The Big Casino showing is located on the south valley wall, about 1850 metres northwest of the confluence of Lydden Creek with the Bear River and 18 kilometres north-northeast of Stewart. The Red Cliff (104A 037) showing occurs 1 kilometre to the southeast.

The area is underlain by north striking, steeply dipping andesitic tuffs and flows of the Lower Jurassic Unuk River Formation (Hazelton Group) (Bulletin 58; 63). Northwest trending granite and granodiorite dikes, of the Portland Canal dike swarm, intrude the volcanics.

Mineralization comprises northwest trending veins, stockworks and stringers of quartz-barite-jasper-calcite mineralized with minor pyrite, sphalerite and rare galena and chalcopyrite. Discontinuous zones occur in volcanic screens between a multitude of dikes (Bulletin 58). The showing, 10.5 metres wide, has been stripped for 18 metres.

On the Ouray Fr. claim (Lot 4533), a fissure zone 4.5 metres wide strikes south, dips east and is hosted in greenstone. The hostrock is weakly silicified and mineralized with galena, pyrite and "some" chalcopyrite.

Work History

In 1908, the Big Casino group (Big Casino (Lot 4529), Jack of Clubs (Lot 4530), Little Casino (Lot 4532), Lookout Fr. (Lot 4531) and Ouray Fr. (Lot 4533) claims) was owned by Neff, Carpenter and Rabb. During 1910-11, the Big Casino Mining Company Ltd. explored the property in a series of opencuts and a 33 metre long adit. The claims were Crown granted to A.J. Martin in 1925. No further work was reported. Leemac Mines Ltd. acquired the claims in 1973.

In 2017, Richard Billingsley completed an airborne magnetic survey on the area. In 2019, AUX Resources Corp. completed a program of prospecting, geological mapping and rock sampling on the area as the Independence and Slippery Ian properties. Sampling of the Big Casino occurrence yielded from 5 to 1470 grams per tonne silver in 14 samples with other values of up to 13.75 per cent copper and 12.5 per cent zinc (Bravewolf Consulting [2020-07-17]: 2020 Technical (NI 43-101) Report on the Independence and Slippery Ian Properties).