The Sunnyside deposit was part of the Blue Grouse mine (092C 017) which is located on the south side of Cowichan Lake, 4.8 kilometres northeast of Honeymoon Bay. The Sunnyside workings are about 800 metres south of the main Blue Grouse workings. Developmental work on the Sunnyside deposit was first reported in 1906. The mine was abandoned in 1960 with some reserves left at the Blue Grouse main workings.

The Cowichan Lake area is at the eastern end of the Cowichan uplift, one of a series of major geanticlines on Vancouver Island. The area is underlain by pyroclastic, sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Paleozoic Sicker Group, the Mississippian to Permian Buttle Lake Group, the Upper Triassic Vancouver Group and the Lower Jurassic Bonanza Group which have been intruded by Triassic gabbros (informally named Mount Hall) and Early to Middle Jurassic Island Plutonic Suite rocks and overlapped by Upper Cretaceous sediments of the Nanaimo Group.

The Vancouver Group comprises pillow and massive basalt, volcaniclastics, tuffs and breccias of the Karmutsen Formation, siltstone, argillite and micrite of the Quatsino Formation and limestone, tuff and argillite of the Parson Bay Formation.

The area is underlain by Karmutsen Formation volcanics and Parson Bay Formation sediments. These are cut by numerous Jurassic feldspar and feldspar-pyroxene porphyry dykes.

The orebodies occur in limestone and tuffaceous members which are folded in a series of overturned folds. The beds are displaced by a series of thrust faults which have a general east strike and dips of 10 to 20 degrees south.

Chalcopyrite-bearing skarn is developed at the contact between Parson Bay Formation limestone (Sutton member) and Karmutsen Formation basalts. Lenses of chalcopyrite occur in a quartz gangue along the contact zone which is up to 100 metres wide. Garnet- epidote-actinolite skarns are also developed in limy tuff, limy sediments and limestone, apparently interbedded with the upper portions of Karmutsen Formation basalts.

A few open pits and short adits comprise the workings. From this property 104 tonnes of ore were mined in 1917, yielding 4159 kilograms of copper and 218 grams of silver. A 1-metre chip sample across weakly argillically altered volcanic rock containing five white zeolite veinlets assayed 1.2 per cent copper (Assessment Report 19387). A rock sample assayed 1.0 per cent copper, 12.2 grams per tonne silver, and 4.8 per cent zinc (Assessment Report 23579). In 2002, Ber-Can Environmental Resources Inc. completed a program geochemical sampling of the Blue Grouse tailings and tailings ponds for the purpose of developing a proprietary process for the clean up of mine tailings and mill tailings.