Deposit Types
At the Project, VMS sulphide mineralization that hosts both the Tower Deposit,and the Rail Deposit are consistent with the characteristics of VMS deposits.

The original depositional and stratigraphic relationships are obscured at the Tower Property by the lack of outcrop and the overprinting effects of high metamorphic grade and deformation. The Tower Deposit is interpreted to be a remobilized, high-grade VMS deposit. The Tower Deposit is the only known VMS deposit in the TNB. The Tower mineralization is similar to the VMS Cu-Zn-Ag-Au deposits in the Paleoproterozoic Kisseynew Domain and the Flin Flon-Snow Lake Belt (Bailes and Galley, 1999; Syme and Bailes,1993), to the west, thento the Ni sulphide deposits in the TNB. The closest known VMS deposit to the Tower Property is the Talbot Deposi twithin the Talbot Property, 35 km west of the Tower Property (Simard et al., 2010). The style of VMS mineralization at the Talbot Property appears to be very similar to the style of VMS mineralization at the Tower Property.

The closest known and well-characterized VMS style mineralization to the Rail Deposit are at the Lalor Lake and Chisel Mines located near Snow Lake, 38 km northeast of the Rail Deposit (Galley et al., 2007). The depositional environment for the Rail Deposit is interpreted similarly to that of the VMS deposits in the Flin Flon and Snow Lake mining camps. The Rail Deposit also shows evidence of regional metamorphic and deformation overprints.

Mineralization
The Tower Deposit mineralization is associated within a sulphide-rich schist to breccia hosted within biotite-muscovite schist to the north and hornblende gneiss to the south . The Tower Deposit is approximately 850 m long, 700m deep and 1.92m wide. It strikes approximately 13° and dips 75-85° E and cuts the regional foliation. The mineralization consists of rounded to subangular, mm-to cm-scale fragments of wall rock with a matrix of semi-massive to massive sulphides. The sulphides are mainly chalcopyrite, pyrite, pyrrhotite and sphalerite. The mineralization is interpreted to be mobilized from its source and to form the matrix of a fault breccia in a late structure. Although Beaudry (2007) interprets the mineralization to be post-deformational in origin, recent core from hole TP10-004 is obviously foliated and indicates that at least some of it is pre-or syn-deformational (Generic Geo, 2019).

The T2 Zone is located 200 m east of the Tower Deposit. Sulphide mineralization in T2 consists of disseminated blebs <1 cm in size and as stringers and pods of semi-massive sulphide <5 cm in size within chlorite schist, in concordance with the chlorite schist unit. The T2 Zone was discovered in drill hole TP12-025, approximately 30 m below the Paleozoic cover. The drill hole intersected 4 m at grades of 2.44% Cu, 0.7 g/t Au, 18.2 g/t Ag, 0.3% Zn from 161 m downhole, including 2 m at grades of 3.3% Cu, 0.8 g/t Au, 24.6 g/t Ag, 0.4% Zn (Rockcliff News Release, May 23, 2012). The T2 Zone mineralization is hosted near the structural base of chlorite schist alteration unit in the stratigraphic footwall of the Deposit. In contrast to the Tower Deposit, the sulphide mineralization at the T2 Zone is interpreted to be in situ and stratiform, within altered metavolcanic rocks (Coueslan, 2018). The geometry of the T2 Zone and host footwall alteration suggests the Tower stratigraphy here might perhaps be overturned, or alternatively a zone of stratiform sub-seafloor hydrothermal replacement mineralization (Coueslan, 2017).

The mine design for the Tower and Rail properties combines elements of traditional mine development and mining methods with proven advancements in technology, automation, and communications. The Tower and Rail mineralized resources are near surface and have similar geometry (steeply dipping, narrow, and relatively long strike length) and the same extraction approach and design principles are applied to both properties.

The mine design has been largely centered around using Rail-Veyor® tofacilitate high-speed development and to streamline the material handling process by bringing Rail-Veyor® tothe resource and loading the cars directly at the stope drawpoints using continuous loaders. The successes, learnings, and results from Rail-Veyor® experienceat the test mine in Sudbury along with further advancements in the technology have been used in the mine design.

The mineralized resources will be accessed by small profile twin ramps that will extend to the bottom of the Mineral Resource; a Service Ramp for moving personnel and material and a Rail-Veyor® Rampfor transferring waste rock and mined resource to surface and backfill to underground. The ramps also serve as the main ventilation circuit, with fresh air sent down the Service Ramp and return air directed up the Rail-Veyor® Ramp. These two ramps provide two egresses.

The primary mining method selected is a variation of narrow vein sublevel longitudinal longhole stoping, with transverse drawpoints used to draw down the blasted mineral resource along the strike of the stope in a controlled shrinkage type manner, while backfill will be placed on top of the shrinking muck pile to minimize the exposure of the hanging wall (HW) and footwall (FW). The mining method is referred to as ‘Mechanized Shrinkage’ (MS). Modified Avoca mining will be used at the top mining horizon to establish a permanent backfill horizon below the crown pillar and to provide initial production while infrastructure development is established to start MS.

