Newton Interviews - Joey Freeze Candente Gold

Peter Bell’s
Patient Speculator
Deep Dives with the Most
#InterestingExecutives
Candente Gold
(TSXV:CDG)
Read on for a transcript of an hour-long interview with Ms. Joanne Freeze, President
& CEO of Candente Gold (TSXV:CDG). You can listen to the original recording of the
interview with relevant images from the company’s presentation on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNL9MQ1d3NE
Recorded May 18, 2018 in Vancouver.

Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 1
Peter Bell: Hello Joey, thanks very much for meeting with me today. We’ve got a full
hour together to talk about things at Candente Gold
Joey Freeze: You’re welcome, Peter. I will admit I’m a bit apprehensive about talking for
a full hour as so many of these interviews seem to just cover the same
questions again and again, but let’s give it a shot.
Peter Bell: Great. Let’s see what we can do! Now, I had a chance to see a report by
3RD EYE Research on the company that I enjoyed. There was some care in it
and I thought it was more readable than your typical analyst report. He hit
everything on the checklist, but I first read it from the back to front. The list
of directors at the end was very impressive. Please can we start there?
Joey Freeze: Sure, Peter. Our assets are solid and you know that by the people on the
Board. They are serious mining professionals who have been successful in
their careers and they joined our Board because they see serious potential
for us to have success with Candente Gold. If you were to just look at our
share price then you might think, “What are these guys doing?”, but this is a
tough business. These Directors have gotten involved because our asset is
what it is.
Peter Bell: And they're still there on the Board – these people are not just legacy
appointments that are on their way out from the company?
Joey Freeze: No.
Peter Bell: How actively involved are they?
Joey Freeze: They don't micromanage me, but they are involved. They vet every news
release, attend meetings, and represent the company in their travels. Money
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Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 2
is tight right now and I show them all the bills. They help me decide which
ones we can pay and which ones we should delay, because we're in it
together. They are investors in the company. We have our proper
committees for fiduciary duties. Paul Barry's our chair of the board. He's a
Harvard MBA and he recently raised several billion for Hydro One.
Peter Bell: Great.
Joey Freeze: They're very concerned about corporate governance, due diligence, and all
those things.
Peter Bell: And I liked what I read about your long-term involvement in the company. I
believe it started as a private company 13 years ago?
Joey Freeze: No, it was a spin-out. Candente Resource Corp was private from '97 to 2000
before going public. We were in Peru, initially, and looking to find another
Pierina, which was a grassroots exploration discovery of a high sulphidation
gold deposit.
We had a lot of great prospects. The painting in my office with the horses
was based on a photo taken at 4,500 meters at one of our first projects,
which was called the Pamel Project. Freddy Huanqui is in that painting, too.
He’s an exceptional geologist. He could pick out alunite from a satellite
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 3
photograph based on certain band waves and we’d just get on the horse to
go find the alunite. That painting was based on one of those adventures. The
alunite, of course, is typically associated with high-sulphidation gold
deposits and that's how we discovered Pamel. That deposit didn't turn out,
but it was a great prospect. It had gold, but just not a enough for a deposit.
In any case, eventually, the copper project, Cañariaco, became available

from the government. Freddy phoned me one day and said, "Are we
interested in copper?" He said, "It’s got enough drill holes in it that they're
kind of arm-waving a resource, but it is at least something solid." I said,
"Copper is a great metal. I do like copper."
Peter Bell: You have to.
Joey Freeze: For me, copper is life. Gold is money and copper is life.
I said, "What's the minimum in the auction?" He said, "$75,000." I said,

"Well, I think that's about how much we have in the bank right now!"
Peter Bell: Oh no.
Joey Freeze: I was actually on a road show at the time in Europe with somebody that was
helping me raise money for gold, who was very much a goldbug. We won
the auction for this copper project while I was in Europe. Other people tried
to participate but we were the only bidder, as it turned out. We won the
auction for US$75,000 and had a month to pay it. We got an extension for
another month or two.
In the meantime, the person that took me to Europe to meet people to raise
money for gold gave me a few extra days to tour around.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 4
Peter Bell: Extra days are good.
Joey Freeze: I started making cold calls. A few friends from Vancouver gave me some
names and I started getting in touch with people.
Peter Bell: Get to work!
Joey Freeze: I actually met some people who offered to help me buy the copper project
and when the goldbug heard about that he got quite angry with me. He
thought I was calling people behind his back and, even worse, spending
money on copper! He was livid. I said, "Look. This is what makes sense to
me: Every penny you raise for me, I'll spend on gold. Every penny somebody
else gives me, and they want me to spend on copper, I'll spend it on copper."
Peter Bell: I start to see the separation of Candente Copper and Candente Gold.
Joey Freeze: That’s a whole other story. We got Cañariaco in 2002 but didn’t spin-out
Candente Gold until 2010. Anyway, copper prices didn't really move much
after we got Cañariaco until 2004. When copper prices started going up, we
started drilling at Cañariaco. We did one program and then another. You
have to pace these things as you wait to get your results back, but we were
basically finding copper every day we drilled. That helped give some
excitement to the company and the incremental funding led us to focus on
Cañariaco, which is a porphyry copper deposit rather than the gold targets.
In 2006, we were looking for opportunities outside of Peru and started

