The Grey Copper property is situated at 1830 metres elevation above sea level on the north slope of Carpenter Creek, on Reverted Crown grant Lot 580, in the Slocan Mining Division.

Development commenced in 1891 on the Grey Copper (Lot 580), Goodenough - Reucau (Lot 581, Lot 624) and Idaho No. 2 (Lot 1013) veins. The Grey Copper claim, staked in 1891, was owned in 1893 by Jack Thompson, Ed. Becker, and C. Rent; the claim was Crown-granted in 1896 to J.A. Whittier. Ore was reported shipped by Mr. Whittier in 1917, and by lessee Joe Miciewic in 1931-33. The claim was owned in the 1930's by W.V. Papworth, R.S. Lennie, and S.J. Towgood, of Kaslo. The workings to that period comprised 5 adits; the upper four are closely spaced within a vertical range of only 30.4 metres.

Although the Purcell (Lot 849) and the Idaho No. 2 were staked in 1892, there is little record of development on the Idaho No. 2 prior to 1928. Following 1928 some drifting was done on the zinc-rich Idaho No. 2 Vein system but low metal prices resulted in a suspension of operations in 1931. Work began again on the Idaho No. 2 in 1951 but was redirected to the Grey Copper No. 3 Level in 1953.

Bluebird Slocan Mines Limited held the claim in 1953. No. 3 adit, which had been driven for 198 metres in a northeasterly direction, was extended an additional 45.7 metres before work ceased in April 1953.

Silver Mountain Mines Ltd. held the Grey Copper and adjacent claims from about 1958. Reco Silver Mines Limited in November 1966 acquired from Silver Mountain Mines a 50 per cent interest in a mineral lease covering nine Crown-grants including the Grey Copper and Goodenough (082FNW035). The lease was subsequently abandoned and the Silver Mountain Mines charter was surrendered in 1977.

In 1975, George Sipos acquired control of the Goodenough, Grey Copper, Purcell, Idaho No. 2, Rawdon, Bluebird (082FNW034) and Stranger reverted Crown-granted claims as the Bluebird Group. The Grey Copper No. 5A Level was worked in 1978. Some ore was shipped from the Grey Copper claim in 1978-79. In 1979 Sipos incorporated Sipald Resources Ltd. and acquired control of the present Purcell property. Sipald Resources did considerable rehabilitation work and reported modest production in 1980 from the Grey Copper No. 3 Level. In 1981, work included surface mapping, trenching, examination of mine dumps at the Goodenough No. 6 and No. 8 Levels, and the Idaho No. 2 dump; the Purcell adit was reopened and a diamond drill hole was directed northward towards the vein below the Big Stope on the Grey Copper No. 3 Level. In 1983, work was done on the road to the Purcell adit and the Idaho No. 2 was rehabilitated. Sipald Resources leased the Goodenough mine dumps to Modern Metal Recovery Systems Ltd., in 1983. Wavecrest Resources Ltd., optioned the property later in 1983 and Knie Resources Inc., optioned the property in 1984. Sipald Resources Ltd. was reorganized and renamed Rawson Resources Ltd. in 1986; they carried out a program of geochemical soil sampling during 1987. In 1988, Advanced Ecology Group (later the Consolidated Advanced Ecology Corp.) acquired the property and optioned it to General Tunnel Co. Ltd. in 1989. The property was sold to Avril Explorations Inc. in 1990; they conducted geochemical sampling, trenching, drilling and mapping.

Regionally, the area lies on the western margin of the Kootenay Arc, in allochthonous rocks of the Quesnel Terrane. In the vicinity of the occurrence, the Quesnel Terrane is dominated by the Upper Triassic Slocan Group, a thick sequence of deformed and metamorphosed shale, argillite, siltstone, quartzite and minor limestone. Rocks of the Slocan Group are tightly and disharmonically folded. Early minor folds are tight to isoclinal with moderate east plunging, southeast inclined axial planes and younger folds are open, southwest plunging with subhorizontal axial planes. The sedimentary sequence has been regionally metamorphosed to lower greenschist facies.

South of the occurrence, the Slocan Group has been intruded by the Middle Jurassic Nelson intrusions which comprise at least six texturally and compositionally distinct phases ranging from diorite to lamprophyre. The most dominant phase is a medium to coarse grained potassium feldspar porphyritic granite. Several feldspar porphyritic granodiorite dikes, apparently related to the Nelson intrusions, also cut the sedimentary sequence near the occurrence (Paper 1989-5).

The Grey Copper Reverted Crown grant is mostly underlain by a large northwest trending quartz porphyritic dike related to the Nelson intrusions. Argillite and slate of the Slocan Group are exposed on the northern part of the Grey Copper claim and in the northeast part of the Purcell Reverted Crown grant (Lot 849).

Two veins are exposed on the Grey copper claim, the Grey Copper vein and the East vein. The Grey Copper vein occupies a shear plane with an average strike of 059 degrees and dip of 80 degrees southeast. The vein has been followed with underground workings the entire length of the Grey Copper claim and onto the Purcell claim. It has an average width of 20 centimetres but can locally be as wide as 40 centimetres. It comprises quartz, siderite, iron oxides and pyrite with residual galena and sphalerite. During 1990, 11 channel samples were taken from the Grey Copper vein in the No. 3 drift; these averaged 990 grams per tonne silver, 13.35 per cent lead and 29.24 per cent zinc (Tulley, D.W. (1991): Geological Evaluation Report on the Purcell Property).

The Grey Copper vein is estimated to contain 8145 tonnes grading 1131.43 grams per tonne silver, 18.8 per cent lead and 42.6 per cent zinc above and below the No. 3 drift, and 19,700 tonnes grading 226.34 grams per tonne silver, 0.06 per cent lead and 41.21 per cent zinc between the No. 5 and No. 3 drifts (Tulley, D.W. (1991): Geological Evaluation Report on the Purcell Property).

The East vein is a narrow, high-grade vein exposed 75 metres south of the Grey Copper No. 3 portal. The vein has been followed from the northeast corner of the Grey Copper claim onto the Idaho No. 2 Reverted Crown grant (Lot 1013). It is 1 to 6 centimetres thick and consists of argentiferous galena carrying as much as 5000 grams per tonne silver (Tulley, D.W. (1991): Geological Evaluation Report on the Purcell Property). The vein has been exposed in several adits and surface trenches.

Production from the Grey Copper veins between 1917 and 1983 yielded 143,144 grams of silver, 7854 kilograms of lead, 25,230 kilograms of zinc, 114 kilograms of cadmium and 31 grams of gold from a total of 772 tonnes mined.