you you've done some marketing recently. Do you want to do more now that it's a bull market? You want to go and spend more money on marketing or is that not within what you want to do? I certainly would like to. Um I bit I'm cautious with it. I found at a certain phase maybe a few years ago digital marketing became more impactful as far as garnering an audience and um and capturing a new audience let's say um to be exposed to what we're doing in Newf Finland. Uh, and so the dollars recently we've deployed have been sort of more digitally focused as I just I don't know getting onto planes and seeing the same old people in in Zurich and and London and you do that maybe like once a year but like going back again and again um to do the same thing. I don't know that's uh but again as you said it's a bull market so at some point maybe you just do everything but I don't actually really believe in that. I think you have to be fairly strategic with it. Um and and you know this year we've you know our hard dollars have been uh more constrained and so we've been very strategic with with deployment and marketing and so that means not you know getting on a plane and going to Europe and and doing you know chicken lunches or whatever. Uh so I've chosen like maximum impact so that the most amount of people um learn about what we're doing in Newf Finland. uh hopefully, you know, bought us, you know, back when we were five cents, you know, earlier this year. And now I've made the money and uh I just want to make as many people money as possible. They don't do chicken lunches in the Buckingham restaurant. That's a missed opportunity. I mean, they they do uh but uh getting a a large captive audience to Buckans would be a challenge. Why am I asking you all these questions here, uh, Chris, about about money and how much you have right now, what you want to spend on GNA? It sounds like you don't want to increase the GNA too much. So, I I would expect that it stays in that let's call it 100 to 150. Let's take a broad range there. So, that that's kind of my expectation. Correct me if I'm if I'm getting something wrong, of course. But why I'm asking all that is because I'm thinking, how do you raise money in the future? Is it straight equity? Do you, you know, start thinking about a project level deal? Do you, you know, try to talk to Neil the ads head and get a strategic type of something something you know I'm reaching I know but but yeah is that something you would be looking for? Uh certainly you know uh we'll raise you know going forward raise equity whether we've been targeting you know one of our targets here for 2025 was to bring in a corporate strategic piece and so whether that's I don't think it's really a fit for Sentara um as we're sort of you know we haven't talked about the gold assets so much but those are earlier stage um and really you know I think It's probably more appropriate given, you know, what we're focused on is uh on the critical mineral side and in bringing in, you know, a South 32, a HUD bay, a Bullet in um even a Glen Core uh who sees what what we're doing um and are our resource base now um and wants to have exposure to that going forward. Um, I will say I don't think we're in like I wouldn't give Buckans like do a joint venture on it. I don't think we're in that market anymore. I and I think Buckans is a is a special asset and it's our flagship and so I I I wouldn't do that. I I see too much prospectivity there. um albeit you know on the gold side of things uh that's much earlier staged and I think that's that's ripe for a corporate um partnership you know if a Alamos or mid tiers mid-tier to junior producer uh wants to get into you know the emerging central Newfoundland origenic belt orenic gold belt that is um you know we've already seen in Elorado jump in south of Equinox and then B2 with Omega south of that. Uh so we're the last remaining segment, if you will, of that sheer zone that hasn't seen a a corporate uh investment and so I think that would be a great fit uh to get the next phase of work there done which is going to be highrisk you know top of bedrock Finland style sampling across our 55 kilometers. So high risk and and you know not sexy market work in the fact that you're you know just drilling drilling high-grade gold or moderate grade gold. Um it's going to be you know um very early stage sort of workup work that hope hopefully will generate a target that you can throw a diamond drill at and and have a discovery. um some of the channel samples that the Finnish explorer grows have been doing do get the market's attention and part of that is the jurisdiction itself. for me. Finland's really hot right now, of course. And um how far do you think you do have to get wilding though in order for something like that to be of of interest, you know, an option or JV or whatever else it might be? Is it at that um is it at that stage where you have targets? Does it have to be drilled a little bit at least already or Yeah. How how much work do you think you have to do on it before it is suitable for a deal? I think Antonio, we're we're there now. Um, you know, we've had early scout drill success in 2021 with, you know, the exact same mineralization style and early sort of grade time widths that you see um at Valentine, our neighbors, um, or the Valentine mine. Uh, and now, you know, so the missing piece is how do you evaluate the next 55 kilometers of that shear zone effectively, cost