\ : Terrace Review —~ Wednesday, November 6, 1991 17

punctured the Golden Triangle. What leaked out was Eskay.

that town at the time and vehe-
: mently opposed to project.

s The diesel is more than an
environmental nuisance; it’s a

: major expense for camp oper-

SES ke ee ee

Pe

.

ations: Sitting in his spartan
headquarters, Busse, a veteran
mine manager, explains the
economics of mining in the
closing years of the 20th Cen-
tury.

"The cost is phenomenal. It
requires a damn good ore body
to even think about developing a
mine.” Everything at Eskay
comes in by air: food, camp
supplies, mining gear, replace-
ment parts, and, most expensive
of all, the diesel fuel and gaso-
line required to run the generator
and to fuel other equipment. At
this point Eskay is only an ex-
ploration camp, housing 43
permanent residents and a num-
ber of others that come and go.
Which is why Eskay, if and
when it becomes a full-blown
mine (and the owners are being
cautious about that one), is
going to require an access road.

That road, being paid for joint-
ly by Prime Resources and the
provincial government, is
already well on the way to com-
pletion.

Developing a mine is not like
it used to be, even as recently as
10 years ago. It isn’t a matter
any more of going in after a
promising ore body, taking the
mineral out and leaving, Busse
says. With requirements to look
after acid rock drainage from
tailings and other needs of pro-
tecting the environment from
whatever comes up out of the
ground, a company can now face
the prospect of being tied to a
mine site from the first ounce of
production ’til doomsday.

Busse approves of that, but
under those circumstances 4
mine developer has to hit some-
thing really big that will provide
immense returns over a long
period before the company takes
the plunge into development.
Ore bodies that no one would
hesitate to exploit two decades
ago are left lying in the ground
now; the price tag is just too
high for anything of less than
spectacular value. A risky busi-
ness from the beginning, mining
and mineral exploration is now
more of a crapshoot than ever,
which partly explains why junior
exploration companics can’t
raise cash and the whistle of
helicopters is gradually becom-
ing less and less frequent along
the mountainsides of the Iskut
River valley.

ut then there’s Eskay.
"It’s a very rich find, one of the
few, very high profile," Busse
says. "The challenge is the
remote area and the high expec-
tations."

The first exploration at Eskay
began in the 1930's by a syndi-
cate under prospector Tom Mac-
Kay, after whom nearby Tom
MacKay lake is named. Sporadic
exploration went on for the next

_ five decades, but, the big find.

Racks of boxes

containing drill

cores

(foreground) are a geological archive of work done
to outline the hidden ore body of Eskay Creek.
The camp, accessible only by helicopter; hag only

43 occupants this year; but for the previous two

summers it hosted as

ia

many as 140 miners,

drillers, construction workers, and geologists.

ee

oe -.. Photo by James Stewart, International Corona

just wasn’t there.

"Ii’s unique, exceptional,"
Busse says. "Early exploration
found lots of smells and
showings."

But in August 1989, after Tom
MacKay’s widow optioned half
the property to Calpine
Resources, the mountain gave up
its secrets. Hole 109 hit 208
metres of mineralization with an
average grade of .875 ounces of
gold and .97 ounces of silver per
ton, with 1.12 percent lead and
2.26 percent zinc. The ‘stock
prices of Calpine and Consoli-

dated . Stikine, -“ MacKay’s-: old.”

the 60. percent

company, rose steadily with each
subsequent announcement of
drilling results, and Corona
Corporation, already a- major
player in international precious
metals with interests in 11 mines
and properties, gradually began
acquiring stock in both Prime
and Stikine.

Through its interest in Prime,
Corona also holds pleces of the
other current gold finds of inter-
est in the Northwest, the produc-
ing Snip mine (19.9 peicent) and
the Sulphurets (42.2 percent of

held by New-
hawk)

By July 1990 Corona had
picked up a 40.9 percent interest
in Consolidated Stikine and 49.8
percent of Prime. That’s where
Busse came into the operation.

he entrance to the under-
ground workings lies about a
kilometre along a pleasantly flat
track leading away “rom the
camp. The dirt road switches
back just outside the camp site
to cross Eskay Creek where it
emerges undeg a rustic log
bridge as a cheerful storybook
waterfall, pools briefly and
continues its journey thousands
of feet down the mountain slope
to the Iskut River.

In brilliant orange coveralls,
gumboots and hardhats we make
our way through an old forest to
the maintenance shop where
Tonto Mining and Falcon Drill-
ing, both of Prince George, store
and maintain the arcane machin-
ery required to tunnel through
solid rock and probe its content
along the way. Transportation
into the depths is provided by a
Toyota Land Cruiser modified
nearly beyond recognition, the
body stripped off from the wind-
shield back and replaced by a
metal cage with longitudinal
bench seats.

Busse guides the mutant
vehicle bucking and charging
through a square hole in the
mountainside and into a black-
ness so absolute that the light

‘from the headlamps simply van-

ishes. Nothing glitters, and the
damp cold air is filled with the
roar of ventilating machinery.

Just past a fork in the tunnel
we dismount from the buggy and
begin trudging deeper into the
workings. Around a corner a
brilliantly lit stage-like scene is
abruptly revealed. Two miners,
looking themselves like detached
and animated pieces of the black
rock, are carefully clearing
debris from a recent blast that
extended the tunnel another few
metres into the stony heart of
the ore body. Their bright yel-
low rain gear is encrusted with
mud and rock fragments. ‘Oné
points out an anomaly to Busse.
It’s a fist-sized egg of lighter
coloured rock suspended in the
rock matrix of the blasted wall.
The miner pulls it out and hands
it to Busse.

Busse explains that the "blem"
was probably formed when water
hit the molten volcanic rock.
They’re rich in zinc, he says,
splitting it open and displaying a
fine silvery fretwork radiating |
out from the core like frozen
lightning.

The uniqueness of the Eskay
ore body was what baffled the

early prospectors. Through inten-

sive drilling from the surface,
taking hundreds of cores, Cal-
pine defined it as a type of mas-
sive sulphide deposit, a lens.
The gold isn’t visible but finely
and evenly dispersed through the
black, ‘almost miudlike rock.

— Continued on page 18. . ©