Highlights from first drilling at the Hinge Zone included 16.35m at 26.91g/t gold from 124.8m; and 1m at 224.03g/t within a broader 7m at 44.47g/t from 124.5m in a separate hole.

CEO Chris Taylor said the company had drilled to find the "missing piece at Dixie" - whether there would be gold enrichment at fold hinges akin to other deposits in production in the district.

"We tested the fold hinge concept at shallow depths of approximately 100 vertical metres and successfully generated the high-grade results announced today," he said.

The news follows high-grade results from 1.6km-long step-out drilling at the project's Dixie Limb zone in June. 

Exploration vice president R. Bob Singh said the company would further test the Hinge zone, the main Dixie Limb zone and other new discoveries through the remaining 20-25 holes of the summer drilling programme.

The company had just over C$1 million (US$0.77 million) in working capital at the end of March, then raised $2.1 million (US$1.6 million) in May and said the drilling was fully funded.

Great Bear is earning 100% of the Dixie property in the Red Lake district, which it has expanded through staking to 9,140ha. It has remaining payments of $110,000 (US$84,000) over three years, the company said.

Its shares had been put in a trading halt a day earlier, pending the news, having risen C14c to 72c - 1c shy of a high reached briefly in January.

Yesterday the shares, which have spent much of this year around the 50c mark, shot up as high as $1.47 before closing up 63.89% to $1.18.