looking at Mexico. Somebody in Vancouver heard about that and introduced
us to the Wheaton River Group, which merged with Goldcorp in 2014 and
was looking to option out all of their exploration projects that came with the
Luismin portfolio. They had bought Luismin for the Tayoltita Mine, but Ian
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 5
Telfer didn’t like exploration so they were hand-picking juniors that they
thought were good explorers to compete for the various exploration
projects. We won the exploration contest and that’s where El Oro came
from. The original deal was that they would retain a strong back-in right.
They would let us go and find some ounces and then come back in.
Peter Bell: Sounds like smart deal.
Joey Freeze: The deal was the deal. We couldn't negotiate it even if we wanted to.
Remember that we had to compete with other juniors to get the property.
Peter Bell: Right. They had all the cards.
Joey Freeze: After we started working on El Oro, we basically spent $1.7 million and found
mineralization at depth below the old workings at four different vein
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 6
systems. The gold and silver continues at depth – it didn't stop where they
stopped mining.
That wasn't enough to get the market very interested, but it was enough to
re-negotiate with Goldcorp. I don't remember the timelines of the
renegotiations, but we eventually did give them a back-in right to the area
around the old mine and then we spent another $1.5-1.7 million in the
surrounding area. We didn't find anything out there, so they didn't back-in.
Then, we went to work on the areas that we really liked.
Peter Bell: And this was after their back-in option expired, right?
Joey Freeze: Yes. They had no right to back-in anymore, but they still owned the property
as we hadn’t completed the earn-in on the option agreement yet. We got
50% locked-in after we spent $5 million, which occurred around 2011. Then,
we spent another $5 million by May of 2012 and locked-in a 70% interest. At
that point, they surprised us by communicating that they planned to
participate with our spending on the project to retain their 30% interest and
we put together a budget assuming they would be contributing 30%. Of
course, they took till the very last hour of the last day to say, “After all, we
are not participating.” We were on our own at that point, which was a mixed
blessing.
Peter Bell: Right. Tough to lose one-third of the funding for your budget, but potentially
good to have a pathway to 100% ownership, right?
Joey Freeze: Yes, except that the formula for earning them out would have required us to
spend $40 million to get them down to an NSR.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 7
Peter Bell: Wow. In addition to the first two rounds of spending?
Joey Freeze: No. That first $10 million would have counted towards it, but we were
looking at spending another $30 million to get 100% of the project.
Peter Bell: That's a lot.
Joey Freeze: It is. What do you do? We’ve already committed a large amount of capital to
the project and we didn’t want to walk away from it, but the funding markets
were very weak following the peak in the gold price in 2011.
Joey Freeze: We spent a year looking at the tailings as an opportunity to generate capital.
We talked extensively with the municipality, who owned the tailings. The
President of the municipality, which is like a Mayor, and the Cabildo, which
is like a municipal board, were open to talking with us because they
understood the history of mining there.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 8
We kept explaining it to them and I spent a lot of time in the town with them.
Lots of meetings. It took a year, but we got a deal on the tailings and then
we started testing it. Unfortunately, the recovery was difficult – more
difficult than we had hoped.
Peter Bell: Of course. These tailings projects are always full of curveballs, whether it’s
metallurgy or geotech or permitting.
Joey Freeze: Then, Sun River Gold came along. They wanted to figure out the metallurgy
as a way for them to earn-in on the tailings. We thought that was a
reasonable deal for our shareholders, so we made a first deal with them
where they could earn 51% interest after they proved it was economic. That
became a sticking point because they felt they had proved it was, but we
said they hadn't because it wasn't 43-101 compliant. It was an issue because
I couldn't go and raise money without it being 43-101 compliant.
Peter Bell: Did the contract with them specify a PEA or PFS or anything?
Joey Freeze: There was enough language in there to protect our interest. We worked that
out and now have a deal where they can earn a 100% interest in the tailings
but have to give us a series of payments that amounts to a total of $500,000
over a couple years. We get US$30,000 every three months and some other
big payments. They also have to put in production within 2.5 years.
Peter Bell: And that's the tailings?
Joey Freeze: Yes. And we get a 5% NPI. We're already getting a little cash flow but,
hopefully, they'll generate serious cash flow.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 9
Peter Bell: Is that NPI a non-participating interest based on the top line or the bottom
line?
Joey Freeze: It's a net profit interest – bottom line. It is significant to have our partners
Sun River Gold working on that aggressively as it allows us to concentrate on
the hard-rock prospects.
Peter Bell: When did those payments from Sun River start to kick in?
Joey Freeze: They started paying us when we did the initial deal, which was two years
ago. They stopped while we renegotiated, but they started again in
November when we secured the new 100% deal.
Peter Bell: Great. And you're keeping the hard rock El Oro separate?
Joey Freeze: Yes. We have it in separate companies. Everything to do with the Tailings is
in a BVI Tailings company, which is owned by Candente Gold. We can sell
that company separately, which has nothing to do with the hard rock assets.
Peter Bell: Good. That may help to simplify things down the line. Thank you very much.
Joey Freeze: You're welcome.
Peter Bell: All of this ancient history bring us up to speed. All of that story we just
discussed covers more than 10 years.
Joey Freeze: Time flies in this business.
Peter Bell: And we all have to run to keep up with it! No time to sit on your ores or
anything. Bear market or not, you've got to keep going.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 10
Joey Freeze: Exactly. When you find good assets, you have to advance them. I've drilled a
lot of holes and have gotten excited about things that didn't pan out, but
that's exploration. All that experience just makes me more certain that when
you do find something that is producing results, you have to stick with it.
Peter Bell: And El Oro is one of those.
Joey Freeze: Yes, it is.
Peter Bell: The historical production numbers there are amazing, eh?
Joey Freeze: They are a bit unbelievable.
Peter Bell: And to have so much gold in Mexico, too. I believe that’s a bit of a surprise.
When you look at the regional map, there are so many mines in the area. It's
just prolific.
Joey Freeze: What I love about El Oro is that you have two veins so close together hidden
by up to 300 meters of younger volcanics. Everything had to be found
underground, except for one little window. As an exploration geologist, I
really appreciate how difficult that was and get very excited thinking about
what they didn’t find!
Those 2 veins produced 8 millions ounce gold equivalent. One vein, San
Rafael, was 4 million ounces gold and 44 million ounces silver. That's the
most exciting place I want to get back to. The first place I want to go is the
San Rafael because I think that'll prove the model – prove that we have
something like Juanicipio and the other low-sulphidation systems in Mexico
that have stacked boiling systems with ore bodies upon ore bodies. Then,
we can work on the 31 new targets, which are in the same camp.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 11
Peter Bell: This map with all these 31 targets, the lines on the map look like 500 meter
spacings.
Joey Freeze: The property itself is over 13,000 hectares.
Peter Bell: That’s a fair size, but still close enough for you to manage some good work
programs. And the geology of these low-sulphidation systems, what kind of
prep was going to create these kinds of veins?
Joey Freeze: The main veins are north-westerly. The pregnant fluids with the gold and
silver follow a north-westerly structure, but there's also a north-easterly
structure somewhere along the way that cuts across it and actually controls
the high-grade. All that suggests you have one pulse of mineralization
following the north-westerly structure, but then another pulse following the
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 12
north-easterly structure. Where the two come together, you end up with
much higher grade material. These mineralizing fluids get trapped in
complicated structural settings so these structural intersections are always
interesting targets.
We have some proof of this structural interpretation of the camp in aster

