March 23, 2009: North American Gem Inc. (TSX-V symbol: NAG) (the "Company") announces that as of this morning, drilling has commenced on its 37 acre potential surface mining prospect known to the company as, the Saffle tract, and its 130 acre potential surface mining prospect, the Dalton tract, both in West Virginia.

Triad Engineering Inc., of West Virginia, will be drilling on both properties, as well as overseeing the operation and providing the equipment. Once drilling is completed, the soil and coal samples will be analyzed at Standard Laboratories Inc. in Belington, WV. This will be a key step towards obtaining the potential mine permitting status on the properties.

Standard Laboratories currently operates over forty laboratories in the U.S. specializing in coal sampling and analysis, with additional analytical capability in soil, water, environmental and geochemical matrices. Standard Laboratories are proficient to perform virtually all routine and specialty test procedures required by the United States coal industry and its markets. These methods have been subjected to rigorous validation studies and interlaboratory collaborative testing and can thus be considered reliable.

All current work on the West Virginia properties is being supervised by Mike Green of Green Engineering, Inc., who is a registered professional engineer in Philippi, West Virginia, and will be operating as the Company's qualified person under National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Green has reviewed the technical content of this news release and confirms its accuracy. Mr. Green is independent of the Company.

North American Gem Inc. (TSX-V symbol: NAG) is a Junior Exploration Company based in Western Canada. The Company's primary goal is to explore for Coal in North America, currently the focus is in Saskatchewan and West Virginia. In addition to Coal exploration, the Company also has interests in Uranium, Copper, Gold, Molybdenum and other base metals in Canada. The Company has advanced the Louise Lake Copper-Gold-Molybdenum-Silver project, located in British Columbia and has produced a NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate (included in its NI 43-101 Technical Report dated July 14, 2006 and updated February 6, 2009, as filed on SEDAR). The Uranium projects include the Whiskey Gap and Western Basin in Alberta, the Mosquito Gulch property in the Northwest Territories and the Ranger Lake Uranium property in Ontario.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors
NORTH AMERICAN GEM INC.
"Charles Desjardins"

Charles Desjardins
President and Director

THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE DOES NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

Cautionary note: This report contains forward looking statements, particularly those regarding cash flow, capital expenditures, and investment plans. Resource estimates, unless specifically noted, are considered speculative. The Company has filed a National Instrument 43-101 resource estimate on the Louise Lake property. Any and all other resource or reserve estimates are historical in nature, and should not be relied upon. By their nature, forward looking statements involve risk and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on factors that will or may occur in the future. Actual results may vary depending upon exploration activities, industry production, commodity demand and pricing, currency exchange rates, and, but not limited to, general economic factors.

Cautionary Note to US investors: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission specifically prohibits the use of certain terms, such as "reserves" unless such figures are based upon actual production or formation tests and can be shown to be economically and legally producible under existing economic and operating conditions.