18 Terrace Review — Wednesday, November 6, 1991

E S kay C re e k — continued tom page 7 _

Drilling to date has disclosed a lens-shaped deposit varying from two to 11 metres in thickness and dropping off at a 45 degree angle underground to the north- west.

Peter Busse: Remote area, high expectations.

The underground exploration, Busse explains, is a matter of blasting and extending tunnels to follow. the known areas of gold- bearing ore identified by surface drilling: Back in the main tunnel he points up through water drip- ping from the ceiling to a tiny circle of light, sunlight coming through an old surface drill hole that the tunnel intersects.

The miners extend the tunnels, and behind them come the dia- mond drillers. Around the corner is another short tunne], with a

_ diamond drill thrust into the wall - at an oblique angle, looking like some futuristic piece of artillery. The mining and drilling crews work alternating shifts so the power generating system doesn’t overload.

In another offshoot of the main tunnel, Busse calls attention to a niche in the wall, a cavity just large enough for a man to stand

reserve estimate for the zone- issued in September 1990, The company said probable reserves in the zone were in the order of three million ounces of gold and 112 million ounces of silver. The cut-off grade was .25 ounces of gold per ton, anything less than that being considered uneconomical to mine. During that year two helicopters were permanently stationed at the camp and six more were on standby at Bell H, exclusively for the use of the Eskay camp. If the mine goes, Busse believes, it will be a conven- tional underground operation, there appears to be too much | material laying on top of the ore

| body that would have to be

removed for strip mining to be economical. The metallurgical testing should be finished by the end of the season this year. If the venture partners decide the mine’s a go, a Stage I report will be issued in the spring, and the access road should be fin- ished by fall of 1992.

After permitting, feasibility and design the mine could be in operation by early 1995. Mean- while, since the issue of the prospectus in April 1990, one of Busse’s jobs and one of his priorities for this year has been studying surface and under- ground water flow in the area and compiling a host of detailed environmental data about Eskay. "We want to be very explicit about the hydrology and the environment from the Unuk

‘River to Tom MacKay Lake. It’s

an extensive area, very high and near the headwaters of signifi- cant rivers,” he said.

_ explosions deep in the ground. |

in. The miners had removed —

about a ton of rock from the cavity and shipped it to a lab in Ontario to be analyzed for everything. He explains that they have to know not only about precious metal content but about anything in the rock — lead, antimony, the whole mineral house of potential horrors — that will have to be neutralized when the tailings disposal sys- tem is designed. That informa- tion will also be calculated as a cost when it comes time to make a production decision on the mine,

_ he jury is still out on whether Eskay will in fact become a mine. Busse figures ~ about $20 million has been spent on the project so far, all of that to determine whether it can be profitable. During the summer of 1989 140 people were working on the site, six drills were in operation, and 475,000 fect of drill core was pulled out of the ground, In 1990 attention

’ goomed in on. the 21-B zone,

where the underground workings were eventually to 9e built, culminating ina. geological

n the flight back, belted into the plexiglass bubble of the Hughes 500, Northern Mountain Helicopters pilot Robin Kennedy swoops along the uninviting terrain of Volcano Creek, which the access road will follow when its final stage is finished next year. He came to the north from the Oregon coast, where he had been helicopter logging with a Sikorsky Sky-

crane before the spotted owls

kicked everyone out of the for- est. When the mining shows shut down for the winter, he'll be going down to Chile for the season, flying for a copper min- ing company in the Andes. Like: most pilots, he gets a base rate of pay plus a set amount for each hour he flies. The hours this year have been a disappoint- ment in relation to what he expected from hearing about last year’s activity. Like most pilots, he’s taking it philosophically. Near the place where Volcano Creek flows into the vast, muddy, meandering Iskut, the road-building shock troops are

- clearing a path through the river

bank forest. The logging crews, from Don Hull and Sons of Terrace, appear to be ahead of schedule, clearing the. way for Ledcor Construction, grading the road two kilometres behind them, Kennedy drops low to get a look at the fallers, who stop work to gaze up at the intrusion. "Maybe they think we’re from the Sierra Club," Busse quips over the intercom.

A\ bout now, at the end of -

October or beginning of Nov-—

ember, the camp at Eskay will be virtually deserted. the first winter the camp was established about a dozen men were left to look after it. The site gets between 50 and 60 feet of snow from October to May, and the weight of the accumu- lated snow can crush even build- ings with steel rafters. All of the crew were out. continually shovelling snow off the roofs and still coutdn’t keep up.

A flash of inspiration solved the problem. Two BR400 snow grooming machines, of the kind used to smooth ski slopes, were lifted in by helicopter. The win- ter maintenance crew this year will be two people. .

At Bell II rain has expanded the puddles in the lot of the helicopter base. The air seems denser and more forgiving. Back in the mountains, the black, friable rock heart of 21-B waits, along with the bears, marmots and mice, for the somnolent mantle of snow ... and then spring, heralded by more

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