images analyzed by Nadia Caira. Following that work, I started looking back
through the literature and actually found where the old-timers talk about
seeing this geological phenomenon in the San Rafael vein in underground
workings at the border of the Esperanza mine and the Mexico mine.
There were three mines in that San Rafael vein. The southern-most one was
called El Oro, the middle one was Esperanza, and the northern one was
called Mexico. The Mexico mine was the highest grade and we drilled
several holes right near the Mexico-Esperanza border targeting a pocket of
high-grade ore that we believed was missed by the old-timers because the
Mexico mine went deeper than the Esperanza.
Peter Bell: That's a great drill target.
Joey Freeze: We drilled three holes there and when I looked at the section showing where
we found the higher grades, I thought there has to be something vertical
going on there – something cross-cutting the veins at this point. That's all I
could say at the time because we didn’t have a detailed understanding of it
then.
Peter Bell: Said like a true explorationist.
Joey Freeze: Look at this cross section of our drilling into the San Rafael here. You can see
where the San Rafael got mined out? We're targeting below that.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 13
Our first two holes didn't get to the main target because we lost the holes.
That’s not particularly surprising because it is hard to drill through 300
meters of younger volcanics from surface and this un-conformity that was
very blocky with a lot of clay in that. It's hard to keep your drill targeted
where you want it with all of that overburden.
Joey Freeze: In any case, we lost two holes before we reached the target below the vein
but we hit these two other parallel veins above that and got good grades.
We also got disseminated mineralization in the volcanics above that with up
to 75 meters of 1 gram per tonne gold. That was a surprise as we were not
seeing that anywhere else in the camp. We drilled a lot of holes trying to
chase this disseminated target in the Somera tuff elsewhere in the camp, but
we didn’t see it anywhere else. You may get some disseminated gold
elsewhere, but we never saw that much disseminated gold as in this area.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 14
Finally, we got a hole down there into our target below the old workings and
found good grades well below the old workings. So the system is alive and
well down there. What does that mean? Why are you getting such high
grades in several different structures down there, one above the other?
That's got to be something happening top-down – vertically – right?
Peter Bell: Yup.
Joey Freeze: We knew this before the structural interpretation, but I didn't understand
what it could all mean. Now that Nadia has identified these north-easterly
structures or veins, it all makes sense to me: these structures are getting
cross-cut.
Again, you see it mentioned in the old literature. The old-timers talked about
a north-westerly vein and a north-easterly vein in the San Rafael vein at the
Mexico mine and the Esperanza mine, and that's where I want to drill.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 15
Joey Freeze: You can also add a more theoretical model to this picture based on where
we saw the buddingtonite. The buddingtonite is found here in the
disseminated mineralization in the Somera tuff. The buddingtonite is a clay
mineral that happens at the top of a system in what's called the Sinter cap.
Based on the model, if you're finding buddingtonite here, your gold ore body
is going to be down here, several hundred meters below. This buddingtonite
is right next door to what was mined out in San Rafael, so that is not the
buddingtonite you'd expect to have from the mined system – it's not the
sinter cap for this system. The sinter cap for this system is way up there, but
it's been eroded off. It's gone now. This buddingtonite with the disseminated
gold indicates something deeper. Again, that says something deeper.
These two diagrams are really the same –we could even put them on the
same panel.
Peter Bell: Totally. That’s a great geological model you’re building up there.
Joey Freeze: Thanks, Peter. It’s funny because I usually create a corporate presentation
for me to explain it, not for other people to look through and figure they
have to go buy the stock. Maybe I’m going about that the wrong way.
Peter Bell: I think that’s okay, Joey. Exploration is not for everybody – investing in these
exploration companies requires a very high degree of commitment to
understanding the story. If you really want to ride the ups and downs of
these stocks and make informed decisions about whether a company has
had success or failure, then you have do your homework.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 16
Peter Bell: Are you at the point where you understand the sequences of events at El
Oro with the multiple pulses of mineralization and the faulting and
everything else?
Joey Freeze: Yes, to a large degree.
The sequence of events starts with a north-westerly structure like this where
the fluids come up and precipitate gold and silver over an area of 200 meters
or so on the average. Then, another system comes up later. These fluids can
come up and recede several times, which is why you get these stacked ore
bodies. Each time they come up, they may take a different pathway and
precipitate minerals at a different level – stacked boiling system. You could
have some precipitating up here, another down here, and so on. All this is
similar to what happened at Juanicipio, when it was discovered by MAG
Silver in the Fresnillo camp. They knew about one vein, but then they found
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 17
another one right nearby. The top of that second vein didn't have as much
gold mineralization as the first vein, but it did have rich grades much deeper.
And they explored for that deeper gold because they found the
buddingtonite in the second vein. Once they found the buddingtonite they
knew they should drill deeper.
Peter Bell: Right. What's this doing here?
Joey Freeze: It’s telling you that there’s another system deeper. You’ve got to drill
deeper!
Peter Bell: Yup.
Joey Freeze: The ore body at Juanicipio is much deeper than the ore body in the vein next
door, so you've got to understand these systems.
Peter Bell: Any idea why the precipitation would be happening at such different
depths? Was there some shift in the distance above sea level for these rocks
caused by some tectonic activity between these different pulses of
mineralization, or was it just that different pulses have different intensities?
Joey Freeze: It’s largely based on what's going on at the time, locally. Different
mineralizing events precipitate the gold and silver at different depths based
on temperatures and pressures, as you’re alluding to.
Peter Bell: And with these younger volcanics at surface, it looks like a pretty active area
in terms of volcanic?
Joey Freeze: Yes, indeed.
Peter Bell: And would you call this southern Mexico?
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 18
Joey Freeze: I would call it central Mexico, it's northwest of Mexico City.
Peter Bell: Always humbling when I start to look at the map of Mexico and all the mining
going on there. And everything that’s going on there now with the oil
industry – big changes there with a massive privatization effort. And that has
some precedent in the mining industry, too.
Joey Freeze: Right.
Peter Bell: When did you first start to go down to Mexico? You mentioned Peru.
Joey Freeze: I first went to Chile in '89-'90 and really liked South America. I realized that
it had a very similar geological settings to what we're used to seeing in BC –
the rocks can be the same anywhere. I also did mining tours in Spain and
Portugal and other parts of the world, so I was starting to recognize that
there are similarities around the world. As long as you understand your
geology, it’s a question of where you want to work.
When I came back to Vancouver, I was working as a QP in the diamond

