VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 07/17/2006 -- Yankee Hat Minerals Ltd. (the "Company" or "Yankee Hat") (TSX VENTURE: KHT) is pleased to summarize work completed to date on the Fran property project located 60 kilometres north of Fort St. James, BC, 10 kilometres north of Inzana Lake. The claims are 30 kilometres southwest of Placer Dome's Mount Milligan deposit. Frontier Drilling mobilized its drill rig on site and commenced drilling June 20th.

To date, six diamond drill holes on the North Contact Zone-Haslinger trench area have been completed. A total of 626.67 metres have been drilled over a 150-metre strike length. Quartz-Sulphide zones have been encountered on four sections between 8062E and 8214E in similar geological settings indicating that the mineralization along the North Contact Zone appear to be continuous over a 150-metre strike length at shallow depth.

Drilling on the North Contact Zone will continue until the end of July and will involve step-out drilling to close the gap between holes 47 and 42 where 2005 trenching produced significant high grade gold samples.

Trenching on the North Contact Zone has revealed many highly oxidized fracture zones in monzodiorite and siltstones. A 100-metre long trench testing the lower roadside gold in soil anomalies featured many dykes cutting siltstone and oxidized fracture zones. Yankee Hat looks forward to receiving assay results from these samples and will issue a release once all assays are completed.

The Fran exploration program is managed and supervised by Ron Wells, PGeo, FGAC, the qualified person under National Instrument 43-101. A NI 43-101 compliant Geological report, by Ron Wells, PGeo, FGAC, on the 2005 exploration program on the Fran property dated Mar. 22, 2006 has been filed on www.Sedar.com and is also available for viewing at www.yankeehatminerals.com.

About Yankee Hat Minerals Ltd.

Yankee Hat Minerals is actively exploring the Fran Property, a gold/base metals target near Placer Dome's Mt. Milligan deposit in central British Columbia; and the Shanghai Creek Project, a gold target within the Tintina Gold Belt - near Stratagold's Aurex and Dublin Gulch projects in the Yukon Territory. In addition, the Company has two uranium projects, the Thelon Basin Property located in Northern Saskatchewan, and the Lever Lake IOCG property in NWT.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Donald Gee C.A., President and Chief Executive Officer

This news release has been prepared by management. This document contains certain forward looking statements which involve known and unknown risks, delays, and uncertainties not under the Company's control which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements implied by these forward looking statements. We seek safe harbor.

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.