BANYAN GOLD CORP. (“Banyan” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce additional results from the exploration drill holes of its 2017 Program at its 100% owned Hyland Gold Project (the “Property”) in the Yukon’s preeminent Selwyn Basin District.

The results from holes HY17-070 to HY17-075 continue on the successful process of testing for and building out gold ounces within the Main Zone gold+silver target while extending the known Main Zone mineralization north of the existing Resource*. Highlighted results from these drill holes include:

• 70.0m of 0.8 g/t Au and 6.6 g/t Ag from surface in HY17-075
  • Including 12.2 m of 3.1 g/t Au and 3.9 g/t Ag from 38.1m

Tara Christie, President & CEO, stated “Diamond drill hole HY17-072 was the most northerly hole from the 2017 campaign and succeeded in demonstrating gold+silver mineralization continues more than 300m north of the 2012 Main Zone resource.  The Company believes these results, when combined with the 2016 and 2017 drill data, will add to a meaningful updated Hyland Main Zone Resource, which is currently underway.” 

These drill holes of the 2017 program targeted anomalous gold+silver mineralization uncovered by early program surface trenches, north of the Main Zone.  Drill holes HY17-070 and HY17-071 defined mineralization to the north following the upper limb of the interpreted antiform.  HY17-072 was a 150m step-out hole north from other 2017 drilling and approximately 300m north from the historic Main Zone Resource* and has established Main Zone like grades including 0.4g/t Au and 0.1g/t Ag over 13.9m.  All holes intercepted anomalous gold-silver mineralization in the interpreted upper and lower limbs of the hosting antiformal structure related to sulphide-bearing, siliceous altered rocks, typical of mineralization observed in the Main Zone.

HY17-075 was the last hole of the 2017 season and drilled from the same location as HY17-074 but with an azimuth of 355° to intersect interpreted mineralized structures.  The new orientation proved successful and provided additional mineralization control information with respect to surface trench results as evidenced by the presence of anomalous gold+silver mineralization over 70m of the core length, with higher-grade intervals at the top and bottom indicative of the  mineralized limbs of the antiform.

The full results from these four drill holes are provided in the following table.  Maps with drill-hole locations and sections can be found on the Company’s website (http://www.banyangold.com/projects/hyland/).

Lengths above are drill intervals. True widths are estimated to be over 80% of drilled lengths.  Holes HY17-073 & 074 were dedicated holes for metallurgy and were not assayed.

The 2017 Hyland exploration program was completed at the end of September and culminated with a total of 3,850m of diamond drilling from 25 drill holes focused on in-fill, step-out exploration and dedicated metallurgical drilling concentrated on the Main Zone gold-silver mineralization. This year’s exploration efforts were focused on increasing confidence in the Main Zone Resource* model as well as targeting resource expansion via testing the northern portion of the Main Zone, a previously under-tested zone prospective for the continuation of the Main Zone gold-silver mineralization.

Camp Zone Trench Results

In addition to the Main Zone Exploration program, two trenches of 44m and 180m, respectively were completed in an area 1.2km north of the northern most drill hole at the Main Zone (results in table below) following up on Trench CZ-16-01 from the 2016 exploration program that returned 96m of 0.64g/t Au from 0 to 96m, including 56m of 1.03g/t Au from 0 to 56m. This area, termed the Camp Zone, lies along a northerly trending gold-arsenic anomaly that extends 2.5km from the southern end of the Main Zone and past the Camp Zone to the north.  This trend contains scattered anomalous gold geochemical results, and recent trenching was successful including 5.2g/t Au and 1.2g/t Ag over 2m in Trench CZ17-04 which is similar to results from 2016 Camp Zone trenching, and along with results from Trench CZ17-03 indicates a strike length of at least 200m.