exploration industry and had very young children. My husband at the time
was working in Peru and his employer wanted him to live there and work as
their exploration manager. It was a new time in Peru because the Fujimori
government had gotten the terrorists under control and international
investment was coming back into the country. We moved there with our kids
in July of '94 and stayed there for three years. We didn't know how long we
were going to stay. The first company we went for ran out of money.
Peter Bell: It happens!
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 19
Joey Freeze: But there were so many Canadians were coming down there that I had a lot
of work as a consulting geologist. We eventually started looking at what was
going on in Mexico and thought that was an important area to look at. It’s
important to be diversified and it was another country where I understood
the geology somewhat and had an edge with the language and
understanding the culture.
Peter Bell: So you've seen some bull markets and some bear markets up close and
personal.
Joey Freeze: Certainly.
Peter Bell: It's amazing that we stick with it after such a wild ride.
Joey Freeze: I know. When I first started working in university, I worked in coal for two
years. I did my thesis and worked part-time my last year. Then all of a sudden
gold moved at the same time I graduated and I got a job offer to manage a
crew of ten in gold exploration. I said to the fellow that was offering me the
job, "That's sounds fantastic, but I don't know anything about gold." He said,
"Gold's just gone from $350 an ounce to over $800. You're a geologist, you'll
figure it out." I said, "I sure will."
Peter Bell: Good for you. Jump right in! And Dan noted something interesting about
magical towns in Mexico. What is he referring to?
Joey Freeze: The tourism department of the states in Mexico have been promoting
Pueblos Mágicos because many of the towns that had mining in the historic
era in the 1800's and 1900's have beautiful buildings. El Oro y Tlalpujahua,
which is the town next door that is also covered by our property, both have
cathedrals. In El Oro, there's a palace and an opera house. The opera house
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 20
has hosted very famous singers and still functions very well, which is really
rare for a town in the mountains like this. It's at 3,000 meters with very fresh
air. It's all very clean, so it’s just a magical town and they’ve recognized that
with this El Pueblo Mágico branding.
They've also been able to fix up some of the old mine workings/tunnels with
some funding from state tourism department. We actually have a tourism
agreement that allows them to go into one of our tunnels. They’ve made
quite a beautiful little entrance area there and have insisted on keeping it
rustic, as it should be. Thousands of people come through the town some
days and we’ve had more than 500 people come through the old mine site
some weekends.
Peter Bell: That sounds like the legacy of a successful mining town. So many times, these
towns turn into ghost towns and have such bad sides while they're still
populated. A lot of mining towns are not nice places. It’s surprising to hear
about a mining town with a opera house – that is not something I've ever
heard of before.
Joey Freeze: No, it’s pretty unique. I think it reflects that they made good money at El
Oro. People came there from France, England, Germany, and other
countries. They brought lovely things from Europe.
Peter Bell: And you spend time there yourself. How much time are you there at site
these days?
Joey Freeze: When we're active, I'm there at least every two months. When I was there
negotiating the deal on the tailings, I stayed there for weeks until we got
things done. It varies, but I'm comfortable being there. I have a lot of things
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 21
I should be doing in Vancouver any given day, but I could live there. If my
children were younger, then I would not have a problem taking them to live
there. It's a very safe place. My children have visited El Oro and done
photographic tours there. It’s probably one of the safest places in all of
Mexico.
Peter Bell: That’s very important, right? No shortage of horror stories about Mexico
these days. In comparison to Guerrero, for example.
Joey Freeze: I don't travel to a lot of other places in Mexico because my access to El Oro
is through Mexico City, so I can't really compare it other than the stories we
hear about the rest of Mexico as you say.
Peter Bell: And I don't watch much of that news myself. I don't need to hear too many
of those stories.
And how do you manage everything in the concrete jungle here in Vancouver
yourself as CEO? I guess years of experience helps.
Joey Freeze: It sure does.
Peter Bell: And your board of Directors, which we talked about.
Joey Freeze: When I started Candente, I went from being just a geologist who knew the
rules about raising money because I was the QP or qualified person before
the 43-101 rules were even in existence and then learned all about the
corporate. When I started Candente I had a lady join me, Lola Montagne,
who was Peruvian and living in Vancouver. She was my EA and corporate
secretary for fourteen years.
Peter Bell: Wow.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 22
Joey Freeze: When we had to reduce our spending, she left and I had to become the
corporate secretary. So I actually took a PubCo course two weeks ago. I now
have a new assistant named Maria Paz Alfaro who's learning and wanted to
take the course. When she showed me the curriculum, I said, "I'll take it with
you." I wanted to find out what I don't know!
It was two days at SFU Downtown and many lawyers from the TSX came by
to give presentations. It got a little embarrassing by the end because they
kept asking "Who's ever done this before? Who’s done that?", and my hand
was always up. Turns out that I do know the fundamentals pretty well. I don't
know every rule, but I know where to go to look and find things I may not
know.
Peter Bell: Good to hear you weren’t doing anything wrong for the last twenty years.
Joey Freeze: There are always things to learn, but I had a good handle on most of it. And
what that means for Candente is that we don't spend a lot of money on
lawyers. Between Maria Paz, our CFO who works part-time but is very
knowledgeable, and I, we can do almost everything in-house. We're doing
all our AGM materials right now and the lawyers will have a last look, but
they don't have to prepare the documents for us.
Peter Bell: That’s great for cost and speed, too. Important that you can do things quickly
and with confidence because you have internal control over what's being
done. I'm sure that the directors appreciate that.
Joey Freeze: Indeed, they do. Of course, we’d rather be well-funded and allow me to
spend more time thinking about where to drill next, but in the meantime it
does help to be able to save money and get our work done.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 23
Peter Bell: Well, the market will come back at some point but, in the meantime,
monetizing the tailings and everything was a great place to start. Those
tailings can be so difficult.
Joey Freeze: Sun River Gold is a private company run by four engineers and they wanted
to take it on, which was perfect for us.
Peter Bell: Perfect for four engineers, too. And your exposure or the money you'd
derive from that, there's some production related and there's also some just
base cash?
Joey Freeze: Yes, periodic payments up to $500,000 by the time we're in production and
then the NPI should kick in.
Peter Bell: Thanks again. A well-designed deal.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 24
Speaking of potential acquirers, I can't imagine a property of El Oro’s calibre

