Mr. Thomas Ullrich reports

ASTON BAY HOLDINGS PRESENTS 2016 STORM PROJECT REGIONAL SOIL SURVEY RESULTS AND DRILL PROGRAM REVIEW; GRANTS OPTIONS

Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. has received complete geochemical results for the summer soil sampling program at the Storm property, Somerset Island, Nunavut. The company collected 2,005 soil samples over an area of approximately 120 kilometres north-south and 20 to 40 kilometres east-west on the property. The samples were analyzed for multielement geochemistry at ALS Minerals of Vancouver, B.C.

"The soil sampling survey has both replicated previously known copper-in-soil anomalies, as well as delineated several new areas with anomalous copper and zinc concentrations," stated Thomas Ullrich, chief executive officer of Aston Bay. "We are excited to investigate the source of these anomalies in future programs at Storm."

Results from three drill holes with visual copper mineralization were previously presented (refer to Aston Bay's Oct. 6, 2016, press release). Assay results from all three of these holes confirmed significant copper mineralization, with a best intersection of 16 metres of 3.07 per cent copper and 12.26 grams per tonne (g/t) silver in hole STOR1601D. The other nine holes had no visual copper mineralization, with no significant copper mineralization in the assay results.

Aston Bay has also granted stock options in accordance with the terms and conditions of its rolling stock option plan, entitling the purchase of an aggregate of 500,000 common shares by Dr. David Broughton, newly appointed as chief geologist for the Storm and Seal projects for Aston Bay. Each stock option will vest 12 months from the date of grant and will be exercisable at 20 cents per common share until Jan. 24, 2024. "Dr. Broughton is an award-winning geologist, an expert in sediment-hosted deposits and has been an instrumental team member in several significant discoveries," stated Mr. Ullrich. "We are pleased to have him on our team to investigate the copper and zinc potential of our Storm and Seal projects."

Further to Aston Bay's news release dated May 31, 2016, the field season was financed pursuant to the company's option agreement with BHP Billiton. Notice of termination of the option agreement has been received by Aston Bay (refer to Aston Bay's Jan. 20, 2017, press release).

      DRILL HOLE COLLAR DATA
 STORM PROPERTY 2016 DRILL PROGRAM
   
Hole ID                 Hole depth
                                (m) 

STOR1601D                    149.7          
STOR1602D                    123.4          
STOR1603D                      179            
STOR1604D                      122            
STOR1605D                      200            
STOR1606D                      279            
STOR1607D                      159            
STOR1608D                      179            
STOR1609D                      125            
STOR1610D                      180            
STOR1611D                      108            
STOR1612D                      147   

Qualified person

As per National Instrument 43-101 -- standards of disclosure for mineral projects, Michael Dufresne, MSc, PGeol, PGeo, a director of and a consultant to Aston Bay, is the qualified person for the company, and has prepared, validated and approved the technical and scientific content of this news release. The company strictly adheres to CIM best practices guidelines in conducting, documenting and reporting its exploration activities on the Storm project.

Quality assurance/quality control

Once received from the drill and processed, all drill core samples are sawn in half, labelled and bagged. The remaining drill core is stored in Yellowknife at a secure facility. Numbered security tags are applied to lab shipments for chain-of-custody requirements. The company inserts quality control samples at regular intervals in the sample stream, including duplicate samples, blanks and reference materials with all sample shipments to monitor laboratory performance. The QA/QC (quality assurance/quality control) program was designed and approved by Mr. Dufresne.

Drill core samples are submitted to ALS Geochemistry's analytical facility in Yellowknife, where the samples are initially prepped and then sent to North Vancouver, B.C., for additional preparation and analysis. The ALS facility is accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard for precious and base metal assays, and all analytical methods include quality control materials at set frequencies with established data acceptance criteria. The entire sample is coarse crushed with approximately 250 grams extracted and pulverized. Samples are initially analyzed using a 48-multielemental geochemical package by a four-acid digestion, followed by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS).

Soil samples were collected from holes dug 10 to 30 centimetres deep using stainless steel shovels. Samples weighing approximately 1.5 kilograms were placed into a labelled plastic sample bag along with a sample tag inscribed with the unique sample number. Sample locations were recorded with a hand-held GPS and written on a sample book bearing the matching sample number, the date and the sampler's name. Additional details such as surface geology, land form, sampling depth, soil colour, soil material, grain size, sorting, rounding, moisture and a general sample description were also recorded and later transcribed to digital format.

Two representative splits were taken from each sample. A split of approximately 250 grams was placed into a labelled Kraft soil sample bag along with a sample tag bearing the unique sample number. These splits were dried, packed in boxes and shipped to a secure storage facility for future reference. The second split of approximately 100 grams was dried in paper cups and analyzed on site by X-ray fluorescence (XRF). The XRF analysis was intended to provide preliminary results that could be used to direct potential infill sampling. The XRF samples were discarded after analysis.

Soil samples were placed into woven poly (rice) bags for shipment to the analyzing laboratory. Cable ties were used to securely close the rice bags. Sample shipments were flown by Twin Otter from Storm Camp to Resolute Bay, and stored securely in an Atco warehouse while awaiting shipment to Yellowknife. The samples were subsequently flown south by chartered 737, received in Yellowknife by DMS and stored securely until delivery to the laboratory. All soil samples were delivered to the ALS preparation lab in Yellowknife. The samples were analyzed at the ALS Minerals laboratory in North Vancouver, B.C.

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