Upcoming Events

Banyan will be giving a technical presentation on the Hyland Gold Project at the GAC Cordilleran Section “Exploration Series” at 8:20 am on Tuesday January 9^th, 2018 at the Discovery Center, Geological Survey of Canada 1500-605 Robson Street. Geologist Leif Bjornson, M.Sc., P.Geo. will be presenting.

Banyan will also have a booth at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference on January 21-22, 2018 (Booth 312) and a Booth at the Core Shack at the AMEBC Roundup on January 23-24, 2018 (Booth 720).

Technical Information

The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Paul D. Gray, P. Geo., a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101.

Analytical Method

All drill core and trench samples collected from the Hyland Gold program were analyzed at Bureau Veritas Minerals of Burnaby, B.C. utilizing the four acid digestion ICP-MS 35-element MA300 analytical package with FA450 50-gram Fire Assay with AAS finish for gold on all samples. All core samples were split on-site at Banyan’s core processing facilities at the Hyland Gold Project.  Once split, half samples were placed back in the core boxes with the other half of split samples sealed in poly bags with one part of a three-part sample tag inserted within.  All these samples were delivered by Banyan personnel or a dedicated expediter to the Bureau Veritas, Whitehorse preparatory laboratory where samples are prepared and then shipped to Bureau Veritas’s Analytical laboratory in Burnaby, B.C. for pulverization and final chemical analysis. A robust system of standards was implemented in the 2017 exploration drilling program and are monitored as chemical assay data become available.

About Banyan Gold

Banyan is a growth stage gold exploration company whose flagship property, the Hyland Gold Project, is approximately 70km NE of Watson Lake, Yukon, along the southeast end of the Tintina Gold Belt.

The Hyland Main Zone Inferred Gold Resource Estimate, prepared in accordance with NI 43-101, at a 0.6g/t gold equivalent cutoff, contains 12,503,994 tonnes with 361,692 ounces gold at 0.9g/t and 2,248,948 ounces silver at 5.59g/t for a combined gold and silver 396,468 ounces gold equivalent at 0.99 g/t.

The 9,230 ha Aurex-McQuesten Property, in close proximity to Victoria Gold's Eagle Project and Alexco Resource's Keno Hill Silver District, is highly perspective for structurally controlled, intrusion related gold-silver mineralization in relation to quartz monzonite dykes of the Tombstone intrusive suite. 

Banyan trades on the TSX-Venture Exchange under the symbol “BYN”. For more information, please visit the corporate website at www.BanyanGold.com or contact the Company.

ON BEHALF OF BANYAN GOLD CORPORATION

(signed) "Tara Christie"

Tara Christie

President & CEO

For more information, please contact:

Tara Christie                                             David Rutt 

Tel: (888) 629-0444                                  Tel: (888) 629-0444

Email: tchristie@banyangold.com           Email: drutt@banyangold.com

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT: The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. This news release contains forward-looking information, which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, Banyan’s objectives, goals or future plans, statements regarding exploration expectations, exploration or development plans and the timing of negotiating the definitive agreements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, uncertainties inherent to preparing a resource estimate within expected timeline, capital and operating costs varying significantly from estimates, the preliminary nature of metallurgical test results, delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required governmental, environmental or other project approvals, political risks, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, changes in equity markets, inflation, changes in exchange rates, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in the development of projects and the other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, enhanced risks inherent to conducting business in any jurisdiction, and those risks set out in Banyan’s public documents filed on SEDAR. Although Banyan believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. Banyan disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. Paul D. Gray of Banyan Gold Corp. is a “qualified person” within the meaning of such term as set forth in National Instrument 43-101 of the Canadian Securities Administrators, and has verified and supervised the preparation of all of the scientific and technical information contained in this news release.

Statements in this news release regarding Banyan Gold which are not historical facts are “forward-looking statements” that involve risks and uncertainties. Such information can generally be identified by the use of forwarding-looking wording such as “may”, “will”, “expect”, “estimate”, “anticipate”, “intend”, “believe” and “continue” or the negative thereof or similar variations.