wouldn't be on the radar of quite a few players, both big and small. Have any
geologists visited the property over the past year or so?
Joey Freeze: I can say, "Yes. Absolutely." It's an interesting line of questioning that’s
telling about what we’ve been up to these last few years. Before we got
Goldcorp out, they still had the 30% interest in El Oro and I could not get a
major or anybody with production to visit the property. Why would they?
That’s caused things to go slowly for us, but we’ve stayed busy. I've attended
the Discoveries Conference in Mexico in April the last two years and that's
really helped. Being there with core samples and everything has increased
our profile. It's a very small conference and pretty much everybody who is
exploring in Mexico has some representative there. That's been a great way
to raise our profile and we've had some really good site visits since January
of 2017. It's just over a year where things are picking up and we look forward
to something significant coming out of all those efforts.
The people we've had on the property who are so knowledgeable in these
systems because they have operating mines and exploration projects in low-
sulphidation epithermal systems in Mexico. It's been very encouraging to
talk with these people who understand what we have in our core shed.
Looking through the core for days on end is just a treat and then seeing the
expressions on their faces is very encouraging. Some of these people are
convinced that we are still very high in system, which means the system has
a lot of legs left.
Peter Bell: Yes, indeed.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 25
Joey Freeze: Even though it's produced four million ounces of gold and forty-four million
ounces of silver, the vein textures show that we are still at a high-level and
seeing overlapping systems. We've had some really interesting discussions
on potential deal structure.
The difficulty for us has been in our current market cap, which is quite low.
How do you bring a strategic partner to invest in the company without giving
them the entire project for too little money? Discussions are ongoing and an
increase in share price will actually help us in that regard.
Peter Bell: That’s an interesting point about a rising share price giving you better terms
to allow new investment. There’s always royalty interests on the project
rather than strategic investments into the company itself. It seems like
Sandstorm is out there funding half of the exploration industry this year! But
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 26
it’s hard to get much recognition for potential value of El Oro with it at an
early stage.
Joey Freeze: Yes. I think we'd rather have strategic equity investors.
Peter Bell: How about Goldcorp? I've heard Mr. Garofalo talk about how they want to
do deals with all kinds of partners on all kinds of projects.
Joey Freeze: I don't know how they feel about Mexico since they shut down all of their
Mexican exploration. I met him last week at an event for Women Who Rock
where we auctioned mentors to young professionals, but I wouldn't
approach Goldcorp right now. If they're interested, then they will let me
know but I'd rather deal with a different entity.
To be honest, it's probably not a big company that would be best for us now.
If they take a key position, then people will just think we're controlled by
them again and have limited upside.
Peter Bell: Yes, you want somebody a little bit hungrier to help advance El Oro quickly.
Joey Freeze: And that may be investors themselves rather than other gold mining
companies. There may be some new investors who understand what we are
working on here and want to take a good position in Candente Gold.
Peter Bell: There sure are gold bugs out there. Maybe even more everyday.
Sometimes having sister companies like Candente Copper and Candente