For MS, sublevels will be established to access the resource and develop longitudinally along strike to position for longhole drilling and blasting. Extraction horizons will be established at approximately 100 m vertical intervals and a Rail-Veyor® drift developed parallel to the mineral resource and a series of transverse drawpoints will allow continuous loaders to pull broken material from the stope and load directly into Rail-Veyor® cars. Particle flow simulations were completed to determine the spacing of drawpoints for proper drawdown and backfill interaction. Once established, production from MS stopes will average 2,800 tonnes per day of resource mined to surface, with additional resource from stope development to average approximately 3,000 tonnes per day mined to surface during steady state.

The Tower Property will be developed and mined first, followed by the Rail Property. The start of construction of the Rail Deposit will be timed to ramp-up production when Tower production ramps down. The Mineral Resource used for mine planning includes Indicated and Inferred Resources. Material sorting on surface was considered in the estimated stope cut-off grade of 1.1% CuEq used for generating stope shapes for the Tower Deposit and 1.2% CuEq for the Rail Deposit. For both properties, an incremental cut-off grade of 0.8% CuEq was used to include material along strike that has development in place.

Mining Depth
The Mineral Resources are near surface with the top sublevels for each property located immediately below a defined crown pillar. At the Tower Property there is approximately 100m of limestone cap above the host rock while at the Rail Property there is no limestone layer. The names of sublevels are expressed in approximate metres below surface (rounded to the nearest 5m). For example, 130 Level (130L) at the Tower Deposit is approximately 130m below surface.

Sill Pillars
The thickness of Tower Deposit permanent sill pillar under the Modified Avoca stope has been recommended to be 10 m (~2.5 times the typical mining width [~4m based on provided stope geometries]) based on two dimensional numerical analyses (see RockEng report 20041-110). Maintaining stability of the permanent sill is expected to be critical for the proposed mine plan, both during operation and long-term closure, and will need to be reviewed in greater detail as the project advances and additional geotechnical data becomes available. This 10 m dimension is intended to be a typical permanent thickness to support PEA stage costing studies, detailed design during later phases of study may consider adjusting the vertical thickness according to local resource HW to FW mining width.

The 15 m thick temporary sill pillars that will be mined out with each shrinkage stope are expected to remain stable, until mined out by uppers retreat.

Rib Pillars
Rib pillars should be designed with a 1:1 pillar aspect ratio (i.e.,strike length of the ribs equals the HW to FW stope width).

Crown Pillar
It is recommended that a minimum 10 m pillar below the bottom of the regolith horizon bee stablished for crown stability for PEA stage costing studies. The regolith, which is in the order of 9 m to 19 m thick must be maintained in addition to the 10 m crown pillar in the competent basement rock. This is based on the occurrence of a water bearing low quality sand horizon above the regolith, it is expected that there is zero tolerance for failure to this sand horizon as water inflows would likely be unmanageable. Maintaining crown pillar stability is also considered critical for the proposed mine plan, both during operation and long-term closure, and will need to be reviewed in greater detail as the project advances. This 10 m dimension is intended to be a typical basement rock crown thickness to support PEA stage costing studies. Detailed design during later phases of study may consider adjusting the vertical thickness according to local resource HWto FW mining width.

The 3,000 tpd capacity ROM handling circuit consists of a crushing and screening plant, a material sorter and the ROM loadout. To reduce haulage milling costs and tailings requirements all ROM will be sorted prior to leaving site. The material sorter requires a feed size between 12mm and 50mm and to achieve this a crushing and screening circuit will be added.

ROM will be fed into the crushing circuit by a loader. The crushing circuit will consist of a primary jaw crusher, a secondary cone crusher a double deck screen and conveyors. Initial crushing will be by the jaw crusher, the crushed material will then pass through a double deck screen. Fines, less than 12mm will be conveyed directly to the ROM loadout building, material between 50mm and 12mm will be conveyed to the material sorter building and oversize will be conveyed to the cone crusher and then back to the double deck screen. It is estimated that 1,000 tpd of fines will be produced, and that 2,000 tpd of material will be sorted.

The crushing circuit includes a Jaw crusher in closed circuit with a triple deck screen and a cone crusher. Crushed material is stored in a 10.7 m (35’) diameter feed silo. The silo feeds a 2.7 m (9’) diameter rod mill and a 3.8 m (12.5’) diameter ball mill in closed circuit with a Krebs gMAX cyclone.

Grinding Circuit
The existing grinding circuit will be reutilized. The ball mill, rod mill and the cyclone will be refurbished. The motor for the ball mill will be replaced. Due to increased throughput the existing slurry pumps, valves and piping will be removed and replaced.

Mineralized material will be sorted at the Project to reject barren rock and the upgraded fraction will be trucked to the Bucko Mill for processing. Material from the Tower Property will be processed through the concentrator first. After the Tower Property has been exhausted, the Rail Property will provide feed to the Bucko Mill.

A summary of the processing steps are as follows:
• ROM mineralized material will be crushed and sorted at the mine site to minimize the amount of waste that is transported to the Bucko Mill.
• Approximately 1,500 tpd of upgraded material will be delivered to the Bucko Mill for treatment.
• Material received at the Bucko Mill will be cone-crushed and conveyed through the feed storage silo to the primary grinding circuit.
• The grinding circuit will be in a closed circuit with cyclones for classification.
• Cyclone overflow will report to flotation feed where value metals will be recovered sequentially by froth flotation ........