effectively? And so I I think that's that's exactly what a you know a small mid-tier junior producer would look for if they were interested. The challenge is you know for a lot of miners is there's no synergies on the island. And so you have to decide you want to be there. And so I think that's the investments you've seen with El Dorado in B2 is they're using those probably to determine whether you know this is the next abitivity or something um and they should be there and then if they make that determination where on you know this belt do they want to be so I think there's a lot of that sort of feeling out the jurisdiction going on right now. And that kind of prevents uh you know prevents you know if we were in the abatibi I'm sure we wouldn't be having this conversation right um or in Nevada even uh so you know it's just because there's no immediate synergies with any sort of the existing producer say for Equinox uh um in having you know this makes a ton of sense given everything we're already I mean, in XY Z jurisdiction, you might be paying five to six times more for drilling though if you're in Nevada. So, uh, that that's part of it. I've worked I've worked in Nevada and I was always it was always touted as being like the cheapest drilling in North America. And when I got there, I was just like the permitting regime, the like having to do notice of intents and having to like lob holes from like one pad like in fans to get to your actual targets. And then the drilling was like back in those days like$ 250 or$275 US dollars a meter. Now I can only imagine it's it was like this is the most expensive jurisdiction probably to work in. But yeah, there's also a lot of gold there. So, you know, you got to pay to play sometimes. That's fair. Um there's nothing to argue in that one. What uh what about the again First Nation situation or something like that at at Wilding? What does that look like? um other legacy challenges or whatever. Is it is it clean and workable is what I'm looking at. Essentially, if someone stepped in, wanted to do deal with you, could they be drilling it as soon as well well soon? Really? Yeah. Like we're we're drill permitted for both obviously where we're drilling at Buckkins now and and for for the Wild and Gold project. Um we've ensured to tick those boxes. um permitting in Newfoundland on the island. Labrador is a different story, so we'll just leave that aside. But it's the easiest jurisdiction I've ever worked in. We get a drill permit in 2 weeks tops right now. Um which is just crazy uh fast. Uh and then you know the first nations piece that's sort of the sad history on the island of Newfoundland is sort of Europeans Vikings first then Europeans thereafter or whomever like the Beothic people who were indigenous to the island were slowly like driven inland and eventually you know um all of that bloodline um perished. Uh, and so there's no, that's makes it much different from the rest of Canada is there's no First Nations land claim settlement on the island. Uh, uh, and so it it makes it unique in that respect. So when you actually go to build or permit a mine, your your stakeholders are the local communities. But the best part about that is pretty much all Newfoundlanders, if they didn't work at Buckans or Duck Pond or now at Valentine, they mostly travel off island to work at Boise Bay uh in the oil patch in Alberta or Baffinand or the diamond mines. Uh you know, the Newfoundlanders and their own offshore oil. So they love the extractive industries and that's what most of them are trained to do and do well like uh and so when this when you go to that stakeholder negotiate go negotiations um they're wellversed in what you're doing and supportive because all they want is highpaying technical jobs that keep them on island you know they always say I just want to stay on the rock um and that's it's hard to do you know which is why you know there's a scheduled flight from Montreal to or you Boise Bay to Montreal to Gander like every day. Um and and with the oil patch, right? Like Yeah. So yeah, it doesn't really get any easier. Newfoundlanders are just a different breed of of Canadians. Uh I suppose uh the way the way you're describing them and always hearing people talk about them, uh they just kind of sound different. I don't know, maybe I'm biased. Yeah, it's I mean I don't know, but they're they're definitely like a big Irish influence, right? And and so you hear that um and then they have, you know, Water Street and or um and in in St. John's, which looks like Dublin and and has uh uh but they're they're just the nicest uh people, you know, I've ever had the pleasure to work with. Um you know, they they won't say anything bad about anyone, even if you twist their arm. Uh and uh so it's just been a a pleasant place to work in. Um and you know the the only sort of negative which is really created you know the the opportunity for Canara, Firefly, Equinox and the like is it was it wasn't really looked at previously like Niranda did a lot of work in the 80s um in a much different metal price environment and nothing really systematic since. So much like Yukon in the gold rush from 2008 to 11, uh you're seeing now like a big influx of explorers and you're seeing discoveries being made. Uh and so it's an exciting time where um you know previously you there just wasn't systematic good work done except for Niranda and and some others. Uh so there's just not that base