Gold can hurt the two companies where you end up competing for
investment from common shareholders?
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 27
Joey Freeze: No, I think we've found the opposite. It comes back to one of the reasons we
spun out Candente Gold in the first place if you think back to the story of the
goldbug in Europe that I told you. We explored El Oro in 2006-2007 then sat
back in 2008-2009 during the economic turmoil and spun out Candente Gold
in 2010. The reason being is that it was attracting very different kinds of
investors. One company was copper, the other was gold-silver. Furthermore,
Cañariaco was in pre-feasibility and moving towards feasibility while El Oro
was an exploration story. The commodity and stage of the two projects,
attracted different investors. We have some co-investors who like both
stories, but they are really quite separate. It hasn’t been a problem in that
way.
Peter Bell: And your office here, there's a bunch of different public companies here. Are
you part of a group per se?
Joey Freeze: No, not really. There were some sister companies that had this whole floor,
but when times got tough, they started renting out offices to different
companies. We moved in here in 2015 and it's been fantastic. If we do grow
a bit, then we can but we have everything we need now for corporate office
and the cost savings are fantastic.
Peter Bell: 2015 was the time to be tightening the belt. That was the time when you're
either going to give up and go do something else or find a way to make it
work. Candente Gold shares are trading around a nickel now. How about
financings –has there been anything recently or any news about plans for
new rounds?
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 28
Joey Freeze: We just hired Dan and his team at Third Eye Research. We will give them
some time to find new followers for us and then see where things are at
before we start talking about additional financings.
Peter Bell: Sometimes it feels like the blind leading the blind in the junior space. There
are some groups that always seem to be able to raise whatever funds they
need based on prior success, but it’s really important to get the story out
there.
I've been hanging around it since I was probably a teenager, watching the
economic side of things. The markets provide a great way to follow what's
happening in the world with Doctor Copper and the gold markets reflecting
all kinds of important events. And you're a geologist, right?
Joey Freeze: Yes.
Peter Bell: And even a mentor for some other young geologists now.
Joey Freeze: They seem to think

that just because
I'm 60 years old, I
should have
something to share.
I have a few stories
of course and I’m
happy to help
because this
mentoring is a great idea.
Peter Bell: The Women who Rock group are doing great work.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 29
Joey Freeze: Women in Mining had an event last week, as well. I talked to a lot of young
ladies there and it’s getting to be quite a good group of people.
Peter Bell: Good to hear you mention the conferences in Mexico over the past couple
years, too. That community of people coming together again and again is
very important.
Joey Freeze: The conference in Mexico is interesting because they really concentrate on
exploration. Everybody gets a chance to go up on stage and tell their story,
and room to bring your core. They really encouraged to bring your drill core,
which is important for us as an exploration company. And the conference is
small enough that there's no reason everybody who goes to that conference
can't meet everybody, which is such a breath of fresh air after the PDAC.
Peter Bell: It was my first time going to PDAC this year and it was an interesting
experience. I went with a company and just exclusively focused on helping
that company because I sensed that it could be an overwhelming experience
if you tried to do too much.
Joey Freeze: It's wild.
Peter Bell: And PDAC is all about geology. How about all these targets you have at El
Oro? Do you have a good sense for possible work programs how to prioritize
all these targets?
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 30
Joey Freeze: We need ground truth first. I mentioned the place I would focus drilling on
the San Rafael vein earlier in the conversation and that is very important,
but we also have to get out and investigate these other targets that were
developed by Nadia after we finished our drilling. Nadia came in and did a
massive amount of data compilation work to try and help us understand the
controls to mineralization – where do we go from here?
When we acquired the project, we started drilling right away because we

already had targets. Our first round, Larry Kornze, who was a Barrick
geologist for many years, and Mike Casselman, who had worked for
Cominco, had done the first work at El Oro. They loved the project and gave
us several targets that we drilled underneath San Raphael, Vida Verde, Borda
Vein, and Corona veins. We established evidence that all four of these vein
systems continue at depth and have good grades.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 31
When we launched Candente Gold as its own company, we had the money
to hire Mark Pryor, who had run a project at El Oro for Placer Dome and still
had all of Placer’s old data. He had targets for where to find the first one
million ounces, so we just dove right in and drilled his targets.
Peter Bell: Wow. That's a nice roadmap.
Joey Freeze: Yes, indeed. And that's why we drilled all these holes underneath the old
workings. The holes were anomalous, but the market didn't get excited by
our results and we didn't come up with a resource. When you talk to people
from Agnico Eagle and all the other big players in Mexico, they say that the
grades we got here are exactly what to expect in the system. Now you need
to know where the high-grade is.
Joey Freeze: And that's the area we were targeting when we drilled these holes in this
long section. Again, because the Mexico Mine went deeper than the
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 32
Esperanza mine we have a great target for high-grade to demonstrate the

model. The reason part of this was not mined out was because it was a
property boundary, not anything to do with geology.
There's a fault here, so everything is down-dropping as you're going north

