February 9, 2006: The Board of Directors of North American Gem Inc. (NAG, TSX-V) announces the immediate resumption of the Winter 2006 diamond drilling program targeting the “Main Zone” of the Louise Lake property, 35 kilometers west of Smithers, British Columbia, Canada.

Despite the instigation of the fully permitted field program, North American Gem honoured a recent and unexpected demand by the Gitxsan First Nation to immediately suspend operations. This followed notification by the Gitxsan First Nation that they had been excluded from normal government consultation procedures due to an error in the permitting procedure. North American Gem is in no way responsible for this error.

Following the immediate shutdown, North American Gem conducted site tours with four Gitxsan representatives, illustrating the minimal environmental impacts that will result from activities. The following evening, representatives of North American Gem and the Government of British Columbia met with Gitxsan First Nation representatives, at their request, at the Gitxsan community of Gitsegukla. During this meeting, North American Gem agreed to employ a member of the Gitxsan as an overseer of exploration activities and to learn aspects of mineral exploration.

At the close of the meeting North American Gem was invoiced for services rendered by the earlier site visit, and for consultative services provided by six Gitxsan representatives at $500 each, totaling $3,000, at the three-hour meeting itself. The rates are considered excessive. There was also no prior notification that North American Gem would be invoiced for these activities.

After this meeting, North American Gem officials agreed it would be acceptable to pay the invoice for the site visit, employ the overseer, but not to pay the consulting fees, opting for establishment of an educational trust fund in the equivalent amount. Although Gitxsan representatives offered to reduce the invoice for the consulting fees somewhat, no satisfactory resolution was attained, despite North American Gem’s best efforts to negotiate in good faith.

North American Gem felt that payment of the unannounced consulting fees would set a negative and unrealistic precedent for British Columbia’s mining and exploration industry. North American Gem has confirmed that no legal impediments towards enactment of a fully permitted program exist. The shutdown was voluntary, as an act of good faith.

North American Gem has delayed the program as long as possible, at a daily standby cost of about $1,600, excluding lost wages and fees to its service providers. However, it must respect its obligations to its investors; therefore a decision was made to resume drilling immediately. The project remains fully permitted.

North American Gem will continue to pursue a positive working relationship with the Gitxsan First Nation.

This program will consist of 3,750 meters of diamond drilling in 12 holes, targeting the “Main Zone”, an east-west trending, gently north-dipping, thick tabular zone of copper-gold-molybdenum-silver porphyry-style mineralization. Copper occurs almost exclusively as “tennantite”, an unusual mineral found in upper levels of porphyry systems. This program will target potential western and eastern extensions of the zone, will also focus on the southern “footwall” contact, and include some infill drilling.

In April 2005 North American Gem completed a 2512.3-metre diamond drilling program in seven holes, successfully identifying extension of the Main Zone both to the west and east, to a minimum strike length of 750 meters, still open in both directions. Compilation of results also indicated this zone consistently extends to a depth of 250 to 270 meters, where it is truncated by a flat-lying fault. Six of seven holes returned long mineralized intercepts, including: a 101.9-metre intercept grading 0.382% copper, 0.030% molybdenum, 0.372 g/t gold and 1.2 g/t silver in DDH LL-05-02; and a 192.1-metre intercept grading 0.271% copper, 0.011% molybdenum, 0.255 g/t gold and 1.0 g/t silver in DDH LL-05-04 (see NAG News Releases dated April 20 and May 2, 2005).

Detailed analysis of cross sections of all past drilling on the Main Zone suggests the zone may be a relatively small upper segment of a larger mineralized system, offset by the flat-lying fault.

In 1992, previous operator Equity Silver provided a resource estimate of 50 million tonnes grading 0.3% copper and 0.3 g/t gold with “some payable molybdenum”. This estimate was produced prior to implementation of modern resource standards contained within National Instrument 43-101, does not distinguish between resource categories, and should not be relied on to necessarily represent accurate estimates under modern standards. No subsequent resource estimates have been made. North American Gem Inc. is not treating this estimate as an NI 43-101 defined resource verified by a Qualified Person and has not done the work necessary to verify the classification of the resource.

The property is road-accessible from Smithers, a full service community with an available work force and excellent highway, rail, and power infrastructure.

This News Release was reviewed and approved by Carl Schulze, BSc, PGeo, Qualified Person for the project, in accordance with regulations under National Instrument 43-101. All sample analysis will be done by ALS Chemex of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

North American Gem Inc. (NAG:TSX-v) is a junior exploration Company based in Western Canada. The Company's primary goal is to explore for Uranium, Molybdenum, Gold, Copper and other Base metals. The Company is actively pursuing several opportunities, including the company's Louise Lake Property located in British Columbia, Canada and its Uranium and Multi-mineral deposit Properties which are the Del Bonita, the Western Basin, the Bonny Fault, and the Whiskey Gap, all located in Alberta, Canada.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors
NORTH AMERICAN GEM INC.
Charles Desjardins
President and Director

The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Statements in this press release other than purely historical information, historical estimates should not be relied upon, including statements relating to the Company’s future plans and objectives or expected results, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on numerous assumptions and are subject to all of the risks and uncertainties inherent in the Company’s business, including risks inherent in resource exploration and development. As a result, actual results may vary materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.