layer of data. there's just lots of gaps and uh so that's created this opportunity. So yeah, we're having to spend a lot of money to create that base data um across all the explorers. But uh you know much like Yukon, you know, they had that first wave of discovery with Underworld, then Cameon Casino um and now you're seeing the next wave, you know, a cycle later with Snowline and Cascadia. Um and so you know look for Newfoundland to continue on that track as as we get sort of you know the base science work down and then most importantly bring modern exploration. A lot's changed since you know the 80s and early 90s when Niranda was active. And so that's why I think you're seeing companies like Firefly and Equinox like just continue to make discoveries even around sort of knowing things that were known even in sort of the '9s. Um it's just like modern exploration lets us see through cover um much more effectively. To the point of um the Yukon, I didn't ask you too much about infrastructure because I know there is a historic mine, but what's the state of the So I know that there is infrastructure and I I see the pictures and everything, but what is the what's the state of that infrastructure? I mean running running a mine requires different energy and and and different water uh rights and everything else. So what's the what does the infrastructure look like for you? And you can talk to me maybe both about Buckkins and and Wildling. If there if there are differences, you can tell me about that as well. Yeah, sure. So at Buckins, as far as like useful mining infrastructure, uh so like a mill um that's gone. Really the only thing useful is the tailings at this stage. Um but what it does have is it has all the other obviously it's in a town. So there's power um that was existed the existing power put in to surface uh the mine and uh and and obviously water is there. There's water everywhere in Newf Finland. Um and so the only thing that and and it's connected to the TransCanada Highway um just uh a 30 minute drive north um on on a separate on on a highway that that connects into the the TransCanada that crosses Newf Finland or um and you know the only the only other thing that Newfoundland really didn't upkeep was the rail line and so the Buckansbine did use rail uh to get to sort of a deep sea port. um north um and Newfoundland tore up all its rail some time ago. I don't know how long ago, but um um that's the missing piece. And then Wilding um because Wilding is close to Tex former Duck Pond Mine, uh Duck Pond uh had power to it. So, uh it's it's right there. And we're only we're only uh you know a handful of kilometers from the border with with Equinox's property which obviously has building lots of mine infrastructure has power and all of that. Mhm. So has all the things. Yeah. No, it it does it does it does sound like it like um it has it wouldn't it need some updating though? Um I can Yeah. kind of just bringing it up to up to speed, I suppose, for for a larger project, you know, so when you you you talk about an open pit now versus it was underground and so on, wouldn't it need some updating? Essentially, uh the the power they they have they ran modern power um long ago into central Newf Finland. So, you have all the power you need. Um, and there's new dams since the mine. The mine used to operate on just a tiny little dam uh that produced like like a mega like I don't a small amount of power, but it was enough. But now there's modern dams like just adjacent to town um that sort of feed uh the town of Buckkins, Miller Town, and ultimately Equinox. So um it's already been done effectively for for Buckans. And then with with Wilding, you know, you you have gravel road access you share with Equinox. So, um you know, Equinox did upgrade that, made it wider. Um, but then where we tee off from Equinox, if I mean we're getting way ahead of ourselves here, but if we're successful of making a a deposit discovery there, you would need to widen reinforce that gravel road, make it more robust. Um, and then ultimately tee off power from Duck Pond, which is probably, you know, 5 km away depending on where the deposit ends up if if we're successful in discovering one. Right. And the if part is is important and there's always forward-looking statements in these things. That's why there are the disclaimers at at the beginning there. But um it's been a good overview. I'm just looking through my um notes here, Chris, and just thinking about what I'm potentially forgetting to ask. I'm sure there's a lot and I'm sure people watching and listening will remind me so that if if if we do a follow-up conversation, uh you and I can actually talk about uh other things that people might want to know more about. when you talk to people Chris and and at Beaver Creek and and you know back home and whatever what's the most fair criticism that you get of of Canara right now? Uh the biggest criticism is you know the share structure although it's less so now I guess I don't know people have become more used to bigger share counts I would say I remember last cycle you know if as soon as you were over 100 million that was it you were done right um a lot has changed for some reason maybe wins like reunion are part of that and you know a lot more Aussie juniors are successful in Canada, Firefly being one of them that have much bigger share structures. But that's that's the criticism uh we get. But, you know, my my my response to