Golden Chest Drill Program Continues To Be Resource Expansion With Exploration/Pre-Development

COEUR D'ALENE, ID - Idaho Strategic Resources reported on the final Paymaster hole of 2021 and an overall year-end update from the 2021 drill program at the Golden Chest mine. As apprised throughout the year, the goal of the drill program at the Golden Chest continues to be resource expansion with exploration and pre-development core drilling targeting areas lying to the north and south of current underground mining operations. More specifically, the areas of focus are the Joe Dandy and Paymaster located south, and the Klondike located north of existing infrastructure and underground mining in the Skookum.

Drill hole GC 21-186 was drilled early in 2021 but other priorities prohibited its logging until recently. The highlight of GC 21-186 is the 16.4 gram per tonne (g/t) gold vein intercept over 1.2 meters (m) true thickness, beginning at 207.7 m. As previously discussed, the Joe Dandy and Paymaster share similar characteristics - such as gold-bearing veins flanking either or both sides of a quartz monzonite sill. The 1.2-meter intercept in GC 21-186 was located on the lower side of the monzonite intrusive. IDR's overall results of the 2021 drill program have firmly moved the Paymaster area from an exploration target into the pre-development and pre-production planning stage. Thus far, it appears the Paymaster could be accessed by connecting to the existing Skookum ramp as an escape way and driving a new ramp for haulage purposes.

To expedite programs' efforts, the first two months of 2021 utilized a drill contractor in addition to the Company owned core rig to drill these underexplored areas of the property. By mid-June the Idaho Strategic core rig began drilling 24 hours/day and continued to do so for much of the year. As of year-end, 25 diamond core holes were completed totaling 6,602 meters. All the holes from the 2021 drill program have been logged and recorded and the focus has turned to 2022, with the IDR drill advancing in the Klondike area with hole GC 22-210.

Vice President of Exploration, Rob Morgan, said, "Simply put, we enjoyed a very high success rate throughout our 2021 drill campaign. Many of our drill intercepts from 2021 developed into thick gold bearing intervals pointing to deep plumbing, with open exploration potential remaining in most directions. While the focus of our drilling is centered on near mine development, our strategically placed drill holes will also allow for more formal resource planning in other areas of the mine. The drill results from this past year once again prove that mines (and discoveries) are almost always found by drilling holes."