The Ruth-Hope occurrence is located immediately southwest of Sandon at 1280 metres elevation above sea level in the Slocan Mining Division. The property includes the Ruth, Hope and Lone Star Crown grants and the Ruth Fractional Crown grant (Lots 841, 842, 1844 and 1845 respectively).

The claims lie between elevations of 1065 and 1770 metres and adjoin and lie west and northwest of the Silversmith property (082FNW053).

The Ruth claim was located by F.P. O'Neill in 1892. Three adjacent claims, the Hope, Wyoming, and Ruth Fraction, were subsequently staked and combined to form the Ruth group, owned by the locators F.P. O'Neill, D.C. Clark, T.Y. Kesler, F.E. Starkey, D.E. McVey and W.H. McVey. Development work was begun in several adits on the Ruth vein. In October 1895, a 2/3 interest in the property was sold to H.M. Foster, of London, England; the McVeys retained their 1/3 interest. Mr. Foster and associates organized the Ruth Mines, Limited, and this company was registered in British Columbia in September 1897. Four claims, the Despair, Ruth, Hope, and Ruth Fraction (Lots 840-842, 1845, respectively) were Crown-granted to Mr. Foster in 1897. The Wyoming, Zuma, Aurora No. 2, Suburban Fraction, Aurora Fraction, and Zuma Fraction claims (Lots 754, 2029-2031, 2036, 2037 respectively) were Crown-granted to the company in 1898. A mill with a capacity of 4 tons per hour was built in 1899, and modified to recover zinc in 1904. The mine operated steadily until about 1916. The Ruth and Hope veins were largely worked out during this period. Lessees worked part time during the following years.

In the fall of 1922 the 14 Crown-granted claims were acquired by Messrs. Stewart, Lennie, and associates, of Vancouver, who incorporated the Ruth-Hope Mining Company, Limited, in April 1923. The Ruth No. 2 or Stewart vein was discovered and worked at this time. The company rehabilitated the old mill and added a 50 ton per day flotation unit in 1928. Work by the company ceased in 1930. The underground workings to this date extended over a vertical range of 427 metres and comprised nearly 8 kilometres of drifts and crosscuts. The Ruth vein had been explored by 5 adits. At higher elevations, southwest of the Ruth, 5 adits explored the Hope vein. In 1923 the Ruth No. 2 or Stewart vein was discovered, to the west of a fault zone that marked the end of the Ruth lode, and developed from the surface down to the Ruth No. 5 level by the Ruth-Hope Mining Company. This company also drove an 823-metre long crosscut south from the Ruth No. 5 level into the Blue Grouse claim (Lot 1846). The crosscut was driven about parallel to and some 79 metres west of the Silversmith property boundary in search of the possible westerly extension of the Silversmith lode; the lode was found to occur in two branches about 90 feet apart. Ore was mined up to No. 4 level and down to No. 6 level, a vertical distance of 67 metres.

Lessees carried on small scale intermittent work from 1930 to 1944. Kelowna Exploration Company, Limited, optioned 7 of the Ruth- Hope claims and adjacent ground in 1946. Crosscutting and diamond drilling was done from the Ruth No. 5 level to explore for extensions of the Silversmith vein. The option was given up in 1948. Kootenay Belle Gold Mines, Limited, optioned the property in 1951 and shipped ore from the mine dumps.

Carnegie Mines Limited, which was controlled by Viola Mac Mines Limited, purchased the Ruth-Hope group and adjacent ground, totalling 46 Crown-granted claims, in 1952. Intermittent exploration work was done in various levels of the mine and lessees continued to work part time. The company name was changed in 1958 to Carnegie Mining Corporation Limited. The Silmonac Syndicate, jointly financed by Viola Mac Mines Limited, Moneta Porcupine Mines Limited, and Silver Standard Mines Limited, was organized in 1963 to further explore the ground west of the Silversmith property, where the extension of the Silversmith lode was thought to be offset to the north by one or more northwest trending faults. The lode was found to the west of the Ruth-Silversmith fault zone and drifted on westward for about 182.8 metres; the mineralization encountered was below ore grade. Silmonac Mines Limited was incorporated in November 1963 to continue the exploration work. During 1964 the Ruth No. 5 level was extended 317 metres and 98 metres of raising and 1528.5 metres of diamond drilling was done. Subsequent to the cessations of operations by Silmonac Mines, Carnegie Mining explored below the old Ruth workings by crosscutting from No. 5 level and diamond drilling; this work failed to disclose the downward extension of the Ruth lode. Surface stripping was done on the Ruth Fraction claim in 1965. During 2005 through 2014, Klondike Silver Corp. examined the area as apart of their Slocan Silver Camp property.

