The Vanguard prospect is located 500 metres southwest of Homestake Creek in the Upper Kitsault Valley, about 29 kilometres north of Alice Arm. A zone of copper mineralization has been extensively investigated, since 1916, by trenching and tunnelling.

The area is underlain by a sequence of volcanics and sediments of the Upper Triassic Stuhini Group and the Lower Jurassic Hazelton Group. This sequence has been regionally metamorphosed to greenschist facies.

The Vanguard occurrence lies at the eastern margin of a 10 kilometre long, northwest trending body of gossanous plagioclase-hornblende porphyritic andesite of the Hazelton Group informally called the "Copper Belt". The andesite has been extensively pyritized and variably silicified and sericitized along its length. Argillites outcrop a hundred metres to the northeast.

The Vanguard prospect consists of a mineralized zone which strikes 120 degrees for at least 46 metres and dips steeply northeast on the surface to southwest underground. The zone is up to 4.6 metres wide, averaging 2.4 metres, extends downdip for at least 60 metres. Mineralization is associated with veins of quartz and carbonate that cut pyritic andesite. In the underground workings, pyrite and chalcopyrite occur as disseminations and blebs within the veins and as lenticular masses between the veins. On the surface, massive pyrite and chalcopyrite with minor quartz and barite occur in lenses, up to 0.6 metre wide, within northwest trending fault zones.

This zone is estimated to contain 11,800 tonnes grading 2.4 grams per tonne gold, 141 grams per tonne silver and 8.6 per cent copper (Property File - Sevensma, 1973, page 7).

The Vanguard Copper (copper) and Gold (gold) zones occur about 2.5 kilometres southeasterly from the Homestake zone (103P 216) in various pyroclastic volcanic rock types. An extensive northwest trending structural zone 150 metres wide by 1800 metres long was historically the focus of at least 36 trenches and short adits. Most of the showings are located on northwest striking subvertical structural zones containing diffuse sulphide veins, stockworks, sulphide breccia zones and calcite-barite veins. Mineralization is related to pervasive chlorite alteration. The northeastern portion of the zone is generally gold rich and copper poor, whereas the southwestern portion contains high grade copper occurrences grading up to 11.55 per cent copper, 3.88 grams per tonne gold and 129 grams per tonne silver over a four metre thickness (G. Evans and R. Macdonald, 2003). The Vanguard occurrences have been tested with 13 diamond-drill holes (including two by Noranda and three by Teck). Results were generally poor, however, two holes, HR07-56 (20.35 metres grading 1.04 grams per tonne gold) and HR07-57 (18.75 metres grading 0.67 gram per tonne gold) yielded results of interest.

The Vanguard group of claims received extensive work including about 275 metres of underground work between the early 1900s and 1966. The property was originally explored for copper and by 1927 several opencuts and two adits had been completed. About 1925, gold was discovered on the Nero claim north of the main copper showing. In 1947, a crosscut was begun below the main gold showing and work continued on this until the early 1950s. In 1966, Canex Aerial Exploration Ltd. optioned the property and carried out geological mapping and an electromagnetic survey; Canex later dropped the option. In 1968, an additional three metres of underground work was completed. The Cascade Falls, Lucky Strike and Ted claims were held by D. Collison until his death in April, 1979. During this time he carried out surface trenching, minor underground work and a very limited diamond drill programme. A cabin was built by Collison at 1150 metres elevation on the property and is still in good condition although very small (ca. 1988). In June, 1979, Newmont Exploration of Canada Limited optioned the property from Ruby Collison, widow of Dwight Collison. Newmont was interested in the property for its potential for a large, near surface, massive sulphide deposit. In 1979, Newmont established a rough grid and a reconnaissance geological and soil geochemical survey was conducted. In 1980, Newmont cut and surveyed approximately 28 kilometres of grid over which it completed electromagnetic and magnetic geophysics, soil and lithogeochemistry, geological mapping and blast trenching. This work failed to define a near surface massive sulphide deposit of economic dimensions but did suggest that potential existed for the development of hydrothermal mineralization with associated anomalous precious metal values in both rock and soil samples. At the end of 1980, however, Newmont dropped their option. In 1984, Homeridge Resources Ltd. optioned the property from Ruby Collison. No work was carried out on the property other than a brief property visit and the claims were allowed to lapse the following year. In May 1986, the Cambria 1, 2 and 3 claims were staked to encompass all of the area held by Collison as well as much of the surrounding ground. The owners subsequently entered into an option agreement with Cambria Resources Limited who implemented a work programme which focused on the re-evaluation of Newmont’s data without a bias toward massive sulphide deposits. This programme included geological mapping, lithogeochemical sampling and blast trenching and successfully identified a large, complex hydrothermal system hosting significant gold and silver mineralization. In order to determine the best targets for drilling within this system, a programme of induced polarization-resistivity geophysics was carried out over a portion of the grid in September, 1988. In 1989, the Vanguard group along with the adjacent Cambria and Homestake claims were optioned to Noranda Exploration Company Limited. Work performed by Noranda comprised a total of 396 soil, 10 silt and 249 rock samples collected over the summer.

In 2010, Dolly Silver Corporation conducted an exploration program on the Dolly Silver property which consisted predominantly of a detailed stream sediment sampling survey with associated geological mapping, prospecting, rock and soil sampling. A total of 81 rock samples, 19 soil samples and 150 stream sediment samples were collected. A concurrent helicopter-borne time domain electromagnetic (VTEM), magnetic and radiometric survey over both the Dolly Silver and Dolly Varden properties was also completed. Flight line spacing was 200 metres over the Dolly Silver property and 100 metres over the Dolly Varden property with a total of 941.7-line kilometres of data collected.

During 2017 through 2019, Auryn Resources Inc. completed programs of geological mapping, geochemical (rock and soil) sampling, airborne and ground geophysical surveys and re-logging of historical drill cores.