NEWS RELEASE TRANSMITTED BY CCNMatthews

FOR:  HIGH RIVER GOLD MINES LTD.

TSX SYMBOL:  HRG

JUNE 15, 2004 - 12:27 ET

High River Gold Buys Bouroum Gold Reserves

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(CCNMatthews - Jun 15, 2004) - (TSX:HRG) - High 
River Gold Mines Ltd. ("High River") is pleased to announce the 
purchase of a defined exploitation area of the Bouroum property 
in Burkina Faso from AXMIN Limited which contains reserves of 
approximately 110,000 ounces of gold for a total consideration of 
US $3.3 million. 

The Bouroum reserves will be incorporated into High River's 
Taparko Gold project. The mineable reserves will be trucked from 
three open pits including F12, Welcome Stranger, and Bissinga 
which together account for 861,000 tonnes of 3.97 grams Au per 
tonne as estimated by SRK Consulting. The exploitation area 
acquired by High River covers an area of 11.7 square kilometres. 

As part of the agreement, High River also obtained an option to 
acquire a 100% interest in two adjacent permits, Yeou and Ankoma, 
and the remainder of the original Bouroum exploration permit 
outside the Bouroum exploitation area by spending US $1.5 million 
in exploration expenditures over a period of three years, with a 
minimum of US $381,000 in the first year. AXMIN has a back-in 
right at a multiple of 1.5 times High River's expenditure once 
High River has demonstrated that the remainder of the original 
exploration permit or the other two permits are economically 
viable. 

The acquisition of the Bouroum reserves increases the initial 
Taparko mine reserve base and the option agreement extends High 
River's control of prospective exploration property within 
trucking distance of the Taparko mill facility. High River now 
directly and indirectly, through its alliance agreement with 
Jilbey Gold Exploration Ltd. and this new option agreement with 
AXMIN, controls exploration and operatorship rights over 
approximately 4,000 square kilometres that lie within trucking 
distance of the Taparko gold processing facility. 

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