The Mohican deposit is at the head of Mohican Creek, a tributary of Gainer Creek, which flows to the southwest into Lardeau Creek. The Mohican (L.8706) reverted crown grant is one of a cluster that once straddled a northwest trending ridge between Mohican Mountain and Corner Hill. The Mohican (L.8706) was bounded by the Pathfinder (L.8707) to the southeast and by the Early Bird (L.8707) to the northwest.
After its initial discovery and exploration, the Mohican group was purchased by the Cariboo Creek Development Syndicate, in 1903. The company drove a 122 metre adit to the southeast along the vein, at 1920 metres elevation, to develop a "large body of concentrating ore" that it felt could be reduced to a product containing approximately 6800 grams per tonne silver. The same year, it shipped an 8.1 tonne sample of sorted ore that assayed 2057 grams per tonne silver and 60 per cent lead. In 1904, it started a crosscut to intersect the vein 150 metres below surface and it shipped a further 27 tonnes of hand sorted ore containing 5350 grams per tonne silver and 14.3 per cent lead. In 1914, another 8.0 tonne sample of hand sorted ore was shipped to the smelter. In this case, it returned 0.34 grams per tonne gold, 1930 grams per tonne silver, 1.5 per cent copper, 27.8 per cent lead and 10.9 per cent zinc. A crosscut was also started to test the vein below the weathered zone. In 1925, the property was owned by the Mohican Mining Company of Vancouver, which reopened the workings and continued development down the plunge of the ore-shoot. The company drove a crosscut and drift for a total length of approximately 213 metres. During 2006 through 2009, Mineral Mountain Resources Ltd. completed programs of prospecting, geochemical (soil, silt, talus fines and rock) sampling and an airborne geophysical survey on the area as the Kootenay Arc property.
The Trout Lake area is underlain by a thick succession of sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Badshot Formation and Lardeau Group near the northern end of the Kootenay arc, an arcuate, north to northwest trending belt of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata that is now classified as a distinct, pericratonic, terrane. The arc rocks are bordered by Precambrian quartzite in the east and they young to the west, where they are bounded by Jurassic-age intrusive complexes. They were deformed during the Antler orogeny in Devonian-Mississippian time and refolded and faulted during the Columbian orogeny, in the Middle Jurassic. A large panel, the "Selkirk allochthon", was later offset to the northeast by dip-slip motion along the Columbia River Fault.
The Badshot Formation is composed of a thick Cambrian limestone that is a distinctive marker horizon in the Trout Lake area. It is underlain by Hamill Group quartzite and it is overlain by a younger assemblage of limestone, calcareous, graphitic and siliceous argillite and siltstone, sandstone, quartzite and conglomerate, and also mafic volcanic flows, tuffs and breccias, all of which belong to the Lardeau Group. The rocks are isoclinally folded and intensely deformed, but only weakly metamorphosed. They occur as intercalated beds of marble, quartzite and grey, green and black phyllite and schist. Fyles and Eastwood (EMPR BULL 45) subdivided the group into six formations (Index, Triune, Ajax, Sharon Creek, Jowett and Broadview) of which the lowermost (Index) and uppermost (Broadview) are the most widespread. The Triune (siliceous argillite), Ajax (quartzite) and Sharon Creek (siliceous argillite) are restricted to the Trout Lake area. The Jowett is a mafic volcanic unit. The Mohican area is to the southeast of the Badshot [082KNW033] and Black Prince [082KNW034] and is in a similar stratigraphic and structural setting. The claims cover Index Formation strata in the hangingwall of the Badshot limestone, a thick, massive, grey marble unit that was informally known as the "lime dyke" in the early 1900s. The limestone is overlain by a thick succession of black and grey phyllite that is locally intercalated with beds of calcareous phyllite, limestone and quartzite. All the rocks are isoclinally folded and highly deformed. They have the pronounced regional, northwest trending and steep southwest dipping, axial plane schistocity that is found throughout the eastern Trout Lake area. There is a considerable amount of stratigraphic repetition in the area.
The Mohican property covers a series of quartz veins in carbonaceous calc-schist alongside the Badshot limestone. The principal vein varies from 0.15 to 1.52 metres in width and occupies a fault fissure that is discordant to both bedding and schistocity. It appears to feather out upward and separates out into several quartz stringers over 10 metres of schist near the crest of the ridge. The vein strikes 105 degrees and dips at 70 degrees to the southwest. It is composed of white quartz with pyrite, galena and sphalerite and the overlying stringers contain quartz with pyrite but relatively little galena. At this, higher, elevation the structure is relatively low grade; however, mineralization improves at depth. The main adit, at 1920 metres elevation, was driven to the southeast along a shear zone and encountered broken rock that was partially leached. This appears to have been the material sampled in 1903 and 1914.
