The Robert E. Burns property is located at the headwaters of a south- easterly flowing tributary of Bobbie Burns Creek, 2 kilometres west of the confluence of Bobbie Burns Creek and Carbonate Creek and approximately 30 kilometres south-southwest of Golden. The property is on the south side of the pass (Spillimacheen Range) into McMurdo Creek.

The area is underlain by north west-striking, steeply south east-dipping slates and schists of the Hadrynian Horsethief Creek Group.

Locally, a series of quartz veins, 0.3 to 1.2 metres wide, strike north west and cut the metasediments. Smaller cross-cutting quartz veins are nearly at right angles to the north west-striking system. The quartz veins are locally mineralized with disseminated pyrite and small amounts of galena and arsenopyrite. The mineralization tends to be concentrated in the smaller vein system and where the smaller vein system crosscuts the larger veins. Some near-surface oxidation of sulphides resulted in leached and honeycombed quartz, which when washed produced native gold.

A pile of approximately 90 tonnes of ore was left outside the feeding platform at the mill; approximately 90 kilograms of the ore was taken from different parts of the pile, pulverized, and quartered down into two samples that assayed 10.2 and 9.5 grams per tonne gold, and 34.2 and 13.7 grams per tonne silver, respectively (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1923, pages A197, A198).

A mill run of approximately 63.5 tonnes is reported to have averaged 25.7 grams per tonne gold (Property File - A.C.A Howe [1966-10-20]: Report on the Westgate Mines Ltd. Properties in the Golden Mining Division).

In 1982, sampling of veins in the lower adit yielded 5.0 grams per tonne gold over a 0.66 metre width and a strike length of 16.8 metres (Property File - Mountain Star Resources Ltd. [1997-09-09]: Geological Evaluation and Exploration Potential of the Vermont Project Mineral Claims).

Quartz vein showings discovered in approximately 1889 were staked as the Bobbie Burns claim. A five-stamp mill was installed at the 2072-metre elevation in 1891. During 1892, approximately 27 tonnes of ore were taken from an open-cut and run through the mill, but gold recoveries were low. Litigation as to the ownership of the Bobbie Burns claim resulted in the claim being restaked at the Robert E. Burns (Lot 1002). In 1923, the property consisted of the Robert E. Burns, Mill Site (Lot 1091), Nugget (Lot 777), Highland Mary (Lot 1982) and Rider (Lot 776) claims.

In 1966, Westgate Mines prospected and sampled the area as the Bend claims. In 1979, Norcen Energy Resources Ltd. optioned the holdings of Cochrane Oil and Gas Ltd. between Vermont and Warren Creeks and carried out a program of geological mapping, prospecting, geochemical soil sampling, geophysics and diamond drilling. In 1980, Norcen continued to work on the same area with a program of geological mapping, regional and detailed geochemistry, geophysics and diamond drilling. In 1982 and 1983, additional programs were carried out on these claims by Cochrane Oil and Gas and Bluesky Oil and Gas Ltd., including diamond drilling. In 1979 and 1980, the First Nuclear Corporation staked a substantial number of claims, from McMurdo Creek at the north end to the northern boundary of the Cochrane ground just north of the Ruth Vermont Mines, following the results of a 1979 stream sediment geochemical survey. Field work in 1980 included geological mapping, prospecting and geochemistry. In 1981, the First Nuclear Corporation continued exploration of the DEB claims with geological mapping, sampling and prospecting. At the end of this program the size of the claim group was reduced to 376 units covering the favourable and anomalous stratigraphy. In 1982, MineQuest Exploration Associates Ltd., working on contract to Samim Canada Ltd., further explored the DEB claims, principally through geological mapping, prospecting, reconnaissance soil geochemistry, mostly on widespread contour lines, and rock-sampling and trenching. In 1983, work by Samim saw 7.7 kilometres of IP surveys completed; a total of 493 metres drilled in 11 BQ holes; and 1096 soil, 227 rock and 27 silt samples collected. In 1997, Mountain Star Resources Ltd. conducted a property examination on the area as the VMT and BB claims.