The R. Bell (Lot 1506) and adjoining Cordick (Lot 625) claims are situated 11 kilometres northeast of Greenwood, just east of Highway 3, at a point 2.5 kilometres south of Wilgress Lake.
The first recorded work on the R. Bell claim was 1896 when a shaft was sunk to a depth of about 30 metres on a seam of high grade chalcopyrite in eruptive rocks. The claim was Crown granted in 1900 and in 1901 ore was shipped (267 tonnes, yielding 110.7 kilograms of silver and 20.8 tonnes of copper) by the Granby Consolidated Mining, Smelting and Power Company Ltd. Total underground development at this time was 120 metres of shaft sinking and 180 metres of cross- cutting and drifting. Ore shipped from the Cordick in 1918 totalled 20 tonnes, yielding 2053 grams of silver and 450 kilograms of copper. Exploration of the property continued intermittently after the production period and in 1927 a tunnel was driven connecting the R. Bell and Cordick claims following a southeaserly striking vein. The face of this tunnel displayed pyrite and hematite associated with quartz and calcite gangue minerals across a vein width of more than 1 metre. The Cordick epidote-garnet-calcite skarn contains pyrite, pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, hematite, and in places magnetite with spharlerite in calcite veins.
The host rock in the area is greenstone, stained locally with copper carbonate minerals and cut by a large 30-metre wide, barren, pulaskite porphyry dike. The greenstones are interbedded with tuffs, limestone and sharpstone conglomerates of the Triassic Brooklyn Group. These are intruded by granodiorite of the Jurassic Nelson Intusions and alkaline syenite of the Eocene Coryell Intrusions.
In 1995, after many years of inactivity, the discovery of a Carlin-type gold occurrence (PAC, 082ESE194), 150 metres from the R. Bell and Cordick copper skarn workings, sparked renewed exploration activity by Kettle River Resources Ltd. Trenching has exposed 30 metres of intensely silicified limestone similar to the discovery outcrop where two chip samples of 2.4 and 1.8 metres across structure returned assays of 19.5 and 32 grams per tonne gold, respectively.
