Mr. Matthew Hornor reports

MAPLE GOLD INTERSECTS 24.4 G/T GOLD OVER 1 METRE WITHIN 11.4 G/T GOLD OVER 3 METRES IN PHASE II DRILLING AT EAGLE AND PROVIDES OPERATIONAL AND CORPORATE UPDATES

Maple Gold Mines Ltd. has released initial assay results from the first drill hole of the company's phase 2 drill program at its 100-per-cent-controlled Eagle mine property in Quebec, Canada. The phase 2 program consisted of four master diamond drill holes and one daughter diamond drill hole, totalling approximately 4,700 metres, to test potential extensions of mineralization along and beneath the past-producing, high-grade Eagle-Telbel mine trend. The company has also appointed Kiran Patankar as chief financial officer, effective immediately.

Highlights:

• Drill hole EM-22-009 intersected 11.4 grams per tonne gold over three metres, including 24.4 g/t Au over one m, to the north of the modelled main Eagle-Telbel mine horizon in the hangingwall microgabbro.
• The new EM-22-009 intercept and other notable high-grade historical intercepts hosted in the same microgabbro unit (including hole 16-77 (26.7 g/t Au over 2.5 m) and hole 16-71 (26.4 g/t over 1.4 m within 14.3 g/t over 2.9 m)) all point to the potential significance of this favourable structural-stratigraphic target.
• Limited historical drilling in the hangingwall was not typically assayed for gold, as previous operators were not focused on this mineralization style and target type.
• The company has drilled approximately 16,450 m out of approximately 30,000 m planned in 2022 across its Quebec project portfolio. Eagle assays have now been reported for approximately 5,400 m (representing 59 per cent of completed Eagle drilling).

"These initial phase 2 assays include the best result thus far from our 2022 drilling at Eagle, and the location of the intercept holds great significance for our exploration targeting going forward, including phase 3 drilling later this year," stated Matthew Hornor, president and chief executive officer of Maple Gold. "While core cutting has recently been impacted by electrical issues at site, we are implementing temporary and permanent solutions to improve efficiency, and we expect the assay backlog to ease in the coming weeks. I am also delighted to welcome Kiran in his expanded role with the company, and we look forward to his experience as we navigate through our strategic and corporate finance initiatives."

Interpretation and summary of results

The highlighted intercept in EM-22-009 is located to the north of the main modelled Eagle mine horizon in the hangingwall microgabbro. There is limited historical drilling in the hangingwall at Eagle, and drill holes were not typically assayed for gold, as previous operators were not focused on this mineralization style and favourable structural-stratigraphic target type. The new EM-22-009 intercept and other notable, high-grade, historical intercepts hosted in the same microgabbro unit are further indications of additional styles of gold mineralization at Eagle beyond the known Eagle-Telbel style mined historically and suggest multiple gold events that may provide for broader gold distribution than previously interpreted.

The EM-22-009 intercept is significant because these results are not found within the broadly conformable horizon mined at Eagle in the past, but instead within a microgabbro some distance to the north, which is characterized by an increase in intensity of alteration and deformation associated with a quartz-carbonate-pyrite vein zone, which the company's geologists believe is structurally controlled and, therefore, inconsistent with the synvolcanic exhalative style of mineralization used as a predictive model in the past. Thus, in addition to pursuing favourable stratigraphic horizons (synvolcanic exhalative gold mineralization), it is now justifiable to pursue superimposed structural targets (orogenic gold mineralization) as well.

The company's phase 1/2 drilling at Eagle has confirmed that, in addition to the conformable semi-massive pyrite horizon mined historically at Eagle-Telbel, multiple additional zones that may or may not be conformable, overlapping with the Harricana deformation zone, are also prospective, including not only the microgabbro interval, but also the Harricana group sediments still farther to the north. The Harricana group sediments/Cartwright group basalts contact may represent a further largely untested target.

Phase 3 drilling at Eagle, which is expected to commence in the fourth quarter of 2022, will follow up not only on the best results of the first two drilling phases, but also on the results of previous down-hole electromagnetic surveys, on ranked airborne electromagnetic targets from the recently completed magnetic/electromagnetic survey (see news from July 19, 2022) and on a recently completed high-resolution drone magnetic survey.

Complete assay results from EM-22-009 are included in an attached table.

Operational update

Due to recent electrical issues at site, the company has faced challenges with its core saws, resulting in a temporary backlog of assay results. The company has contracted third party core-cutting providers to secure its immediate needs, has procured standby equipment, and is making necessary upgrades to ensure long-term efficiencies and redundancies so that similar problems are avoided in the future.

Executive appointment

Maple Gold has appointed Mr. Patankar as chief financial officer of the company, replacing Gregg Orr. Mr. Patankar has held the position of senior vice-president, growth strategy, with the company since 2021 and will continue to apply his skills and experience to the execution of corporate strategy and the evaluation of strategic initiatives. He is an accomplished mining executive with more than 15 years of progressively senior investment banking and public company executive experience, including: responsibility for executing M&A (mergers and acquisitions) and corporate finance transactions totalling more than $3-billion; project evaluation and development; contract negotiation; stakeholder engagement; and corporate governance. Mr. Patankar holds a master of business administration degree from the Yale School of Management and a bachelor of science degree in geological engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.

Option issuance

The company has approved the grant to certain employees and officers of stock options to purchase an aggregate of 1.05 million common shares of the company at an exercise price of 26 cents per common share. The options have a five-year term and vest one-third immediately, one-third in 12 months and one-third in 24 months from the date of grant until fully vested.

Qualified person

The scientific and technical data contained in this press release were reviewed and prepared under the supervision of Fred Speidel, MSc, PGeo, vice-president of exploration at Maple Gold. Mr. Speidel is a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101 -- Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. Speidel has verified the data related to the exploration information disclosed in this press release through his direct participation in the work.

Quality assurance/quality control

The company implements strict quality assurance/quality control protocols at Eagle covering: the planning and placing of drill holes in the field; drilling and retrieving the NQ-sized drill core; drill hole surveying; core transport; core logging by qualified personnel; sampling and bagging of core for analysis; transport of core from site to the AGAT laboratory in Val d'Or, Que.; sample preparation for assaying; and analysis, recording and final statistical vetting of results.

About Maple Gold Mines Ltd.

Maple Gold Mines is a Canadian advanced exploration company in a 50/50 joint venture with Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. to jointly advance the district-scale Douay and Joutel gold projects, located in Quebec's prolific Abitibi greenstone gold belt. The projects benefit from exceptional infrastructure access and boast approximately 400 square kilometres of highly prospective ground, including an established gold resource at Douay (SLR 2022) that holds significant expansion potential as well as the past-producing Eagle, Telbel and Eagle West mines at Joutel. In addition, the company holds an exclusive option to acquire 100 per cent of the Eagle mine property.

The district-scale property package also hosts a significant number of regional exploration targets along a 55-kilometre strike length of the Casa Berardi deformation zone that have yet to be tested through drilling, making the project ripe for new gold and polymetallic discoveries. The company is well capitalized and is currently focused on carrying out exploration and drill programs to grow resources and make new discoveries to establish an exciting new gold district in the heart of the Abitibi.

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