that is like, yeah, okay, we're, you know, even if we make, you know, a tier one bucking discovery, um, you know, we're probably going to be more like a reunion than a great bear. Um, that's just maths, right? It's just numbers. uh that but that doesn't mean you're not going to make money. Um you know, Reunion was like what a three or four bagger uh for depending on where you were or at least was for me. Um, and so, you know, it's it's uh, but yeah, if you're looking for like the early stage, like the next Snow Line or Great Bear, um, that's that's grassroots and going in and just making a new discovery with a, you know, 30 million shares out. Um, that's not where we've where we are. We've done four acquisitions in in 5 years now to build to consolidate for the first time ever in the central Newfoundland mining district all the metal in the ground outside of the existing or the the operating mines plus uh and not including duck pond cuz tech won't give it to me for some reason. Uh um and so you know that's never happened before and that really allows us to uh eventually if we're successful with the drill bit and growing resources puts us in the position where you know someone could come in and and take us over and develop a a DMS district much like Flynflon or for um or you know Bulletin does in in the Bulletin mine area in Sweden. So, um yeah, I guess it it just depends what you're looking for as an investor and whether that 300 million number um suits you or or doesn't? Um any plans to roll it back and and make that number look smaller? Uh yeah, I mean I don't want to be cut back. Right. I've never had much luck with rollbacks and then coming out on top. That said, um if there's a significant catalyst for us, like you know, we get a big corporate investment, you know, a big mining company wants to, you know, invest take 20% or more. Um and then that might be, you know, a good catalyst that then allows the roll back. and um everyone can reload. Um but I I think you know roll back without a catalyst that just uh doesn't set you sets the company up well. I think you need you need a significant event that's going to materially change the company. You know much like Integra Resources did with you know acquiring Millennial and then and then uh Florida Canyon to become a producer. you know, that that was okay. Like the game's changed here. We're now a junior producer and uh so, you know, you roll it back and uh um and then, you know, reload new and previous money um in there uh to set set the stage for the next, you know, move up in market cap. Yeah, that's uh that's generally the consensus on roll backs I think that I that I've seen as well. So, it is a good point. Um, what do you think I'm forgetting to ask? Uh, what did you come here hoping to talk about that I failed to bring up so far? Um, I think, you know, I think we've talked about it a lot, but I think, you know, we can't under underestimate just how important being in a jurisdiction like Newfoundland is. um just to operate and get, you know, meaningful work done in in a short amount of time. And so, you know, with everything going on in BC, uh and and other provinces in terms of permitting timelines and even like getting down to like drilling timelines, uh you know, money goes a long way in Newf Finland. And so, you know, money invested into Canara, you're going to see a direct result. uh at the drill bit. You know, this year we're not going to have to wait um you know, to get to permit pads in certain places or or get permission from 10 stakeholders to do certain things. And you know, you're you're seeing that bear out in in M&A and exploration activity from the big players in Newfoundland now. So, you saw new found by maritime um because, you know, it's it's a great jurisdiction. they can build a mine and that'll that'll give them some optionality while they get to a construction decision at Queensway or Keats or whatever. Uh and then similarly with Firefly uh that's uh you know they've made rapid progress because of the permitting regime and seeing a lot of provincial and federal government funding which I think is key is you know whenever I go to St. John's and meet with government officials. They're asking me, "What can I do for you, Chris, to help the process along um make your life easier and help you make a discovery, which is incredibly refreshing. Normally, it's, you know, the opposite, you know, doing everything they can to slow it down um and be unconstructive." And so, I just can't underell that point enough. um just don't be difficult. That's essentially what you're asking. And that's a that's often a big ask actually in in a lot of Canadian jurisdictions. But that is uh it is a good ask I think and and again just uh I I think we've been through most of it. I know I've not been too respectful of your time. So I'll try to be that now and I I'll let you go. But I'm hoping we can do this again in the future. And uh yeah, thank you so much for sitting down with me today. Thanks. I really appreciate it, Antonio. It was great to be on. Looking forward to the next time. And as always, thanks to everyone for watching Resource Talks. I have a couple of more things to say, though. The fact that this company was interviewed here today does not mean that they're necessarily a good or a bad company. I'm not here to endorse nor attack anyone. I am simply here to ask some questions. If you find that I have failed in asking a question