Emboldened by a rich silver hit at the Bermingham Deep target in September, the company embarked on a final 3,000m drilling campaign for 2019 targeting areas interpreted to be the same as Bermingham Deep. It returned "encouraging results", the company said.

Alexco said it had intercepted the Inca vein over a true width of 7.44m at a composite grade of 832 grams per tonne from 142.61m depth, which included several intercepts greater than 1,000g/t silver such as 3,860g/t over 0.75m.

Another hole about 70m away also intersected the vein over a 5.5m width grading 597g/t from 134.4m, while yet another hole intersected the vein over 0.37m with a composite grade of 2,070g/t.

"The Inca discovery reflects the increasing confidence our geology team has in predicting the geological setting in which these deposits occur at Keno Hill," said CEO Clynt Nauman.

"It is another blind discovery that is open along strike and down dip, but perhaps more importantly it is within a favourable structure which has at least 800m of untested strike length in rocks which are known to host most of the silver deposits in the district. Clearly, more work is required in 2020 to better understand the importance of the Inca discovery."

Alexco said Monday the Yukon government had issued it with an amended quartz mining licence for the Keno Hill Silver District, but the company's delayed water use licence remained outstanding, further frustrating a development decision into the New Year.

The company's shares (TSX:AXU) gained 6.13% or C16c in Toronto on Wednesday to $2.77, which gives the company a market cap of $329 million. The stock has gained up to 260% in the past 12 months.