The Bugaboo occurrence is located on Bugaboo Creek 31 kilometres southwest of the town of Brisco.
Uranium-bearing black sand was discovered at the head of Bugaboo Creek by G.O. Reid in 1949. Prospecting in the area in August 1953 by Quebec Metallurgical Industries Ltd., a subsidiary of Ventures Limited, relocated the deposit and subsequent prospecting lead to the discovery of similar deposits on Vowell and Forster Creeks. Another subsidiary of Ventures Limited, St. Eugene Mining Corporation Limited, in 1955 to 1956 held special placer mining lease No. 163. They estimated that about 1,019,079 cubic metres of placer deposit was in their block. During 1955, the gravel was tested by 33 churn-drill holes totaling 295 metres. The drilling indicated a depth of 5 metres of outwash gravel across a length of 1,173 metres and a width of 168 metres. At Bugaboo Creek, a concentrating plant was operating until 1956. Bugaboo Uraniums Ltd., incorporated in August 1968, carried out an airborne spectrometer survey in September, locating a number of anomalous areas on several creeks. At that time, Dillingham Mining Co. became active in the area through property options and staking. Ground scintillometer surveys and evaluation of the several anomalous areas, resulted in the acquisition of property on Bugaboo, Forster (082KNE005), East (082KNE006), Vowell (082KNE007) and Malloy (082KNE008) creeks. In 1969, Johns-Manville Co. Ltd., over a distance of 11.3 kilometres, conducted geochemical, scintillometer and magnetometer surveys over the placer deposits on upper Bugaboo Creek (082KNE023). They found that there was a high concentration of uranium associated with high magnetic values.
The Cretaceous Bugaboo Batholith intrudes Hadrynian Windermere sediments of the Horsethief Creek Group. The east part of the intrusion consists of medium-grained leuco-quartz monzonite to coarse-grained biotite quartz monzonite.
Black sand placer concentrations containing uranium and niobium-bearing minerals occur in the outwash gravels from glacier action in the Bugaboo Batholith. Minerals include pyrochlore-microlite, euxenite-polycrase, uraninite, anatase, lepidocrocite, epidote, allanite, magnetite, ilmenite, rutile, sphene, apatite, fluorite, and zircon.
