The White Bear deposit is associated with the "Main vein" system, of the Rossland mining camp, which forms a continuous well defined fracture system on a regional scale, striking 070 degrees for a length in excess of 1 kilometre. The White Bear mine, along with The Centre Star (082FSW094), Le Roi (082FSW093) and War Eagle (082FSW097) mines are all connected underground and constitute one large mine with a total of about 97 kilometres of underground workings. Refer to the Le Roi deposit (082FSW093) for further details of the Main vein system and the Rossland mining camp. The White Bear Crown Grant appears to lie on or near the north-trending Rossland fault which divides augite porphyry of the Elise Formation (Rossland Group) on the east from sediments of the Pennsylvanian and possibly Permian Mount Roberts Formation on the west. The augite porphyry, known as the Rossland sill, has intruded the upper part of the Elise Formation. The Mount Roberts succession on Red Mountain is thought to have been thrust over the underlying Rossland sill prior to the intrusion of the Middle to Late Jurassic Nelson Intrusions. The strata are intruded by the Early Jurassic Rossland monzonite, the Rainy Day pluton (Nelson Intrusions), to the west, and by the syenitic Middle Eocene Coryell Intrusions and associated syenite dykes.

By 1902, a shaft passed through a barren package of rocks, described as "altered basic volcanic rock" (Mount Roberts Formation?), up to 150 metres thick and encountered ore-bearing "diorite porphyry" (Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 77, pages 136-137). The diorite porphyry was later interpreted as a marginal facies of the Rossland monzonite (Bulletin 74, page 26).

Mineralization consists of sulphides replacing wallrock along well-defined fractures and infilling fractures and faults with pyrr- hotite, chalcopyrite, minor arsenopyrite and pyrite. The pyrite occurs as crystals in the pyrrhotite and as disseminations in the host rock. The gangue is mainly altered wallrock with minor lenses of quartz and calcite.

In 8 years between 1903 to 1920, 17,028 tonnes of ore was mined from the White Bear vein and produced 72,905 grams gold, 229,104 grams silver, and 142,064 kilograms copper. From 1918 to 1942 production from this deposit was combined with the Le Roi, Josie and War Eagle and is reported with the Le Roi (082FSW093) data.