VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - June 26, 2012) - North American Nickel Inc. (TSX VENTURE:NAN)(OTCBB:WSCRF) (CUSIP: 65704T 108). North American Nickel ("NAN") is pleased to announce that field operations have now begun at its 100% owned Maniitsoq project in southwest Greenland.

A helicopter-borne, Versatile Time-Domain EM (VTEM) survey commenced last week and is being conducted by Geotech Ltd. of Aurora, Ontario. The survey is focused on the highly prospective Greenland Norite Belt (GNB) where historical drilling intersected high grade nickel sulphide mineralization (e.g. 9.85 m of sulphide mineralization averaging 2.67% Ni and 0.60% Cu in drill hole Im-9).

North American Nickel CEO,Rick Mark, states, "I am very pleased to see exploration begin at Maniitsoq. We have experienced some delays this month due to logistic and technical issues, but, the helicopter is now on the job. Our flying program last year showed that modern technology works in the GNB. We are all looking forward to more targets being defined and starting our initial drill campaign later this summer."

The survey will total over 3,000 line-kilometres and, together with last year's SkyTEM survey, will provide near complete helicopter TEM coverage of the entire GNB within the company's land holdings. Surveying will also be done over selected targets outside the main GNB.

Electromagnetic anomalies detected by the 2012 VTEM survey together with those identified by last fall's SkyTEM survey will be field checked and the highest priority ones will be drilled later this summer. Drilling is now expected to begin in mid-August.

More details on Maniitsoq, and other North American Nickel projects, may be found on the company's website www.northamericannickel.com