and you can see that's deeper than it was here but there's no vertical fault
here following the property line that we know of. And we did get these two
holes didn't get San Raphael but they got other veins that were shallower,
and this hole did get San Raphael right there. All that fit with what Mark
Pryor had predicted, but it wasn’t enough. We decided to step back and re-
evaluate things to get a better handle on understanding the system, so we
built a 3D model.
Peter Bell: Using old production numbers and everything?
Joey Freeze: Yes. And now we have a good idea of gold grade distribution, silver, and all
the metals. And the vein widths. Have you seen how wide the vein gets in
some spots? Over 30 meters.
Peter Bell: I saw mention of 70 meters in Dan’s report. I thought that was just stunning.
Joey Freeze: We also documented the various controls for mineralization and all that
helps you understand the system. It all comes together to gives us the idea
that this is a blind district. The ASTER/structural analysis and the geochem
throughout the area. And then you come up with 31 targets.
Peter Bell: God, it’s the full suite of data for a brownfield project.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 33
Joey Freeze: That’s right. We know about the alteration, the structural setting, various
different rock types – the felsic intrusions and that sort of thing. We can put
all that together to give a matrix to understand these 31 targets.
We've already prioritized the top 10 based on all these things and now we
need to ground truth. We need some serious geological mapping, which
we’ve never done before at El Oro. Neither has anyone else before us, either.
We want to do that first. I would put a team out to ground-truth these 31
targets and concentrate on these 10 targets we’ve already prioritized with
all this other information and then ground-truth everything else. There’s a
lot of good mapping and sampling for us to do here.
At the same time, we would get drilling here on the Mexico Mine. I don't
need any more work to be done on the rest of the property to understand
that target any better – I just need to get the drills in here. Once we get the
drills in here and prove that Peter MeGaw's theories are panning out. It’s not
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 34
just Peter MeGaw’s ideas, but his ideas are very significant to understanding
these kinds of targets in Mexico. He has worked with me on these concepts
to prove that we have another system down here in the San Raphael vein.
Multiply that by 31 and we're off to the races!
If we have success with the drill there first, then we can take it over to those
over targets, right? After your ground crew has ground-truthed a lot of what
Nadia came up with here, then you can figure out where you're going to drill
on these targets.
Peter Bell: Good. I think those work programs will make sense to the market right now.
Joey Freeze: Yes, it should.
Peter Bell: The combination of drilling on a well-known target that's really specific, but
also conceptually significant for the geological model on the rest of the
project area is just great. The surface work with sampling and the mapping
over a large area makes for a great one-two punch for you to generate
different types of results.
Joey Freeze: And if you recall, I mentioned that there was up to 300 meters of volcanic
cover above the San Raphael vein at the Mexico mine but it is not the same
throughout the property. The Western area will be easier because it’s closer
to surface. You're not drilling through 300 meters of younger volcanics to get
our targets there. Over here the sediments hosting the veins are actually
exposed.
Peter Bell: Oh really?
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 35
Joey Freeze: Yes, that's why they started mining in the western area. The Spaniards
discovered the gold and silver here first. There was more silver than gold in
that area, but they were mining from surface whereas the San Raphael and
Vida Verde had to be found underground. A lot of these 31 targets I referred
to are located out here to the west.
Peter Bell: Great stuff, Joey. So many questions from that – this is the kind of stuff the
geologists who’ve been doing site visits just love to discuss. So this is it – this
is the single asset exploration story for the company?
Joey Freeze: Yes. We have a couple of small claims left in Peru, which obviously have
some potential but they are not our exploration targets right now.
Peter Bell: Well, the amount of work you could do at El Oro sure makes it clear that it
deserves your primary attention. This is where the potential for the strategic
equity investment from somebody else in the industry. You're just getting
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 36
started, despite all the historical production and everything else at El Oro.
And Placer has been there?
Joey Freeze: Yes, Teck has been here. Placer has been here.
Peter Bell: What a history – and that’s all the stuff you've put together recently. It is
great for you to put together a data suite like that for the majors or anybody
who's doing serious work. They're going to want to see all this stuff in detail
and analyze it themselves.
Joey Freeze: Yes, exactly. I don't have a map here of the historic drilling, but it's in one of
our presentations. Luismin drilled throughout this area for a remnant
resource. I'm not allowed to call it a remnant resource by 43-101 rules now
– I have to call it a historical conceptual exploration target.
Peter Bell: That's some phrasing isn't it?
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 37
Joey Freeze: Yes. It is grading between 3-3.4 grams per tonne gold with 40-44 grams per
tonne silver, which leaves approximately 580-760,000 ounces of gold and 7-
9 million ounces of silver in the old workings. I don't know if that's mineable
or not, which is why I can't call it a historic resource anymore, but that's
sitting there and that's what Luis concentrated on with their drilling.
Peter Bell: How many holes was that – like 50 or 100?
Joey Freeze: There was 20,000 meters drilled in El Oro before we got there. We've drilled
another 20,000 meters since then, approximately. Nobody drilled
underneath the old workings like we did. Placer tried, but they didn't
manage to do it. We drilled all their targets when we hired Mark Pryor, as I
mentioned. Then Teck came in, did geophysics, and drilled. They ended up
finding a lot of mafic intrusions around the edges of the vein systems.
We were the first ones to drill underneath the old workings. People have
looked for a lot of things in El Oro because it’s such an amazing camp, but
nobody's done exactly what we did.
Peter Bell: And what you stand to do in the future sounds like it is unprecedented, too.
Amazing that you have a four million dollar market cap here and nobody
cares. It's a tough time for the juniors out there.
Joey Freeze: When you're so busy and you're not spending a lot of time at the shows or
getting together with your colleagues, you think it's us. And then you go out
there, which I've been doing this last week, and find out that it's not just us.
Peter Bell: The Cambridge House show this week in May was small – the numbers were
down, but the die-hard people who matter were there. There was a certain
pulse among those people with work to be done, deals to be done, and
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 38
financing available out there somewhere! There is also some M&A activity
heating up among some of he producers, too.
Joey Freeze: Yes, there is a little bit going on there. That's always a good sign.
Peter Bell: I have never seen anybody really analyze the lifecycle of a bull market to
figure out where we see the most aggressive M&A versus when the juniors
get the most financing – whether there's typical patterns to what happens
when and all that.
Joey Freeze: When a junior or somebody gets bought out for several hundred million
dollars, that really helps. Especially when there's a good premium.
Peter Bell: Right. Nothing like a good comparable transaction for everybody else to
mark to. And to get something like this drill target and multiply it by 31 times
is great. I can understand why people didn’t get it yet because all the drilling
you've done so far is spread out and doesn’t give the basis for a resource.
You're not close to a 43-101 here, despite having done approximately 20,000
meters of drilling yourself?
Joey Freeze: No, we're not.
Peter Bell: What you were saying about focusing drilling on one target area and ground-
truthing sounds like a great place to go.
Joey Freeze: If we could make a discovery and find that deeper mineralization right near
the Mexico-Esperanza border area and understand it well enough to get
some sense of the size of it, then that maybe the place where we could start
developing a resource.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 39
The biggest thing for us now is to make a discovery! A discovery hole of some
sort will show people that there's potential at El Oro. And not just some
interesting intersections, but some really good grade over some widths and
a good sense for what the ore body might look like.
Peter Bell: You've been there before, right? This wouldn't be your first discovery.
Joey Freeze: Well, I've worked on some really good projects. The one a lot of people talk
about is in Peru, where I was QP for Arequipa Resources. I was QP for them
for only 13 months. They hired me August 1st of '95 when they were drilling
something called Perone and getting ready to drill California Quattro. By
September, I wrote a report on everything else in their portfolio. They
owned about 19 other projects in the Cordillera Negra. By November, I was
able to do a site visit to Pierina because their Peruvian geologist was telling
me how much he liked it. I convinced Catherine Macleod-Seltzer to let me
do a site visit then because I was coming home to Canada for January and
February and didn't want to go back to Peru if I could avoid it. I did my site
visit in November and called her on New Years. She said, "Thank you very
much. No, we're not needing any reports right now." Five days later, she
called me and asked, "How fast can you write that report? Our stock's gone
from $1 to $5. We're going to raise money." I stayed their QP through their
sale to Barrick for over $30 a share.
There's been some controversy there. David Lowell even wrote a book
saying that I took credit for that discovery, but I never took credit – a QP is a
QP. You verify what's there and write the report. You also have to say if you
think something is not legitimate, as well. I had to phone Catherine a couple
of times and say, "You can't use 18 laboratories. You need to have a main
lab, a check lab, and some other comparisons," but the Peruvian tradition
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 40
was every geologist had their own lab. Using so many labs was just
inappropriate. Some of their sampling could be improved on, as well, to
make sure things were clear and consistent but the American geologists on
the team didn't want to hear any of that from me. They basically said to me,
"You wait until we have a problem and then we'll worry about that." I
insisted that we do things the right way and Catherine listened. It was a great
project to work on and great learning experience.
Peter Bell: It sounds like that's why they got you into Women in Mining mentorship
thing, too. Tracing back to Catherine Macleod-Seltzer and all that is amazing.
Joey, thank you very much.
Joey Freeze: Thank you, Peter.
There's been some controversy there. David Lowell even wrote a book
saying that I took credit for that discovery, but I never took credit – a QP is a
QP. You verify what's there and write the report. You also have to say if you
think something is not legitimate, as well. I had to phone Catherine a couple
of times and say, "You can't use 18 laboratories. You need to have a main
lab, a check lab, and some other comparisons," but the Peruvian tradition
was every geologist had their own lab. Using so many labs was just
inappropriate. Some of their sampling could be improved on, as well, to
make sure things were clear and consistent but the American geologists on
the team didn't want to hear any of that from me. They basically said to me,
"You wait until we have a problem and then we'll worry about that." I
insisted that we do things the right way and Catherine listened. It was a great
project to work on and great learning experience.
Joanne Freeze
Candente Gold
Page 41
Peter Bell: It sounds like that's why they got you into Women in Mining mentorship
thing, too. Tracing back to Catherine Macleod-Seltzer and all that is amazing.
Joey, thank you very much.
Joey Freeze: Thank you, Peter.
Disclaimers
This document contains forward looking statements and are subject to various risks and
uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed under the heading “Risk Factors” and
elsewhere in the Company’s periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. Such information
contained herein represents management’s best judgment as of the date hereof based on
information currently available. The Company does not assume the obligation to update any
forward-looking statement.
Please note that Peter Bell has been compensated by 3RD EYE RESEARCH to prepare and distribute
this material.

