1911 Gold charts path to 2027 production restart at True North Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock

The name 1911 Gold is rooted in history.

In 1911, amid a surge of prospecting across Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario, new immigrants and prospectors worked alongside Indigenous communities to explore mineral potential. Using color-coded cloths to mark regions, prospectors collected rock samples across Manitoba. The discovery that anchored Rice Lake began with what is now known as the Gabriel shaft, still standing today. Duncan Twohearts, an indigenous trapper from the Sagkeeng First Nation, who identified an outcropping of vein quartz on the north shore of Rice Lake that year, marked the start of the district’s modern gold story.

More than a century later, 1911 Gold Corp (TSX-V:AUMB, OTCQB:AUMBF, FRA:2KY) is advancing the historic True North mine, which produced intermittently from the 1930s to the 1960s. Now, a preliminary economic assessment outlines an 11-year underground operation with average steady-state gold production of 58,100 ounces annually. At a long-term gold price of US$3,000 per ounce, the project carries an after-tax net present value of C$391 million and an internal rate of return of 105%, with a 2.2-year payback period, generating $545 million in free cash flow. At US$4,800 gold, after-tax NPV rises to C$998 million, with payback compressed to roughly one year, and generates $1.3 billion in free cash flow.

With the PEA milestone achieved and economics in hand, the company is now turning its focus to financing, development and positioning for a targeted 2027 production restart. In this Q&A, CEO Shaun Heinrichs discusses how the PEA shapes the company’s 2026 strategy, operational confidence and the path back to production at True North.

Proactive: Let’s talk about True North. The preliminary economic assessment highlights a low-capital, high-return project with a good NPV. From your perspective, what makes this asset unique?

Shaun Heinrichs: True North’s operating history falls into two distinct phases. From the 1930s to the 1960s, mining was highly selective, following narrow veins typically 1.5 to 2.5 meters wide. This approach delivered exceptional average grades of more than nine grams per tonne, with the first 1.3 million ounces ranking among the highest-grade gold mined in Canada.

Between 2004 and 2015, the focus shifted to higher throughput. The mill was expanded to 2,200 tonnes per day and bulk-tonnage mining methods were adopted, with stopes often exceeding five meters in width. While production volumes increased, dilution rose significantly, cash costs climbed above $3,000 per ounce, and recoveries dropped to 65–70% after the crushing circuit was upsized without expanding tank capacity. Annual output was limited to roughly 80,000–85,000 ounces.

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The current strategy departs from that model. After de-risking the resource in 2024 and completing the PEA with AMC, the company outlined a plan showing a 105% return and payback just over two years at long-term gold prices (base case). The revised mine design narrows certain stopes to 1.2 meters, targets 97% efficiency with 15% dilution, and aligns equipment size with geology to control costs and maximize returns.

The PEA uses a base case gold price of  US$3,000 per ounce to arrive at the $391 million after-tax figure. But with gold now well above US$4,500, does that suggest significant upside?

Absolutely, it changes the dynamics a lot. On the cost side, we reported just under $1,900 per ounce all-in-sustaining, and that’s likely to improve as well. We’ll benefit from higher gold prices and by focusing on higher-grade, higher-priority targets.

The PEA includes some lower-grade deposits to the east, but our new discoveries like San Antonio West (SAM W), San Antonio Southeast (SAM SE), and the Shore target, which is still developing, should return grades around five grams per tonne. That will lower our costs and increase margins. At today’s $4,800–$5,000 gold environment, we’re looking at a much bigger margin over the long term, which should drive NPV higher over the next 12 months.

You mentioned the nearby zones, like SAM SE, which you see as having significant upside. How quickly could these be integrated into production?

SAM SE has the best near-term potential to fold into the mine plan over the next 18 months. It’s already been mined at the lower levels, so we can access it through existing workings. The grades and geology are very similar, so there’s no reason it can’t be added into the plan.

