The Alvija showing is situated approximately 350 metres north of Kleanza Creek and 27 kilometres northeast of Terrace.
The area is underlain by interbedded andesites, rhyolites and tuffs of the Jurassic Hazelton Group. The rocks, which strike 160 degrees and dip approximately 50 degrees northeast, are concordantly sheared and brecciated, with associated copper mineralization occurring as disseminations, blebs and fracture fillings. Mineralization includes bornite and minor chalcocite, chalcopyrite, malachite and possibly tetrahedrite, with associated quartz and epidote.
The Main showing contains four zones, the widest being 10.7 metres over a width of 75 metres, a length of 75 metres and a vertical depth of 60 metres. A 7.6-metre chip sample on surface assayed 3.6 per cent copper and 65.1 grams per tonne silver (Geology, Exploration and Mining in British Columbia, 1969).
A shaft 500 metres to the southeast follows a fault in andesite with associated chalcocite veinlets. A 30-centimetre sample assayed 0.28 per cent copper and 4.1 grams per tonne silver (Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 212). Two small showings—the North and Chris—occur 460 metres northwest and 760 metres east, respectively, of the Main showing.
The showing was originally staked in 1908 on outcrop with narrow stringers containing iron, chalcocite, bornite, epidote and chlorite. An 8-metre-long adit was driven into the ground 18 metres below the mineralized outcrop (Minister of Mines Annual Report, 1914).
Between 1920 and 1925, Alvija Mines Ltd. developed adits, trenches, a shaft and tunnels and open cuts.
In 1924, Federal Mining and Smelting Co. installed an 11-metre-long adit.
In 1929, Cominco Co. sank a 47-metre shaft from 634 metres elevation.
In 1968, Alvija Mines Ltd. conducted geological mapping, trenching, diamond drilling and road construction. Sampling of three zones intersected by drilling averaged 1.1 per cent copper and 23.7 grams per tonne silver over their average width of 9.3 metres (Property File, Phendler, 1968). Unclassified ore based on four drillholes is 181 420 tonnes of 4 per cent copper and 68.5 grams per tonne silver (Property File, Phendler, R.W., 1968; Western Miner October, 1968, page 154).
In 1980, Kelly Creek Joint Venture completed a short program of rock, rock-chip, soil and stream sediment sampling. A copper and silver sediment anomaly was found near rock samples containing up to 6.98 per cent copper and 112.5 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 09914).
In 2007, Nass Valley Gateway Ltd. collected rock-chip samples, completed induced polarization and resistivity surveys and concluded that further work was not warranted (Assessment Report 29734).
In 2012, Alan Raven and Patti Walker performed mapping and collected rock samples from the occurrence and areas recently exposed by logging activity. These samples failed to identify significant values beyond the known occurrence location, where assays reported greater than 1 per cent copper and 100 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 33912).
In 2018 the Alvija (Lucky Jim) area was added to Casa Mineral's Keaper property and included in a structural analysis using newly available satellite imagery (Assessment Report 37452). In 2019, the property was covered by airborne EM (VTEM) which indicated a very large range of magnetic responses, including very strong responses in the northeast part of the Keaper property around the Alvija prospect (Assessment Report 39057).
