The Silver Dollar and Lucky Boy occurrences are located north of Erie Creek and approximately 1 kilometre west of Salmo.
The area is underlain by greywackes, argillites and interbedded tuffs and flows of the Lower Jurassic Hall Formation, (Rossland Group). Feldspar-quartz porphyry dikes and/or sills occur and are somewhat conformable to bedding. The strata, striking north and dipping 40 to 90 degrees east, has been folded and appears to have been overturned. A granitic stock of the Middle to Upper Jurassic Nelson Intrusions occurs within several hundred metres of the workings.
The Silver Dollar occurrence occurs in argillite and consists of a crosscutting vein, up to 1.5 metres wide, striking 290 degrees and dipping steeply north. Sphalerite, galena with only minor chalcopyrite and pyrite occur erratically along the strike length of the vein with calcite and ankerite.
Underground sampling of the Silver Dollar workings are reported to have yielded an average of 1.0 per cent lead, 2.6 per cent zinc and 28.4 grams per tonne silver from 19 samples over a length of 54 metres and width of 1.38 metres from the main tunnel level, while six cut samples from the lower (180 foot level) drift averaged 23.4 per cent lead, 17.6 per cent zinc and 564 grams per tonne silver over a length of 18 metres and width of 0.26 metre (Property File - P.G. Dobson [1956-07-01]: Report on the Silver Dollar Silver and Lead & Lucky Boy Gold Groups).
In 1988, underground sampling of the Silver Dollar workings yielded up to 13.2 per cent lead, 4.6 per cent zinc and 431 grams per tonne silver (Property File - D. Berka [1989-01-13]: No. 9 (1989) - Fireweed, Silver Dollar, Minto Extension, Paradigm).
The Lucky Boy vein is located approximately 600 metres to the west of the Silver Dollar occurrence. The vein is hosted in a shear zone, striking approximately 020 degrees north and dipping 10 to 30 degrees east. Pyrite is found as euhedral crystals in all rock types. Quartz within the shear zone occurs as veins, veinlets and stringers that are generally well fractured and broken. In and along the margins of the quartz are pyrite, chalcopyrite, galena, rare sphalerite and bornite and tetrahedrite. Alteration consists of carbonatization and silicification.
A sample (no. 4393) from the surface trench is reported to have yielded 13.0 grams per tonne gold and 125 grams per tonne silver over 0.81 metre (Property File - P.G. Dobson [1956-07-01]: Report on the Silver Dollar Silver and Lead & Lucky Boy Gold Groups).
In 1988, diamond drilling on the Lucky Boy area yielded up to 4.4 grams per tonne gold and 287 grams per tonne silver over 0.53 metre in hole 12 (Property File - D. Berka [1989-01-13]: No. 9 (1989) - Fireweed, Silver Dollar, Minto Extension, Paradigm).
In 1989, samples taken from the underground workings assayed up to 57.81 grams per tonne gold and 3790 grams per tonne silver, 5.5 per cent lead, 3.7 per cent zinc and 0.82 per cent copper (Assessment Report 18786).
Production figures from both the Silver Dollar and the Lucky Boy workings are combined. Production was reportedly intermittent from 1899 to 1970 but records indicate that from 1947 to 1970, 5,425 tonnes of ore were mined, which produced 50,916 grams of gold, 1,818,469 grams of silver, 52,597 kilograms of lead and 60,230 kilograms of zinc.
Development of the Silver Dollar occurrence includes an inclined shaft with two levels of drifting, for a total of 201 metres, while the Lucky Boy occurrence workings consist of two tunnels, 30 and 9 metres long, respectively, and a 90-metre trench.
The area has been explored since the late 1890’s. In 1956, the area was examined by P.G. Dobson. In 1988 and 1989, Highland Queen Mines completed programs of geochemical sampling, geological mapping, ground geophysical surveys and at least eight diamond drill holes, totalling 564 metres.
