Cross River Ventures CEO Discusses Receiving Permits and Expanding the McVicar Project

Cross River Ventures (CSE: CRVC)(OTC: CSRVF) CEO Alex Klenman on Property Expansion & Receipt of Drill Permits for Flagship McVicar Gold Project, Ontario, Canada

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Cross River Ventures — Mr. Alex Klenman. Alex, are you keeping cool up there?

Alex Klenman: Yeah, it's insane actually! Like I've been telling people… it's Las Vegas heat in Canada! So it's caught a lot of people off guard. But you know what, I'd rather have the heat than the cold — so I'll deal with it.

Gerardo Del Real: I hope it breaks soon! All the best to everyone up north and in the Pacific Northwest.

Alex Klenman: Thank you.

Gerardo Del Real: You had some exciting news this morning. You expanded the McVicar project and you received drill permits. A milestone moment, obviously, for the company. The market has reacted well to it. Give me the details, Alex.

Alex Klenman: Absolutely. Well, it's been a longer process than what a lot of people want; they want drilling tomorrow or yesterday, preferably. And we set out to follow a methodical approach to the exploration of McVicar and we're getting closer.

It's obviously almost July and we're getting closer to drilling. And today's news, number one, we expanded the project itself; we picked up some key claims, we cut a deal with the vendor for a couple, and we staked additional claims that our modeling suggests will be impactful. But these are important blocks that were sort of holdouts.

Picture that land development in your city where there's an old house sitting in the middle of what's going to turn out to be a big industrial or commercial project. And that last holdout usually sits there until the last minute. And that's what we did with the claim holder in the middle of our McVicar project. And we didn't overpay, which was great; it was a very reasonable deal.

So strategically speaking, those additions help us in our modeling and help us get ground that we think is going to be meaningful down the line. And second news there, obviously, is drill permits. We have made no bones about the fact that we want to drill McVicar. And once we have full targeting completed — which we're in the middle of now; we're doing LIDAR surveys, we've got boots on the ground, and we're doing the recon, and once all of that's done — we'll be able to announce the drill program. But the permits are in-hand so we're ready to go.

Gerardo Del Real: This release stood out to me a bit more than the previous ones for the simple fact that you're starting to get into specific zones. And it's clear that — you mentioned you're about halfway through processing the data and selecting the drill targets — but it's clear to me that there's pretty significant progress being made behind the scenes by your excellent technical team.

And again, for those that aren't familiar with Cross River Ventures, can you give people just a brief overview of, one, the technical team and the accomplishments of that technical team, and then, two, your market cap relative to that… because it's minuscule.

Alex Klenman: Yeah, that's a great conversation to have. The technical team is headed by Dr. Rob Carpenter of Kaminak fame. And, obviously, Kaminak was the Coffee Deposit, which was Rob's discovery, with other people, obviously, but, nevertheless, Kaminak sold for half a billion dollars to Gold Corp.

We've got two PhDs and two Masters on our tech team — all of them quite accomplished individuals in their own right. But they're directing all of the exploration activities at McVicar and, indeed, with our northwestern Ontario portfolio. But, obviously, McVicar being the flagship.

And it's really good to have a world-class tech team; you rest easy at night knowing that decisions are being made from a deep knowledge pool and that they've been to the top of the mountain and they know what it takes to get there again. And that's important.

And like you said, market cap wise, we're trading under a C$5 million market cap. Yeah, it's silly to say, and I always use this line for anybody who listens to me, is… if you take the dynamics here, you take district scale, you take location, you take previous work, you take the tech team, you take market cap — you add that all up and there's an opportunity here!

And it's my job to, obviously, be enthused and excited about that. But at the same time, I am; I dip in the market regularly. I buy the stock, which is not something I'm a huge believer in as a CEO.

We don't have the same luxury everyone else does. So we buy our own stock. We're really hoping for an outcome that other people can buy and sell the stock but complete with anonymity and impunity. And we don't have that luxury. But in this case, I just think it's a really, really phenomenal opportunity.

You look at our market cap; a decent drill hole. I think the market cap inflates as we get closer to drilling in the fall and the winter. So I think we're going to be there. I think today at C$0.15 - C$0.16 — it's ridiculously cheap. Other people agree with me.

And I just think it's an opportunity where you're buying the low but all of the work is ahead of us. And we're that much closer today than we were, say, 6-8 months ago when we started talking about this.

Gerardo Del Real: It doesn't take much to get a triple or quadruple from a baseline of a C$5 million market cap. And the consolidation in the gold space, I think, has mitigated a whole heck of a lot of the risk in Cross River’s share price because, again, it's a C$5 million market cap, right?

Alex Klenman: Yeah and you're absolutely right. One good point you made was the data… you can tell in this news release that we are working with more targeted data. The details are becoming more clear.

We have a really good idea of where we're going to drill and which zones are the ones we want to key on. But we have to make sure that people understand that there are multiple historical occurrences across this 12,000 hectares.

We control the structural components of the Lang Lake Belt. There's deposits in the neighborhood of a high-grade nature. And this is just a huge plot of ground that hasn't really had a ton of exploration done — and we're doing it.

We're the first ones to go in there and do it methodically and with a modern approach. And I think the outcome is going to be really good. And it's one of the reasons why I'm buying the stock.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Alex, I'm looking forward to seeing the drills turning and, frankly, the data from the samples and the field work that you're undertaking here soon. So thank you for your time today. Anything else to add to that?

Alex Klenman: No, I just appreciate it… always love coming on with you. And if anybody has any questions, just contact me directly. I'm happy to answer them. But keep an eye on CRVC. You're going to be hard pressed, I think, to find a better opportunity right now in northwestern Ontario.

Gerardo Del Real: Well said. Alex, thank you.

Alex Klenman: Appreciate it. Thanks, Gerardo.