Mr. Shane Williams reports

WEST RED LAKE GOLD ANNOUNCES MINERAL RESOURCE UPDATE FOR THE ROWAN MINE DEPOSIT

West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd. has provided an updated mineral resource estimate, effective as of March 1, 2024, on its 100-per-cent-owned Rowan mine deposit, located in the Red Lake gold district of Northwestern Ontario, Canada:

• Indicated resources of 476,323 tonnes grading 12.78 grams per tonne gold for a total of 195,746 ounces Au;
• Inferred resources of 410,794 tonnes grading 8.76 g/t Au for a total of 115,719 oz Au.

Key take-aways:

• The 2024 MRE has added a significant portion of higher-confidence indicated ounces at grades 40 per cent higher than the 2022 MRE.
• Relative to the 2022 Rowan MRE, there was a decrease in the inferred mineral resources from approximately 827,000 ounces to 116,000 ounces and an increase in indicated mineral resources from zero to approximately 196,000 ounces. The drop in inferred metal content is mainly attributed to: (1) conversion of inferred to indicated resources; (2) a more rigorous modelling approach; and (3) more stringent resource estimates implemented to account for the high gold grades typically seen at Rowan.
• The integration of oriented drilling data and top-to-bottom geochemical analysis allowed the team to reconstruct the geologic interpretation at Rowan resulting in a much more tightly constrained, higher-grade resource that should lend itself more effectively to any future reserve calculation and underground mining design.
• A $4.5-million drill program is planned and fully financed for up to 15,000 metres of drilling at Rowan in 2024, focused on growth and resource expansion on the main Rowan mine deposit.

Shane Williams, president and chief executive officer, stated: "The 2024 Rowan MRE model represents a complete reinterpretation of the structural controls on mineralization and reflects a more conservative estimation approach in line with industry best practices. When drilling off structurally complex high-grade gold systems that contain significant amounts of coarse gold, it is essential to have a solid understanding of the geology and controls on mineralization early in the process. We are very encouraged to see a significant portion of higher-confidence indicated resources come from this MRE update and at grades 40 per cent higher than the 2022 MRE. The objective for this year at Rowan will be growth, and we continue to see significant potential for expanding this deposit at depth and along strike."

Rowan 2024 mineral resource estimate:

• The 2024 MRE update for Rowan incorporated an additional 62 holes for 20,211.4 m of oriented NQ diamond drill core since the December, 2022, MRE.
• A total of 26 mineral domains were created to constrain the mineralization.
• For more detailed information on the Rowan 2024 MRE model, please refer to the technical report entitled "Updated Mineral Resource Estimate for the Rowan Property, Ontario, Canada," dated April 26, 2024, and filed contemporaneously with this press release on April 26, 2024, prepared for West Red Lake by Sims Resources LLC, copies of which can be found on SEDAR+.

Discussion

The Rowan vein system has been the focus of most of the exploration on the property since the initial discovery of four subparallel narrow veins on surface at Discovery Hill. Since then, these veins have been drifted upon from underground on three levels and extensively drilled, including 62 drill holes for 20,211.4 m in 2023. The drilling completed at the Rowan mine deposit in 2023 focused on validating historical data across the inferred resource and also infilling apparent gaps in the analytical data set, which was a product of very selective sampling techniques implemented during previous drilling campaigns.

The overall deposit consists of numerous, narrow, high-grade quartz veins that define an east-northeast-trending corridor, approximately 150 m wide. This corridor mainly transects the lower mafic to intermediate metavolcanic units of the Ball assemblage in the hinge of the property-scale antiform and appears to dissipate once it intersects the unconformity with the metasedimentary Slate Bay assemblage to the east.

The best gold grades often occur when coarse and visible native gold is present. This occurs within distinct 10 centimetres to 30 cm up to a metre of bluish to grey, glassy quartz veins/stringer zones. Rarely do these individual veins exceed 60 cm wide with alteration halos tending to be localized. Broad zones of diffuse silicification have generally not been found. Trace to 1 per cent pyrite and pyrrhotite is common within these veins/stringers. Less common but a better positive indicator of gold grade is the occurrence of sphalerite, galena, arsenopyrite and chalcopyrite. Generally, total sulphides make up less than 2 per cent. Metallurgical tests indicate favourable recovery characteristics.

The previous interpretation of the Rowan vein system (Kita, 2022) was that the veins were emplaced after D2, and were essentially undeformed and highly continuous over hundreds of metres. Such an interpretation was supported by the consistency of multiple narrow vein occurrences in drill holes spanning long strike lengths. With the benefit of a tighter drill spacing and oriented core following the 2023 West Red Lake drill campaigns, this interpretation is no longer tenable. Strictly planar vein continuity could no longer be demonstrated since east-west-trending veins appeared to line up along east-northeast trends. Such an arrangement requires long trains of minor folds and transposition into the dominant fabric. This is further supported by: (i) strongly recrystallized textures in the quartz veins; (ii) dominant parallelism with the strong penetrative S2 foliation; (iii) the great-circle distribution of poles to foliation as measured in oriented core; and (iv) locally observed minor folds, showing that the veins are overprinted by the strong ductile D2 deformation.

