The Natch showing is located on an unnamed creek locally known as Goldenlatch Creek, which flows into Nahatlatch River 5 kilometres west of Keefers.
In 1936, H.C. Horwood briefly examined the geology of this region and reported prospectors working a gold showing. The property lay inactive until 1952, when S. Durfell and K.C. McTaggart conducted geological surveys in this region. In the late 1970s and 1980s, sporadic exploration was conducted in the area by junior exploration companies. The old gold showing was rediscovered in 1982. Between 1983 and 1985, Hudson Bay Exploration and Development Company Ltd. conducted a series of exploration programs. An anomalous gold-bearing structure was outlined over the gold showing. Six diamond-drill holes tested the structure over 310 metres along strike and to a depth of 160 metres. The structure was found to carry subeconomic to economic gold at that time.
The area is underlain by a northwest trending belt of lower greenschist facies Permian(?) to Lower Cretaceous Bridge River Complex (Group) phyllites and schists. These occur in normal and fault contact with Bridge River serpentinized ultramafics, and metasediments of the Lower and Middle Jurassic Ladner Group and the Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous Relay Mountain Group. Late Cretaceous granitic plugs and dikes intrude all of the above units.
The showing is underlain by a thick sequence of monotonous micaceous and graphitic phyllites and phyllitic schists. The sequence typically has a north-northwest foliation and dips steeply. The sequence is in fault contact with a band of sheared talc and talcose serpentine. Structurally, the phyllite and argillite schists host a number of subparallel, northwest trending shears, which are offset by major northeast trending faults.
The Natch gold zone occurs along a steep gully exposed in Latch Creek. The zone is mineralized and altered along a series of subparallel narrow shears. The 50-metre-wide shear zone is ankerite- carbonate-talc altered with minor silicification and irregular quartz veinlets and sweats crosscut and parallel schistosity. The shear tends to carry higher gold values whereas the quartz veins tend to carry only minor pyrite and arsenopyrite with low gold values. Altered and sulphide-bearing lenses up to 3 metres wide occur between quartz veins and shears. Pyrite and pyrrhotite with minor chalcopyrite and arsenopyrite comprise sulphides. Chlorite, biotite, potassium feldspar and albite comprise associated alteration minerals.
Interbedded bands of microcline-actinolite skarn, up to 4 metres wide, occur adjacent to intruding dioritic monzonite. Gold and silver values within the skarn are associated with arsenopyrite (Assessment Report 13634).
Drillhole GL84-1, drilled on the west bank of Goldenlatch Creek, 2.2 kilometres north of Nahatlatch River, yielded values of 4.04 grams per tonne gold and 4.7 grams per tonne silver over a true width of 3.52 metres (Assessment Report 13634).
Six continuous chip samples and one grab sample were taken in 1991. Some of the better results were obtained from samples LG90-1C and LG90-4. Sample LG90-1C was taken across oxidized limonite shears and narrow quartz veins. The sample yielded 9.0 grams per tonne silver and 1.23 per cent arsenic (Assessment report 21926). Sample LG90-4, taken from a highly oxidized shear zone with 2 to 4 centimetre seams of pyrite, yielded 56.8 grams per tonne silver, 1.90 per cent arsenic and 0.12 gram per tonne gold. Sample LG90-1A yielded 0.15 per cent copper.
