The Pictou occurrence is located on the west side of Pine Creek, about 1 kilometre east of the present-day Atlin airstrip and 2.3 kilometres southeast of the community of Atlin.
The showing area consists of an extensive alteration zone hosted within upper Mississippian to Permian Cache Creek Complex ultramafic rocks. The rocks in the vicinity of the showings are highly altered but outcrops 1 kilometre to the west reveal their composition to be that of a knobby (pyroxene) peridotite. The ultramafic "slice" occurs within volcanic rocks of the upper Mississippian to Permian Nakina Formation of the Cache Creek Complex. There are no lithologic contacts on the property. The showings are interpreted to be in the hangingwall of the Monarch Mountain thrust.
The showing is a wide alteration/fracture zone that has pervasive silicification, brecciation, and iron and magnesium carbonate (listwanite?) alteration. The zone can be up to 5 metres wide but its thickness is inconsistent. Some bull quartz and narrow radiating quartz veinlets are present although distinct quartz veins are not abundant in the alteration zone. Breccia textures are common and the zone is vertical, striking about 100 degrees. Pyrite is minor with trace amounts of tetrahedrite, chalcopyrite and fuchsite. Zoning of iron and magnesium in the carbonate alteration is common. Magnesite is present. Quartz veins are vuggy; open-space textures in the zone are common. Recent sampling suggest that the breccia zones are anomalous in gold and the quartz veins are anomalous in gold, silver, arsenic and antimony. Gold assays were as high as 12.4 grams per tonne.
In 2019, a 1.0 metre intersection from 52.00 to 53.00 metres in drillhole BBB-19-04 assayed 3.6 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 38851).
Work on the property began in 1900 by Lord Hamilton of London who put in a 20-metre adit and 7-metre shaft.
Mineralization was first written up in 1931 by the Resident Mining Engineer, Mr. J.T. Mandy when he recorded "a zone of quartz veining and wallrock alteration over 20-60 feet".
In 1966, the Pictou and Scarab Crown-granted claims were acquired by T.O. Connolly of Atlin and subsequently brought to lease (Mining Lease M32). Then in 1968, T.O. Connolly developed more surface workings and shipped a 0.91 tonne bulk sample which contained 342 grams of silver, 0.3 per cent lead and 0.15 per cent zinc (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1968, page A52).
In 1987-88, the property was optioned by the Homestake Mineral Development Co. Ltd. who conducted an extensive exploration program which comprised soil and rock geochemical sampling, VLF-EM, magnetometer and induced polarization surveys, trenching, detailed geologic mapping followed by both rotary and diamond drilling. Seven rotary holes were drilled in 1987, five of which focused on the "main zone". These five holes were planned to test downdip extensions of the mineralization and all five intersected "a sequence of intensely altered ultramafics underlain by equally altered andesitic volcanics". This drilling also determined that there is low angle, westward-dipping contact between the ultramafics and the underlying andesites trending north-northeast up the Pine Creek Valley. The 1988 diamond drilling program consisted of two holes which were planned to further investigate the nature of the ultramafic/andesite contact at the main Pictou showing. Both holes intersected this contact but yielded no anomalous assays. A 1990 soil sampling program was designed to cross this trend; the survey gave scattered low values. Subsequent to Homestake's work, the El Centro 1-111 claims were staked to partly surround the Pictou property. The claims and the Pictou property were then optioned by Internova Resources Ltd. In 1991, Internova Resources completed bulldozer site preparation and diamond drilling of four drillholes totalling 480.8 metres.
In 2018-19, Brixton Metals Corporation carried out exploration on their Atlin Gold Project which included: a 1992 line kilometre, helicopter-borne high-resolution aeromagnetic geophysical survey over a 40 square kilometre area that hosts the historic Pictou (104N 044) and Imperial (104N 008) showings, as well as the Yellowjacket gold mine (104N 043); the collection of 1227 soil samples, 110 rock samples and 1 stream silt sample; and a 1599.24 metre, shallow diamond drilling program that included 4 NQ-sized holes drilled at the Pictou showing and 18 NQ-sized holes drilled at the LD showing (104N 098, 100). In 2019, diamond drilling, as well as rock, soil and stream sampling focussed on historic areas known to host orogenic gold mineralization, as well as the Fourth of July batholith, Union and Sentinel mountains and Spruce Creek.
