The Highland Boy property is located on the west side of the Rocher Deboule Range, 9 kilometres south of South Hazelton.
Two continuous sub-parallel veins occur in porphyritic granodiorite of the Rocher Deboule stock of the Late Cretaceous Bulkley Plutonic Suite. The Chicago Creek fault cuts the granodiorite and terminates the veins on the east. The southernmost fissure vein zone has been traced west along surface to the No. 4 vein of the Rocher Deboule (MINFILE 093M 071) occurrence.
The veins strike east-west and dip steeply north. The upper or Highland Boy vein shear is up to 2 metres wide and is mineralized with chalcopyrite, pyrite, specular hematite, magnetite, scheelite, cassiterite, and uraninite. A 15-centimetre sample assayed 0.7 gram per tonne gold, 15.1 grams per tonne silver, 4.97 per cent copper, 0.90 per cent tin, 0.72 per cent WO3 and 0.015 per cent equivalent uranium (Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 223 (Rev.)).
In 1917, 68 tonnes produced 1,089 grams of silver, 124 grams of gold and 4,760 kilograms of copper.
Work History
The property, consisting of 9 Crown-granted claims, is located on upper Juniper Creek east of the Rocher Deboule mine. The property was located about 1910 and acquired in 1912 by the Rocher Deboule Copper Company Ltd., who also owned the Rocher Deboule mine. It was leased to the Delta Copper Co. of Edmonton in 1915 that did most of the exploration and in 1917 made a shipment of ore. The property has commonly been called the Delta Copper and was leased sporadically in the early 1920s. It was acquired in 1951 by Western Uranium Cobalt Mines Limited who did not do any work on the property.
Development work has been done in two adits; the main adit is 91.4 metres in length and has a stope and winze about 30 metres from the portal; the adit on the Delta Fraction claim is several hundred feet in length. The Chicago group of 5 claims, including Lots 513-515, was located at the head of Chicago Creek and north of and adjoining the Highland Boy group.
The Chicago Rocher Deboule Copper Company, Limited, and the Delta Copper Company, Limited, were both organized in 1916 and apparently both held an interest in the Chicago group. The claims were Crown-granted to the Delta Copper Company in 1920.
In 1987, 14 dump samples were collected by Southern Gold Resource Ltd (Assessment Report 16714).
During 2007, Rocher Deboule Minerals Corp conducted limited prospecting and rock and soil sampling, a large area Dighem airborne geophysical survey by Fugro airborne Surveys Corp., a remote sensing analysis by John L. Berry, a small area ground magnetometer survey, and diamond core drilling program of 1106.1 meters over 6 drill holes on the Highland Boy Showing was also conducted. These were drilled from one set up, approximately 100 metres north of the surface trace of copper-silver-gold bearing quartz-sulphide Highland Boy Upper vein. One intercept with and estimated true thickness of 1.93 metres assayed 2.18 per cent copper, 7.71 grams per tonne silver, 0.511 gram per tonne gold, 0.004 per cent molybdenum and 0.070 per cent tungsten (Assessment Report 29338). In general, the drill results were disappointing.
In 2011, American Manganese Inc carried out a program that entailed 22 kilometres of ground magnetometer survey, 841 soil samples, 455 rock samples and 68 silt samples. Prospecting and sampling were done in the Highland Boy area and a review of the 2007 core was made. In 2012, American Manganese Inc. completed a minor program of rock and soil sampling on the area.
During 2016 through 2019, American Manganese Inc. completed further programs of geochemical (rock and soil) sampling and 10.2 line-kilometres of ground magnetic surveys on the area as the Rocher Deboule property.