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Newton Interviews - Joey Freeze Candente Gold

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Recorded May 18, 2018 in Vancouver.

Joey Freeze: No.

Peter Bell: How actively involved are they?

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Peter Bell: Great.

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In any case, eventually, the copper project, Cañariaco, became available

Peter Bell: You have to.

I said, "What's the minimum in the auction?" He said, "$75,000." I said,

Peter Bell: Oh no.

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Peter Bell: Extra days are good.

Peter Bell: Get to work!

In 2006, we were looking for opportunities outside of Peru and started

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Peter Bell: Sounds like smart deal.

Peter Bell: Right. They had all the cards.

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Then, we went to work on the areas that we really liked.

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Peter Bell: Wow. In addition to the first two rounds of spending?

Peter Bell: That's a lot.

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Peter Bell: And that's the tailings?

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Joey Freeze: You're welcome.

Joey Freeze: Time flies in this business.

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Peter Bell: And El Oro is one of those.

Joey Freeze: Yes, it is.

Joey Freeze: They are a bit unbelievable.

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Joey Freeze: The property itself is over 13,000 hectares.

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We have some proof of this structural interpretation of the camp in aster

Peter Bell: That's a great drill target.

Peter Bell: Said like a true explorationist.

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Peter Bell: Yup.

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Joey Freeze: Yes, to a large degree.

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Peter Bell: Right. What's this doing here?

Peter Bell: Yup.

Joey Freeze: Yes, indeed.

Peter Bell: And would you call this southern Mexico?

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Joey Freeze: Right.

When I came back to Vancouver, I was working as a QP in the diamond

Peter Bell: It happens!

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Joey Freeze: Certainly.

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Joey Freeze: It sure does.

Peter Bell: And your board of Directors, which we talked about.

Peter Bell: Wow.

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Peter Bell: Thanks again. A well-designed deal.