Modelling such complex geological shapes as transposed vein systems can be achieved using implicit methods in Leapfrog provided enough closely spaced data present to capture the variability of the deformed vein geometries. This method is being used at the Madsen mine, where drill spacing is predominantly six metres or less. At Rowan, the drill spacing is not nearly as tight, but still tight enough to produce geologically plausible representations of the transposed vein geometries. Unfortunately, due to the wider drill spacing in some areas, the implicit shapes could not be adequately controlled for unsupported blowouts, which could lead to unreasonably inflated tonnage estimates. For this reason and to minimize dilution in the model, the implicit shapes were used only as a guide for manually constructed vein models, using the vein modelling tool in Leapfrog. This approach allowed the construction of more tightly controlled shapes that capture the structural style of the vein system yet remain optimized for use in resource estimation.

The result is a much more realistic model of the vein system that agrees with the structural observations at the deposit and core scales and that aligns with the structural setting and controls seen at other deposits within the belt, such as at the Madsen and Red Lake mines.

Quality assurance/quality control

Drilling completed at the Rowan property consists of oriented NQ-sized diamond drill core. All drill holes are systematically logged, photographed and sampled by a trained geologist at West Red Lake's Mount Jamie core processing facility. Minimum allowable sample length is 0.5 m. Maximum allowable sample length is 1.5 m. Standard reference materials and blanks are inserted at a targeted 5-per-cent insertion rate. The drill core is then cut lengthwise, utilizing a diamond blade core saw along a line preselected by the geologist. To reduce sampling bias, the same side of drill core is sampled consistently utilizing the orientation line as reference. For those samples containing visible gold, a trained geologist supervises the cutting/bagging of those samples and ensures the core saw blade is cleaned with a dressing stone following the VG sample interval. Bagged samples are then sealed with zip ties and transported by West Red Lake personnel directly to SGS Natural Resources' facility in Red Lake, Ont., for assay.

Samples are then prepped by SGS, which consists of drying at 105 C and crushing to 75 per cent passing two millimetres. A riffle splitter is then utilized to produce a 500-gram course reject for archive. The rest of the sample is then pulverized to 85 per cent passing 75 microns from which 50 grams are analyzed by fire assay and an atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) finish. Samples returning gold values greater than 10 g/t Au are reanalyzed by fire assay with a gravimetric finish on a 50-gram sample. Samples with visible gold are also analyzed by metallic screen analysis (SGS code: GO-FAS50M). For multielement analysis, samples are sent to SGS's facility in Burnaby, B.C., and analyzed by four-acid digest with an atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) finish for 33-element analysis on 0.25-gram sample pulps (SGS code: GE-ICP40Q12). SGS Natural Resources' analytical laboratories operate under a quality management system that complies with ISO/IEC 17025.

West Red Lake's Rowan property currently hosts a National Instrument 43-101 (Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects) indicated mineral resource of 473,974 tonnes at an average grade of 12.87 grams per tonne gold containing 196,120 ounces of gold, and an inferred mineral resource of 379,571 t at and average grade of 8.49 g/t Au, with a cut-off grade of 3.8 g/t Au (as set out in the technical report). The indicated and inferred mineral resources are located in the area of the historic underground Rowan mine site and situated within a 1.8-kilometre strike length portion of the regional-scale Pipestone Bay St. Paul deformation zone.

For a better understanding of the Rowan deposit, readers are encouraged to read the technical report and other public disclosure of the company, including all qualifications, assumptions, exclusions and risks that relate to the mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates. The technical report is intended to be read as a whole, and sections should not be read or relied upon out of context.

The technical information presented in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Will Robinson, PGeo, vice-president of exploration for West Red Lake and the qualified person for exploration at the West Red Lake project as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Robinson is not independent of West Red Lake.

About West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd.

West Red Lake is a mineral exploration company that is publicly traded and focused on advancing and developing its flagship Madsen gold mine and the associated 47-square-kilometre highly prospective land package in the Red Lake district of Ontario. The highly productive Red Lake gold district of Northwestern Ontario, Canada, has yielded over 30 million ounces of gold from high-grade zones and hosts some of the world's richest gold deposits. West Red Lake also holds the wholly owned Rowan property in Red Lake, with an expansive property position covering 31 square kilometres, including three past-producing gold mines: Rowan, Mount Jamie and Red Summit.

We seek Safe Harbor.