St. Elias Mines Ltd. Grants Options to Dorex Minerals Inc. to Acquire Interest in the Strawberry Flats Gold Project, British Columbia

March 8, 2010, VANCOUVER, B.C. - St. Elias Mines Ltd. ("St. Elias") and Dorex Minerals Inc. ("Dorex") (collectively, the "Companies") are pleased to announce that the Companies have entered into an option agreement (the "Agreement") whereby Dorex has agreed to acquire up to an 80% interest, subject to a 1.5% NSR, in the Strawberry Flats Gold Project (the "Property") located in south-central British Columbia.

Strawberry Flats Gold Property

The Property, comprising eight mineral claims covering 2,956.1 hectares (7,390 acres), is located just north (approximately 12 kilometres) of the historic Rossland Gold Camp which produced over 2,700,000 ounces of gold between 1897 and the early 1940's.

Historical work on the Property included a small trenching program completed by Cameco in 1989. The program was designed to determine the bedrock source of gold in soil anomalies in an area within the Strawberry Flats Gold Project. Cameco's Trench #5 returned 8 metres of 10.45 g/t Au including 2 metres of 39.16 grams per tonne ("g/t") Au from continuous 1 metre long chip samples. Cameco's report indicates that the 7 metre wide WNW trending mineralized structure exposed in Trench #5 is of sufficient grade to warrant follow-up along strike in both directions and at depth.

*The geological information and analytical results reported above predate National Instrument 43-101 and are not National Instrument 43-101 compliant. The Companies have not undertaken any independent investigations of the dimensions, quantity or grade of this gold mineralization, and therefore these historical data should not be relied upon.

The Property adjoins the Jumping Josephine Project owned by Astral Mining Corp. ("Astral") and Kootenay Gold Inc. Drilling results from Astral on the JJ Main Zone during 2007 have included 10 metres of 9.95 g/t gold and 8 metres of 8.31 g/t gold. In addition, Astral has announced several new geochemical anomalies discovered from their 2009, 4,600 soil sampling program over the Jumping Josephine project. As with Trench #5 at the Strawberry Flats Property, local high-grade concentrations of gold are common on Astral's Jumping Josephine project, including 1 metre intervals of 50.2 g/t gold and 61.8 g/t gold. In addition, Astral and Kootenay have applied for a 10,000 tonne bulk sampling permit from their JJ Main zone where initial where initial floatation tests averaged 98 percent gold recovery. (See Astral News Releases of October 15, 2009; October 29, 2009; December 16, 2009 January 18, 2010, and February 2, 2010; also see the Jumping Josephine Technical Report dated July 14, 2009 [SEDAR]).

Strawberry Flats Property Agreement

Under the terms of the Agreement, Dorex can acquire an initial 60% interest in the Property in consideration of:

(a) making cash payments of $50,827 to St. Elias over a two-year period;

(b) issuing 600,000 common shares in the capital of Dorex to St. Elias over a two-year period; and

(c) incurring $600,000 in exploration expenditures on the Property over a three-year period.

Dorex can elect to earn a further 20% interest in the Property in consideration of making additional cash payments of $200,000 to St. Elias, issuing an additional 600,000 common shares in the capital stock of Dorex to St. Elias and incurring an additional $1,000,000 in exploration expenditures on the Property.

In addition, Dorex shall have the right to purchase one-half of the 1.5 NSR from St. Elias for the sum of $1,500,000 up until the earlier of either 10 years from the date of the Agreement or one year from the completion of a total of 10,000 tonnes of bulk sampling, thereby reducing the NSR payable to the Option from 1.5% to 0.75%.

Qualified Person

The data contained in this News Release has been reviewed and verified by Paul D. Gray, P.Geo., a "qualified person" for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian securities administrators.

For additional information on St. Elias and its projects, please visit us at www.steliasmines.com or call 1-888-895-5522 (toll free US and Canada).

ST. ELIAS MINES LTD