|
Mines - Red Cliff
The Red Cliff
group, which included the Crown-granted Mount Lyell, Red Cliff, Montrose, Little Pat
Fraction,
and Waterloo claims, was staked in 1908 at Lydden Creek near the junction of American Creek
and
the Bear River, about 12 miles north of Stewart.
Oxide zones which mark the area
of mineralization are clearly visible from the river and directed prospectors to the location and the subsequent naming of
the property.
 Much of the development of the
property was completed by the Red Cliff Mining Co. Ltd. in the years 1908 to 1912 and during that time 1,249 tons of
copper ore
was shipped via the Portland Canal Short Line Railway to Stewart and
then to the
smelter.
The mine report of 1912 indicated 5,000 tons of ore was broken and 1,249 tons shipped, 1,500 tons left in stopes, and 2,239 tons put in ore dumps. At
the time the mine had indicated it would soon ship 100 tons of ore per day and
promised approximately 100,000 tons.
Operations ceased at the mine in
1912 and in 1921 the property was sold to R.
W. Wood and associates, who did a minor amount of surface work on the
claims.
In 1939 the property was
optioned by the R. W. Wood and W. R. Wilson estates to H. D. Haywood, who explored a surface showing in the Lydden Creek canyon
at 1,900 feet elevation. Small ore shipments were made in 1939, 1940, and
1941, to the Prince Rupert sampling plant. In 1946 the Yale Mining Company,
Limited, took
an examining option on the group to test gold showings on the Montrose
claim.
In 1950, Yale Lead & Zinc
Mines, Limited completed about 2,000 feet of diamond drilling on mineralized zones in the creek section. In 1959 a small
amount of surface work was done by Oro Fino Mines Ltd. under option from Yale Lead &
Zinc Mines, Limited. Since then the mineral deposits have undergone scrutiny but
little serious attention.
Currently the lower tunnel and
workings and the old camp area have largely been
buried in thick gravel deposits and the upper areas are mainly worked
out with little
original mineralization left for study.
The development of the deposits
and the description of the known mineralization has been treated extensively in Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 32,
1913, and
British Columbia Minister of Mines Annual Reports, 1908 and 1909, and
will not
be repeated here.
The geologic setting of the
isolated lenses of copper ore and gold-quartz veins is
similar to that of the nearby Independent and Big Casino properties. Red
and green volcanic breccias and conglomerates of the Hazelton assemblage have been
intruded and variously deformed by members of the Portland Canal swarm
of granitic dykes and the mineral deposits are found in diffuse fracture zones
and minor shears sub-parallel to the northwest-trending dykes.
| 
