Canarc Resource -- Strong Gold Exploration Potential Indicated on Canarc's Large Kalimantan Land-Holdings.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 1996--Canarc Resource Corp. (TcSE:CCM) recently acquired preliminary geologic maps and data for its large Kalimantan land-holdings that indicate strong exploration potential for gold.

Canarc holds a 50 percent to 100 percent interest in more than 2.2 million hectares covered by 13 Contracts of Work straddling the Kalimantan Gold Belt. Additional C.O.W. applications are pending.

Canarc's properties were selected on the basis of their regional geologic similarities to the huge Busang gold discovery of Bre-X Minerals. The principle geologic similarities formed on Canarc's properties are as follows:

1. Each of Canarc's 13 C.O.W.'s lie within the Kalimantan Tertiary Magmatic Arc, a 1,250 km long arcuate belt of intrusive and volcanic rocks of mid to late Tertiary age that contains most of the known gold recurrences on the island of Kalimantan.

2. Canarc's properties all lie along the eastern side of the magmatic arc where the Central Kalimantan Gold Belt forms a 750 km long, northeast-trending belt of gold prospects, including the Busang, Kelian and Mt. Muro gold deposits. This linear trend is thought to be a primary crustal break that in broad terms forms the margin between Tertiary volcanic and sedimentary cover rocks to the southeast and pre-Tertiary metamorphic and intrusive basement rocks to the northwest.

3. Most of Canarc's land-holdings cover the mid to late Tertiary andesite-dacite volcanic and carbonaceous mud-silt-sandstone formations that form favourable host rocks to gold mineralization in the belt.

4. Many of Canarc's project areas include multiple small late Tertiary granite-syenite stocks of the Sintang-Batuan Intrusions that form spatially related source and host rocks to epithermal gold prospects in the belt.

5. All of Canarc's mineral concessions encompass secondary crosscutting faults, often northwest-trending across the main northeast-trending structural break, that are known to be essential ground preparation for the hydrothermal mineralization and gold mineralization at Busang, Kelian and Mt. Muro.

6. Last, but not least, Canarc's C.O.W.'s contain over 20 known gold prospect areas, both alluvial and lode, and more than 40 Sintang and Batuan intrusions identified by large scale, regional government geologic mapping along accessible creeks. Many other areas appear prospective but were not mapped in any detail by the government.

In conclusion, Canarc holds one of the largest land positions in the Central Kalimantan Gold Belt. Each of the 13 C.O.W.'s is prospective for gold on the basis of regional geologic similarities to the Busang deposit.

Engineering reports have been commissioned for each joint venture, exploration crews are now being assembled and the Phase 1 work programs are expected to get underway in July.

Canarc Resource Corp. is a growth-oriented, international gold exploration and mining company with active projects worldwide. Major shareholders include Barrick Gold Corp. (4 percent) and Echo Bay Mines Ltd. (10 percent). -0-

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CONTACT: Canarc Resource Corp.

Robert Carriere

Manager of Investor Relations 

604/685-9700

http://www.mcomm.com/canarc