"They had been mining gold there in the creeks for over a hundred years so we thought that was a pretty good sign," wryly comments Adrian Fleming, CEO and President of Vancouver-based Smash Minerals (SSH:TSX-V). Adrian was talking at the CIM Conference & Exhibition about his company's presence in the Yukon and their potential for further gold discoveries.

Although Smash Minerals is relatively new to the scene - they only launched on the TSX Venture Exchange in April of 2010 - the management team has years of experience between them and knows the Yukon and Klondike areas as well as anyone.

Adrian is an 'Aussie geologist' who has 'been in the minerals business for 35 years'. In 2007, he ran a company called Underworld Resources, which was fortunate enough to acquire an area to explore just south of the 'famous Dawson City that started the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898'.

 “Within a year Underworld had drilled and developed the area. Shortly after, in March 2010, Underworld was acquired by Kinross Gold for C$139M.”

Given the number of years he has already worked and the successes he has created, it would have been easy to call it a day at this point. However, Adrian gives us his take on the matter of his retirement: "Given the success we'd had with Underworld, we decided to go back to the Yukon and have a second attempt."

He then teamed up with Canadian ‘Prospector of the Year’ winners, Shawn Ryan and his wife, Cathy Wood, and as Smash Minerals, “staked a very large claim on rock immediately east of what we had with Underworld.” They took a chance since their claim was an area that had seen no systematic exploration. However, given the area’s extensive track record for producing gold, the group thought the site had serious potential and was well worth taking a calculated chance on.

Other key players in the Smash Minerals management team are Darryl Cardey and Darren Devine who, along with Adrian, put 'quite a bit of the seed capital into the new company before we listed it on the TSX Venture Exchange in April this year'. Other members of the management team include Greg Fekete and Steve Swaffield.

"We're out there to repeat what we've done before," Adrian says simply and confidently.There is an area of over 800 square kilometers, which straddles the Stewart River and last year, "we collected our first phase of chemical sampling - about 7,000 samples - and from that we identified about 9 locations with similar geological and geochemical footprints to the Golden Saddle deposit," Adrian explains. This year Smash Minerals intends to be even more go-getting in its exploration. "There're going to be 26 people on the ground, 8 geologists and we're going to do about $5.4M worth of work as disclosed in NR of July 5.

We're working very aggressively, very quickly, and we will be drilling an estimated 3000 m’s in Sept.

Adrian sees Smash Mineral's main strength as being its tightness - both in terms of staffing and also from a financial perspective. Perhaps because of his own age, "I'm 63," he understands the importance of experience and his team certainly has it. "Some of my technical team are the same people who worked with me in Underworld," he says proudly.

A bit of old-fashioned frugality helps, too. "We've kept the capital structure very tight, we've less than $20m shares out, and we see significant upsides to our stock.” In fact, Smash Minerals shares opened at $0.95; and have since risen to a high of $1.39 although the current trade price is around $1.20. The company has a market capitalization of $20.3m which "is still very conservative relative to a number of other companies working in the Yukon," he points out. At 17,000,000, the number of shares released is also on the low side - there are no warrants outstanding, either.

When it comes down to the wire, Adrian sees it as a matter of getting the focus right. "I have a number of people who would put me and Underworld back on the ground again. We have the good fortune to have the experience and the intellectual properties from the Underworld discoveries so we're primed up to this new area.”

The improvements in exploration and extraction technology have sparked a second, but infinitely more controlled, gold rush in the Yukon. Adrian reflects on Underworld’s role at the forefront of the new wave: "It's kind of interesting to see the number of companies working in the White Gold District," he says. "We were the first company. There're 60 or 70 companies working in there now."

Adrian's naturally upbeat about his own company's potential and, as he colorfully adds, "There's no certainty in this game but, well, you know, I think the stars are aligned pretty well to give us an opportunity."

What does Adrian think of his resume as it would now read? "I'm getting to the twilight of my career," he says jokingly, "I'm 63 and it's kind of cool to think that you actually did something which rewarded the shareholders of Underworld Resources, started a new gold rush in Canada," and, he adds, "we're still part of it."

Summary

Adrian Fleming, CEO and president of Smash Minerals from Vancouver, talks at the CIM Conference & Exhibition 2011 about his company's presence in the Yukon, and how his team's previous success and experience with Underworld is helping them to develop their 800 square kilometer gold resource.

For more information:

http://www.smashminerals.com

INVESTOR RELATIONS

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Smash Minerals Corp.

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