that you would have liked to hear an answer to, which will happen as I'm not an experienced interviewer, please let me know and I will try to correct that mistake in a future interview. As mentioned at the beginning, please understand that mineral exploration and development is an extremely risky business. Losing money is the norm and should be the expectation. This is a very complex sector and the performance of individual companies typically depends on many different moving particles including company specific factors like geology, financing ability and many others really as well as particles that are outside of the company's control like geopolitics, macroeconomics, commodity prices and many more. most of which are nearly impossible to fully understand. Moreover, these companies that typically get interviewed on resource talks are in the pre-revenue stage, which means they rely on the public markets for the financing of their operations, which could result in shareholder dilution. Furthermore, as a general rule of thumb, you'll be better off understanding that all company communications online, albeit this interview or their website and their presentation and their social media accounts or even the social media accounts which you thought were your friends and then told you about a stock, everything really that these companies do is intended as marketing. And although I do not make buy or sell recommendations because there is a clear conflict of interest given the nature of my business, many out there do and you should be aware of that in bias and you should be careful out there. That bias is not always going to be clearly disclosed with everyone out there. So it is safer for you anytime you're watching any type of company specific content to approach it with a dose of skepticism and assume that the party telling you about it is biased in at least some shape or form because there will always be a bias again albeit clear or not. So, always ask yourself what the incentive of your counterparty is and never rely on them regardless of their incentives, but in instead double check if what they're saying is true again by using setterplus.ca. The fact that I have no idea what I'm doing should already be clear to you at this point. I am not saying this to make jokes or or laugh with myself. I just simply do not have a long enough track record of consistent investment profits. So, I should under no circumstances be considered an authority on anything. Again, although this may sound amusing to you, believe me, it is not amusing and it is not intended as a joke. I'm simply pointing out a fact and warning you not to rely on anything I do or say. Unfortunately, at least to my understanding, nobody out there has any special abilities. The CEOs do not possess any superior knowledge and they cannot know about what will go up, what will go down, or what will go in circles. Some people even believe that to be rule number one on Wall Street. Nobody really knows. None of us know whether any of the company's activities will result in a success. Again, given that we're talking about high-risk activities where most of the times it ends in failure. Also, unfortunately, try as I may, I won't always catch all red flags or old challenges with the companies. So, even if I did ask a few tough questions in here, don't rely on this being all of the tough questions. Again, these are complicated startups with many moving parts and I am conflicted given the nature of this business. Therefore, I cannot guarantee the quality of anything presented in this video and you cannot hold me responsible for any losses or damages stemming from the way you decide to use this interview. Viewers, listeners, and readers acknowledge and agree that the information presented herein did not constitute a solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any security or investment or to participate in any trading strategy. Resource talks and all parties involved in the management of the business strictly disclaim any and all liability for losses and or damages whether direct, indirect, special or consequential or other consequences however so caused arising out of any use or reproduction of the content published by resource talks or any decision made or action taken in reliance upon it. By consuming this content, all consumers vow to release resource talks and all parties involved in the management of the business from all claims, proceedings, or consequences. This is all to say, I know it's a lot of lawyer talk, but this is all to say that you shouldn't blindly trust me or anybody on the internet, and you should do your own research. Once again, social media is meant for entertainment. It is set.ca where you do your research. That's where you find a company's official filings. And I encourage you to read and analyze the management information circular, the financial statements, the management discussion and analysis, and whenever available, the NI43101 technical documents. If you don't understand everything in those documents, the chances of you losing money are even higher than they normally are in the space. And as mentioned earlier, the chances of even the best analysts in this sector lo losing money are extremely high since this is venture capital and it is not for everybody. I'll leave you with one of Charlie Munger's quotes which I wish I had listened to more often earlier on which says quote if you don't understand it don't do it.