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File Created: 24-Jul-1985 by BC Geological Survey (BCGS)
Last Edit:  12-Jan-2004 by Robert H. Pinsent (RHP)

Summary Help Help

NMI 082K11 Ag2
Name CANADIAN BOY, SILVER SLIPPER, PARRSBORO Mining Division Revelstoke
BCGS Map 082K063
Status Past Producer NTS Map 082K11W
Latitude 050º 39' 46'' UTM 11 (NAD 83)
Longitude 117º 24' 26'' Northing 5612405
Easting 471219
Commodities Silver, Lead, Gold Deposit Types I05 : Polymetallic veins Ag-Pb-Zn+/-Au
Tectonic Belt Omineca Terrane Kootenay
Capsule Geology

The Canadian Boy is at approximately 1200 metres elevation on the south side of Lardeau Creek, opposite Finkle (Seven-Mile) Creek. The original group also included the Silver Slipper, Pady and Parrsboro claims, which are across the river from the Gold Bug [082KNW016] adit.

The Canadian Boy vein was located in 1896 and a considerable amount of exploration development work was done on the prospect prior to 1914. A shaft was sunk for 12.2 metres by Kirkpatrick, Daney and others, in 1911, until water flow forced a change in plan. A tunnel was then driven for 53.3 metres, of which 40.0 metres were on the vein, to tap the ore below the shaft. In 1916, the property was optioned by Mr. Featherstonhaugh. Three years later, a crosscut was made for 55 metres on the nearby Parrsboro claim, "to gain depth on a showing of ore in an old shaft". The area was prospected by L.B. York in 1987 (Assessment Report 16005). He conducted a self potential survey and prospected for the Parrsboro adit, which was then thought to be on the Silver Slipper fraction. At the time, the Silver Slipper winze (Canadian Boy shaft?) was accessible by road.

The Trout Lake area is underlain by a thick succession of sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Badshot Formation and Lardeau Group near the northern end of the Kootenay arc, an arcuate, north to northwest trending belt of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata that is now classified as a distinct, pericratonic, terrane. The arc rocks are bordered by Precambrian quartzite in the east and they young to the west, where they are bounded by Jurassic-age intrusive complexes. They were deformed during the Antler orogeny in Devonian-Mississippian time and were refolded and faulted during the Columbian orogeny, in the Middle Jurassic. A large panel, the "Selkirk allochthon", was later offset to the northeast by dip-slip motion along the Columbia River Fault.

The Badshot Formation is composed of a thick Cambrian limestone that is a distinctive marker horizon in the Trout Lake area. It is underlain by Hamill Group quartzite and it is overlain by a younger assemblage of limestone, calcareous, graphitic and siliceous argillite and siltstone, sandstone, quartzite and conglomerate, and also mafic volcanic flows, tuffs and breccias, all of which belong to the Lardeau Group. The rocks are isoclinally folded and intensely deformed, but only weakly metamorphosed. They occur as intercalated beds of marble, quartzite and grey, green and black phyllite and schist. Fyles and Eastwood (EMPR BULL 45) subdivided the group into six formations (Index, Triune, Ajax, Sharon Creek, Jowett and Broadview) of which the lowermost (Index) and uppermost (Broadview) are the most widespread. The Triune (siliceous argillite), Ajax (quartzite) and Sharon Creek (siliceous argillite) are restricted to the Trout Lake area. The Jowett is a mafic volcanic unit.

The Canadian Boy area is underlain by black siliceous argillites and phyllites of the Triune Formation, Ajax Formation quartzite and black siliceous argillites and cherts of the Sharon Creek Formation. The rocks are isoclinally folded, highly deformed and intensely phyllitic. The workings are underlain by carbonaceous phyllite which strikes to the northwest and dips vertically. The phyllite is cut by a highly discordant galena-bearing quartz-carbonate vein which strikes 010 and dips at 80 degrees to the east. The vein is between 2.1 and 2.4 metres wide. A shaft was originally sunk on a high-grade zone; however, water became a problem and a drift had to be driven into the vein. By 1911, the drift had yet to reach the projection of the shaft but it was in "good" silver-lead ore estimated to average "$90/ton". The vein was 1.2 metres wide in the tunnel and had a streak of decomposed material containing iron oxide with occasional bunches of solid galena on its hanging wall side. A sample taken across the vein assayed a trace gold and 54.8 grams per tonne silver. There was no assay for lead. A selected sample of galena from the drift assayed gold 1.37 grams per tonne gold, 2180 grams per tonne silver and 72.6 per cent lead. There is a large amount of pyrite associated with the galena and a clean pyrite sample assayed 15.77 grams per tonne gold and 226.3 grams per tonne silver. Between the vein and the hanging wall is a 0.15 metre wide zone of crushed quartz gouge which ran a trace gold and 34 grams per tonne silver. A short distance to the northeast and below the shaft, an adit was (later?) driven to access and drain the shaft. The rock is badly broken and conditions are wet. A hundred metres southeast of the shaft, there is a belt of quartzite that can be traced for a considerable distance. This is the Ajax quartzite, which was known to the original prospectors as the "Cromwell Dyke".

The property is reported to have produced 67 tonnes containing 6812 grams of silver, 230 grams of gold, 1485 kilograms of lead and 1282 kilograms of zinc in 1980. This production is not well documented. In 1987, L. B. York collected a "grab" sample from the winze area that assayed 3.43 grams per tonne gold, 2571 grams per tonne silver and over 50 per cent lead. His main target was described as being a 1.52 metres wide quartz vein that strikes to the southwest from the footwall of a large vein system that links the Silver Cup [082KNW027] to the Nettie L. [082KNW100] deposits.

Bibliography
EMPR AR 1910-101; *1911-K154,K155,K156; 1912-K151; *1914-K300,K301;
1920-128; 1921-G161
EMPR ASS RPT 16005
EMPR BULL 45 pp. 86, 87
GSC MEM 161
EMPR PFD 3780, 810255

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