The Kokanee Creek occurrence is situated on the east side of Kokanee Creek within the Kokanee Creek property, north of the West Arm of Kootenay Lake, approximately 1.2 kilometres northeast of Crescent Bay and 19 kilometres east of Nelson.
The area is underlain by Late Precambrian to Cretaceous volcanic and sedimentary rocks. Jurassic to Cretaceous Nelson and Valhalla intrusives and Tertiary alkalic plutons intrude the volcanic and sedimentary units. The region has been metamorphosed to lower to middle greenschist facies with associated chlorite, epidote, biotite hornfels and minor amphibole. Contact metamorphism related to Nelson and later intrusives occurs in both the volcanics and sediments. Regional structure is dominated by a series of north-northwest–trending tight folds and shears.
In the Kokanee Creek area, Slocan Group basal slates and phyllites with lesser fine-grained quartzite and limestone beds are overlain by well-bedded, arenaceous quartzite argillites with local impure quartzite and limestone. The top of the argillite section is marked by tuffaceous lava beds, likely related to early Rossland Group volcanism. Jurassic Nelson intrusives consist of porphyritic granite, granodiorite, diorite, quartz diorite, monzonite and hornblende syenite. Several smaller alkaline plugs belong to the Tertiary (Eocene) Coryell Batholith.
The claim area is underlain by a metasedimentary roof pendant remnant within the Middle Jurassic Nelson Batholith. The roof pendant is predominantly composed of argillic siltstone (siltite) and biotite schist mixed with Nelson paragneiss. Siltstones are exposed along the Lower Kokanee Creek Road and the Upper Busk Creek Road. Large rusty quartz veins intrude host sedimentary rocks. Some of the veins contain muscovite and form minor stockworks. Sulphide mineralization on the property includes coarse-grained euhedral galena, coarse-grained euhedral pyrite cubes and associated pseudomorphs, in addition to fine-grained disseminated arsenopyrite.
At the Kokanee Creek showing, cross fractures within a fine-grained to porphyritic granite contain massive pyrrhotite and sphalerite.
In 1979, Anton Nyhuis staked the Big ‘M’ claim group on the south side of Busk Creek. Nyhuis prospected the claims and collected six soil samples and one rock sample before selling the claims to Robin W. Pearson in January 1980. That summer, Pearson Gallagher Limited conducted a magnetometer survey over the area of the Kok showing (MINFILE 082FNW210).
In 1996, the Home claims were staked over the area by Eagle Plains Resources Limited and Miner River Resources Limited as part of the Kokanee Creek property. From 1996 to 1997, Eagle Plains Resources completed silt and soil geochemical surveying, diamond drilling, chip sampling and 3.5 kilometres of horizontal loop electromagnetic geophysical surveying. In total, 445 metres of NQ diamond drilling was completed in five holes situated south of Busk Creek and east of Kokanee Creek. Drillholes CK97-01 and KC97-02, completed along Lower Kokanee Creek Road to the north of the Kokanee showing, encountered zones of mineralization.
An airborne electromagnetic geophysical survey was flown over the property by Eagle Plains Resources in 2004. Field work that year included geological mapping and soil (125 samples) and silt (15 samples) geochemical surveying.
From the 1996 to 1997 exploration program, a 55-metre chip sample assayed 0.3 per cent zinc and a 5-metre sample assayed 2.26 grams per tonne gold (Press Release, Miner River Resources, January 28, 1997). Drillhole KC97-02 returned 0.7 metre of mixed intrusive and metasediment with strong pervasive silicification and biotite hornfels with 26.11 grams per tonne gold and 0.4 metre of metasiltstone-siltite with strong pervasive coarse black biotite hornfels with 13.52 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 25105, page 14).
