Mr. Max Porterfield reports

VISIONARY LAUNCHES SAMPLING PROGRAM OF HISTORIC DRILL CORE FROM PT. LEAMINGTON IN CENTRAL NEWFOUNDLAND

Visionary Copper and Gold Mines Inc. has initiated a hyperspectral-guided historical core review and sampling program at its 100-per-cent-owned Point Leamington gold-copper-zinc-silver volcanogenic massive sulphide deposit in central Newfoundland.

The program will advance ahead of Visionary's previously announced 20,000-metre phase 2 drill program and follows a review of high-resolution core photography and hyperspectral data collected by College of the North Atlantics hyperspectral scanning unit from 48 historical drill holes at Point Leamington.

Max Porterfield, president and chief executive officer of Visionary, stated: "Every hole we drilled to test the Kraken copper zone hit mineralization, and none of it is in our 2021 resource estimate. That tells you something about what the historical drilling was and wasn't looking for. The original operators defined an excellent massive sulphide deposit, but broad copper feeder systems weren't the target in that era. We're resampling up to 2,000 metres of historical core and planning to put 20,000 metres of drilling into the ground -- enough to bring Kraken into the resource and upgrade what's already there."

An initial review has identified eight holes with numerous wide intervals of visible sulphide stringer mineralization, which hosts the Kraken copper zone, within broad quartz-chlorite-white mica alteration signatures that were either not sampled or were incompletely sampled during historical exploration (see news releases dated March 2, 2026, and May 13, 2026).

Jason Flight, Visionary's vice-president of exploration, commented: "We have used the hyperspectral data to map chlorite, quartz and white mica through the scanned historical holes and integrated those responses into our three-dimensional geological model. The strongest alteration is concentrated in the footwall of the massive sulphide system, where we also see copper-bearing stringer mineralization in the historical core and the newly discovered Kraken zone. That geometry is familiar from my previous experience at the Ming mine, where broad copper-rich footwall mineralization occurs beneath the VMS lenses.

"This work is possible because more than five decades of historical core has been preserved through the government of Newfoundland and Labrador's core storage program, and the College of the North Atlantic's multicamera hyperspectral scanning system subsequently created a high-resolution photographic and hyperspectral data set from that core."

Historical sampling opportunity

Visionary's discovery of the Kraken copper zone in the 2026 phase 1 drilling program demonstrated that broad copper-rich mineralization occurs in the footwall of the existing Point Leamington massive sulphide resource.

At Kraken, PL-118 returned 22.5 metres grading 0.53 per cent copper and 41.5 metres grading 0.39 per cent Cu, including 7.5 metres grading 0.89 per cent Cu. PL-112 previously returned 75.8 metres grading 0.45 per cent Cu, including 12.0 metres grading 1.09 per cent Cu.

Historical hole PL-010 (307-10) passes approximately 20 metres from PL-118 in Visionary's current 3-D interpretation. Review of CNA core photography shows visible sulphide stringer mineralization within a broad altered interval approximately 80 metres (core length) wide that was not historically sampled.

PL-010 is one of numerous historical holes identified during the initial review where strong hydrothermal alteration and visible sulphide mineralization coincide with gaps in historical assay coverage.

The company cautions that visible mineralization and hyperspectral alteration are exploration indicators only and no grade can be assigned to unsampled intervals until analytical results are received.

Large volcanogenic massive sulphide feeder systems

The potential importance of broad VMS feeder systems is well demonstrated at Newfoundland's Ming mine, operated by Firefly Metals Ltd., where higher-grade VMS lenses are underlain by an extensive copper-rich footwall zone.

Visionary considers Ming a useful geological analogue illustrating the potential significance of broad copper-bearing footwall stringer systems. Mineralization, grades, scale and geometry at Ming are not indicative of Point Leamington.

Point Leamington has its own compelling exploration characteristics. The massive sulphide component of the mineralized system has been drilled over approximately one kilometre of strike, begins at surface and has only been tested to roughly 400 metres depth. The recently discovered Kraken copper zone occurs in the footwall of the existing massive sulphide system and highlights the potential for additional near-surface copper-bearing stringer mineralization beyond the current resource.

Historical core program

Visionary wishes to acknowledge the government of Newfoundland and Labrador's core storage program for preserving the historical Point Leamington core at the provincial core storage facility in St. John's and the College of the North Atlantic's HSU team for scanning the historical core and making the resulting high-resolution photography and hyperspectral data available.

Priority core will be retrieved, reconciled against historical assays and drill records, and continuously sampled across previously unassayed sulphide-bearing intervals.

The program will proceed alongside Visionary's 20,000-metre phase 2 drilling program, with results from both programs progressively incorporated into the company's 3-D Point Leamington model.

Qualified person

The technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Flight, PGeo, a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Flight is not independent under NI 43-101 as he is vice-president of exploration for the company.

About Visionary Copper and Gold Mines Inc.

Visionary Copper is advancing its portfolio of base- and precious-metal-rich deposits located in established Canadian mining jurisdictions. The focus of the portfolio is highlighted by the 100-per-cent-owned Point Leamington deposit in Newfoundland, located in one of the richest VMS and gold districts in Canada. The company prepared a pit-constrained indicated mineral resource of 5.0 million tonnes grading 1.42 per cent copper equivalent for 156.8 million pounds CuEq (145,700 ounces gold, 60.0 Mlb copper, 153.5 Mlb zinc, 2.0 million ounces silver and 1.5 Mlb lead), a pit-constrained inferred mineral resource of 13.7 Mt grading 1.27 per cent CuEq for 384.8 Mlb CuEq (354,800 oz gold, 110.2 Mlb copper, 527.3 Mlb zinc, 6.2 Moz silver and 7.0 Mlb lead) and an out-of-pit inferred mineral resource of 1.7 Mt grading 1.74 per cent CuEq for 65.7 Mlb CuEq (65,400 oz gold, 13.3 Mlb copper, 102.9 Mlb zinc, 1.4 Moz Ag and 2.6 Mlb lead) (see news release dated Oct. 25, 2021). Additionally, the company is permitting the Rainbow deposit at its rich VMS Pine Bay project located near existing infrastructure in the Flin Flon mining district. The company prepared an indicated mineral resource on the Rainbow deposit of 3.44 Mt grading 3.59 per cent CuEq for 272.4 Mlb CuEq (238.3 Mlb Cu, 56.9 Mlb Zn, 37,600 oz Au, 692,800 oz Ag and 2.3 Mlb Pb), an inferred mineral resource on the Rainbow deposit of 1.28 Mt grading 2.95 per cent CuEq containing 83.4 Mlb CuEq (72.1 Mlb Cu, 19.5 Mlb Zn, 11,100 oz Au, 222,200 oz Ag and 800,000 pounds Pb) and an inferred mineral resource at the Pine Bay deposit of 1.0 Mt grading 2.62 per cent Cu containing 58.1 Mlb Cu (see news release dated July 10, 2023). Additionally, the portfolio includes the Nash Creek project located in the VMS-rich Bathurst mining district of New Brunswick. A 2018 preliminary economic assessment generates a strong economic return with a pretax internal rate of return of 34.1 per cent (25.2 per cent posttax) and net present value discounted at 8 per cent of $230-million ($128-million posttax) at $1.25 zinc (see news release dated May 14, 2018).

We seek Safe Harbor.