The zone spans roughly 1.1–1.2 kilometers of strike length, with a top 700 meters already at inferred-resource level and another 500 meters still open. This target has the potential to add +500,000 ounces of additional resource in the future. After that, we’ll focus on the Shore target further to the southeast, which was lightly drilled last year and is still being evaluated, and then eventually move back to SAM W.

Now that you’ve achieved the PEA milestone and have those economics in hand, how does this shape your strategy for 2026, and how confident are you in a 2027 production restart?

We’re very confident about the restart. Everything we’re doing right now is laying the foundation for that. From our perspective, we are on track and don’t foresee any delays.

The main factor to manage is dewatering the Hinge mine, which falls within the first few months of production. It doesn’t need to be 100% dewatered, but some lower-level areas we plan to mine require substantial access before we begin.

The True North mine itself has no access issues for the first two years of production. We’re about to get onto level 26 once the loading pocket area is dewatered, which will allow us to start rehabilitation. Mining equipment from 2017–2018 is still on that level and in decent condition, and additional equipment is already on its way.

1911 Gold has secured a dominant land position in the district, but it’s an area that hasn’t seen as much exploration as higher-profile districts in Ontario or even elsewhere in Manitoba. How does that form an advantage for 1911 Gold?

I was attracted to the opportunity because of the historical production and existing infrastructure more than the land position itself. My background is in finance, so I tend to focus on projects that have tangible reality rather than pure speculation. Rice Lake offers that. Several past producers exist elsewhere on the property, which validates the geological model. Our drilling, surface work, LiDAR, and aeromagnetic surveys indicate that these areas have significant potential, with multi-kilometer structures and host rock features similar to True North.

The challenge for a company like ours is funding the drilling required to bring these targets to a mineable stage. That takes hundreds of thousands of meters, not to make a discovery, but to develop it into production. The plan is to fund this growth organically from cash flow generated by existing operations. With the current gold price, we’ll have plenty of capital to reinvest. Having a mill with expansion capacity is a huge advantage, and the southeastern portion alone could provide another 15–20 years of life at similar or even higher grades than historically produced.

1911 Gold has had strong share price momentum over the past six months. How are you leveraging that attention to attract capital for your 2026 goals?

For a company of our size, it’s easier to engage credible lending institutions without relying heavily on royalties or streaming agreements, which can limit upside for investors. Our momentum puts us in a strong position to negotiate favorable terms. If we do need an equity raise, the higher share price, combined with premiums from flow-through investments, helps us minimize dilution. Intangibly, the attention from higher trading volumes also puts us on more people’s radar. When we trade $2–3 million of shares daily, it attracts a different class of institutional investor, which makes advancing our projects and strategy much easier.

After we closed the financing last year, we had approximately $26 million in our treasury, which covers the majority of our drill program for the year. It doesn’t, however, provide all the initial capital needed for the mill startup, which is why we’re having additional discussions to fund the remainder.

We also plan to carry out a bulk sample this year, which will be a meaningful size. There are many options, and we need to select the areas that are both cost-effective and provide the most valuable information. The program will validate our mining method, confirm recoveries through the mill, and demonstrate that we know what we’re doing.

Before we wrap up, is there any message you’d like to pass along to investors about the investment case here?

Here’s the key point: what’s in the PEA is not the full story. The PEA provides a baseline, but the real opportunity has significant size and scale potential far beyond what the PEA reflects.

The PEA does offer downside protection—there’s no scenario, other than gold dropping to around $1,500 an ounce, where we wouldn’t be profitable once production starts. That self-generated cash gives us the flexibility to make smart investments at the mine site.

The upside potential is largely not captured in the PEA. This greenstone belt has been vastly underexplored, even around the mine lease area itself. Over the last 14 months, our drilling has demonstrated how much remains to be discovered: three new targets, two of which have been extended over 700 meters of strike length, and the third continues to develop. Drill results indicate we’re on the right track, and these are just our initial targets. There’s still substantial potential to grow the project into a 5 million-ounce-plus resource, which would significantly change the dynamics of the operation, and illustrates the district-scale opportunity.

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