Regionally, the area lies on the western margin of the Kootenay Arc, in allochthonous rocks of the Quesnel Terrane. In the vicinity of the occurrence, the Quesnel Terrane is dominated by the Upper Triassic Slocan Group, a thick sequence of deformed and metamorphosed shale, argillite, siltstone, quartzite and minor limestone. Rocks of the Slocan Group are tightly and disharmonically folded. Early minor folds are tight to isoclinal with moderate east plunging, southeast inclined axial planes and younger folds are open, southwest plunging with subhorizontal axial planes. The sedimentary sequence has been regionally metamorphosed to lower greenschist facies.

South of the occurrence, the Slocan Group has been intruded by the Middle Jurassic Nelson intrusions which comprise at least six texturally and compositionally distinct phases ranging from diorite to lamprophyre. The most dominant phase is a medium to coarse grained potassium feldspar porphyritic granite. Several feldspar porphyritic granodiorite dikes, apparently related to the Nelson intrusions, also cut the sedimentary sequence near the occurrence (Paper 1989-5).

The Ruth-Hope occurrence is hosted by massive, locally calcareous argillite and quartzite of the Slocan Group and by quartz feldspar porphyry and lamprophyre dikes related to the Nelson intrusions. The sedimentary rocks are folded into an anticlinal structure that generally strikes northwest. The rocks dip moderately to the southwest on the eastern part of the Ruth Crown grant and northeast on the eastern part of the Hope Crown grant. The quartz feldspar porphyry dikes strike northwest, subparallel to the sedimentary rocks, but dip at different angles from the sedimentary sequence. The felsic dikes are restricted to a 100 metre northwest-striking belt in the southern part of the Ruth claim. The dikes are pre-mineral and appear to have played some structural control on the vein emplacement. The lamprophyric dikes are irregular, appear later than the quartz feldspar porphyry dikes and are probably closely related in time to the mineralizing event.

The Ruth-Hope property contains three veins, the Ruth, the Stewart or Ruth No. 2, and the Hope. The mine workings on the Ruth-Hope vein system extend over a vertical range of 425 metres and include over 8 kilometres of underground development.

The Ruth vein is exposed on the Ruth and Ruth Fraction claims. The vein is within a well-defined fissure striking 070 degrees and dipping about 70 degrees southeast. It has been explored with at least five adits covering about 210 metres of strike length and 180 metres downdip. The vein is about 1.2 metres wide and composed largely of sphalerite and galena mixed with siderite. It is in the axial region of a recumbent fold, convex to the west. There is evidence of crumpling of beds in the general crest zone of the fold and the western end of the vein appears to split and terminate within the crest zone. The fissure vein was apparently not persistent enough to penetrate the apical zone of crumpling (Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 184).

The Stewart or Ruth No. 2 vein is exposed west and a few metres north of the termination of the Ruth vein. The vein was accessed from the Ruth workings and a small vertical shaft on the Ruth Fraction claim. The vein has been explored for about 150 metres of strike length and ranged in width from a few centimetres up to 9 metres. The fissure vein was essentially composed of crushed wallrock with thin seams of galena, sphalerite and siderite concentrated on the fissure walls. Elevated silver values were associated with sphalerite. Ore shoots varied from a few metres to 30 metres in length and from a few centimetres to a few metres in width. Crystalline cerussite was abundant in the upper levels of the mine.

The Hope vein is exposed on the Hope Crown grant. The vein is believed to be the faulted-off extension of the Silversmith (082FNW053) and Richmond-Eureka (082FNW054) vein which has been continuously mined from the Hope Crown grant through the Lone Star (Lot 1844), the Silversmith (Lot 1010) and the Slocan Star (Lot 545) (082FNW053), the Slocan King (Lot 547) (082FNW196), the Eureka No. 2 (Lot 2284) and the Richmond (Lot 1472) (082FNW054) for a total strike length of about 1.5 kilometres.

The vein has been developed in five adits on the Hope and Lone Star claims which include over 1800 metres of drifting. The Hope vein represents a system of subparallel fissure veins striking east and dipping between 25 to 40 degrees south. Collectively, the zone is 0.3 to 12 metres wide and includes a combination of anastomosing mineralized fractures and shears. In general, the steeper dipping part of the shears are more regular and better defined and are coincident with the intersection of the more competent rock units. Where the shears dip at shallower angles and tend to follow bedding, the wallrock is crushed and the fissure veins are irregular and discontinuous. On the Hope claim, the vein was mined for about 150 metres of strike length. The vein pinched out to the east against the northwest trending Silversmith-Hope fault. The Hope vein is mostly filled with crushed rock, calcite, siderite, quartz and ore. The ore shoots were irregular, pinching, swelling and in places abruptly terminating at their greatest thickness against a crossfault. They varied in thickness from a few centimetres to 60 centimetres and averaged about 30 metres in length. The ore consisted of galena, sphalerite and pyrite with minor tetrahedrite and chalcopyrite. Limonite and anglesite occurred in the oxidized part of the orebody.

Production from the Ruth, Stewart and Hope veins between 1895 and 1962 yielded about 76 tonnes of silver, 10,122 tonnes of lead, 1605 tonnes of zinc, 1 tonne of cadmium and 7 kilograms of gold from 60,575 tonnes mined.