The playbook — gold · September 11, 2026
Wesdome confirms a fat high-grade zone deep under Kiena
A 57.2-metre hit at 7.8 g/t ties three holes across a 150-metre zone at Kiena Deep, and a new zone turns up near existing infrastructure.
On September 10, Wesdome reported a drill hole under its Kiena mine near Val-d’Or, Quebec that cut 57.2 metres grading 7.8 grams of gold per tonne — rich rock, and a lot of it. That intercept works out to about 446 gram-metres, a way of multiplying width by grade to compare hits: bigger is better, and this is a top-tier number. The hole was drilled on purpose between two earlier holes to test whether the gold in the Norbenite Footwall Zone joins up into one continuous body. It appears to. Wesdome also reported a second, new zone — the VZ Zone — found close to existing mine infrastructure.
This is the part that matters. This footwall hole is the third broad high-grade result tying the zone together over more than 150 vertical metres, sitting in competent basalt that is good ground to mine. Because the hole was an infill test rather than a step-out, it firms up continuity instead of just extending the reach — and the zone stays open, with about 300 metres of untested ground above it. The six VZ Zone holes are more modest, running 11 to 45 gram-metres each, but they are consistent and near infrastructure, which is where cheap tonnes come from. One narrow parallel vein returned 4.0 metres at 23.8 g/t — real, but a single sliver. Running the mine is Anthea Bath, appointed CEO in July 2023, who was COO at Ero Copper while it grew from a junior into a roughly $2-billion producer. The balance sheet is debt-free with over $350 million in cash, and the stock held its own and then some: WDO.TO ran 40.8% over three months while the junior gold index (GDXJ) rose 26.4% and gold itself gained 8.3% — roughly 1.5 times the peer index and five times the metal.
Now the honesty part. Wesdome states these are core lengths, not true widths — the real thickness of the zone still has to be modelled, so the headline 57.2 metres and every interval here may overstate how wide the mineralization actually is. No cut-off grade or compositing rule is given. The zone case rests on effectively two modern holes plus one historic intercept, and the flashy 23.8 g/t parallel vein rests on that single hole. Watch for more Norbenite Footwall drilling across that 300 metres of untested ground and aggressive VZ follow-up through the balance of 2026, both feeding the next Kiena resource update, whose timing is not stated.