East Niv is a 100% owned, >43,000 ha project where in 2021 NorthWest discovered a completely new porphyry Cu-Au-Ag deposit. The East Niv mineral tenure is located only 20 km from the Kemess South mine and its infrastructure. Key features of the Project include:

• Discovery of the East Niv Cu-Au-Ag porphyry deposit in 2021. The porphyry system is at least 4 km long and 1.5 km wide and remains open in most directions.
• East Niv discovery hole EN21-004 intersected 81.6 m grading 0.41% Cu, 0.20 g/t Au and 0.9 g/t Ag from 3 m. A remarkable 8 of 10 holes drilled in the discovery year intersected significant mineralization (see news release November 8th, 2021)
• The Discovery Area comprises the sparsely drilled High-Grade Structural Target, where the East Niv porphyry was discovered, and the contiguous but undrilled Valley Target to the southwest.
• Reconnaissance exploration has identified the nearly 20 km² Southwest Target Area, and the adjacent Rockslide Target, which hosts various combinations of IP chargeability, magnetic, alteration, and geochemical anomalies, as well as large areas of intense, sulphide-bearing alteration.
• Drilling on the entire property comprises only 18 holes that total 7,706 m, mostly in the High-Grade Structural Target. Approximately 40% of the property remains unmapped and has little or no coverage by surface geochemical and/or geophysical surveys.
• The Project is easily accessed by road. The Omineca Resource Road and a high-voltage power line, which serviced the Kemess South Mine, cross the tenure.

Figure 1. Map showing the East Niv porphyry discovery, exploration targets, and land position.

East Niv is situated in the Hogem ranges of the Omineca Mountains approximately 250 kilometers northwest of Mackenzie, British Columbia, and 30 kilometers south-southwest of the Kemess mine complex (Figure 2). Total distance by road from Prince George is 523 km and takes 8 hours to drive in. The property is also accessible by plane, via the Moosevale Airstrip.

Local population centres are, from nearest to furthest: Germansen Landing, Fort St. James, and Prince George. These centres have provided support and resources for past exploration programs in the region. Prince George is a major commercial centre with major road, rail, and air links, as well as significant infrastructure, and is a eight-hour drive from the East Niv.

Figure 2. Location of East Niv relative to regional infrastructure and NorthWest Copper Tenements.

East Niv occurs in the Stikine Terrane, which hosts numerous porphyry deposits including the Kemess cluster (Centerra Gold), the Red Chris mine (Newmont/Imperial Metals), Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (“KSM”; Seabridge Gold), and Galore Creek (Newmont/Teck Resources), among many others. East Niv is located in the underexplored eastern limb of the Stikine Terrane. The East Niv porphyry Discovery Area is hosted by volcanic rocks of the Takla Group and associated diorite to monzonite intrusions, which occur in the northern part of the property. The Rockslide and SouthWest Target Areas are hosted by volcanic and volcano-sedimentary rocks of the Early Jurassic Hazelton Group, an important host to porphyry mineralization across the Stikine Terrane, which covers the southern half of the property.

The East Niv Property was acquired by NorthWest  via staking in 2018 (by NorthWest merger precursor Serengeti Resources), following a regional database compilation and analysis of Geoscience BC’s Search III airborne geophysical dataset. Discovery in 1973 of the Sustut Copper deposit, located 15 km east of the Property, stimulated limited exploration for sediment-hosted copper at East Niv in the 1970s. The Kemess South Mine, which began large-scale mining in 1997, is located only 20 km north of East Niv and the road and power infrastructure for the mine cross the East Niv Property. The RDP porphyry project of Pacific Ridge Exploration is contiguous with East Niv to the south and, in 2022, drilled an intersection of 497.2 m grading 0.37% Cu, 0.40 g/t Au and 1.6 g/t Ag (Pacific Ridge Exploration - News Release, October 25th 2022).

The Discovery Area comprises the High-Grade Structural Target to the northeast and the contiguous Valley Target to the southwest (Figure 1).

The High-Grade Structural Target hosts the East Niv Cu-Au-Ag porphyry, which was discovered by hole EN-21-004 that intersected 81.6 m grading 0.41% Cu, 0.20 g/t Au and 0.9 g/t Ag from 3 m. Additional drilling in 2021 and 2022 has defined a northwest-elongated system at least 4 km in length and up to 1.5 km wide. Porphyry mineralization at East Niv is typical of major deposits in the Stikine Terrane as it occurs within strong potassic alteration related to well-mineralized quartz-magnetite-chalcopyrite veins and is hosted by intrusions and volcanic rocks of the Takla Group. Mineralization is variably overprinted by a later, pyritic alteration and current interpretation is that drilling is either on the northeast margin of a large porphyry system located in the Valley Target and/or, by analogy with Red Chris, has potential for a structurally controlled zone of high-grade mineralization below the pyritic cap.

The Valley Target is a large, >2 km² bulk-tonnage porphyry target in a valley bottom that is defined by a Cu-Mo±Au-Ag soil anomaly that forms two lobes around a central IP chargeability embayment with elevated Bi-Te. The core of this target has not been drilled. Very limited drilling around the margins of the target has intersected strong and very encouraging propylitic alteration, commonly with a polymetallic signature that includes gold and copper and which is typical of the periphery of major porphyry deposits in the region.