The Gunner occurrence is situated 3.5 kilometres northwest of Gun Lake, 7 kilometres northwest of Gold Bridge.
The area is underlain by the Bridge River and Cadwallader Groups. The two groups repeat and interleave with one another along and across transverse and contractional faults. The Bridge River Group consists of one or more kilometres of ribbon chert, argillite, thin recrystallized limestone bands or beds and large volumes of basalt and pillow basalt. Some sections of the Bridge River Group are weakly to moderately metamorphosed. The Cadwallader Group is composed of the Pioneer, Noel and Hurley Formations. Upper Triassic Pioneer basaltic volcanic rocks comprise the lower portion of the Cadwallader Group. The Pioneer volcanics consist primarily of pillow lavas but also include fragmental rocks, local massive flows and associated high-level sills and dikes. Typically, the volcanics have undergone subgreenschist to greenschist facies alteration and are locally intercalated with limestone lenses. The Noel Formation consists of thin-bedded, fine-grained sedimentary rocks including siltstone, finely laminated argillite and localized thin lenses of dark grey limestone and sandy or conglomeritic facies. Like the Noel Formation, the Triassic Hurley Formation is also largely composed of sedimentary rocks. Greenish argillaceous rocks dominate the formation; however, somewhat coarser lithologies such as sandstone, gritty siltstone and conglomerate are also present. Intrusions in the area appear to be part of the Coast Plutonic Complex and are largely mid-Cretaceous in age.
The claim area is underlain by Coast Plutonic Complex intrusives, Bridge River Group sediments, intrusive gabbro, diorite and ultramafics. Bridge River sediments consist primarily of argillite and locally pyritic cherts. Granodiorite of the Coast Plutonic complex ranges from coarse to fine/medium-grained and is cut by fracture systems with carbonate alteration and occasional quartz veinlets.
Carbonate-altered shears form brown-weathering recessive saddles along Walker Ridge. The shears are 1 to 5 metres wide with varying orientations, are usually unmineralized and often contain narrow (1 to 10 millimetres) quartz veinlets at the centre; however, one grab sample collected from a 2-centimetre quartz veinlet in a carbonate-altered shear contained coarse visible gold. At the east end of the ridge, sulphides occur as siliceous fracture coatings that sometimes widen to form quartz-pyrite-chalcopyrite and/or bornite veinlets up to 3 to 5 centimetres thick.
Three gold-in-soil anomalies occur within the Gunner claim group. From north to south, they are the Gun Creek anomaly, the Walker Ridge North anomaly and the Walker Ridge South anomaly. The Walker Ridge North anomaly has a subparallel trend to the Walker Ridge South anomaly; it also has a similar strike length to and is on-trend with the Gun Creek anomaly. At the Gun Creek anomaly, the entire zone is highly anomalous in gold and weakly to moderately anomalous in copper with a few samples of anomalous platinum values.
Mineralization is hosted within a granodioritic body along its contact with Bridge River stratified cherts. The mineralized zone has been observed over a 700 by 400-metre area and occurs on a ridge crest within the Walker Ridge North gold-in-soil anomaly. Here, mineralization occurs as a stockwork of quartz veins and penetrative silicification. The quartz is sugary and associated with pyrite and chalcopyrite. Quartz veinlets extend the mineralized zone at least 30 metres to the northeast.
The first record of exploration in the area was in 1917, when the Ypres claim group was staked by O. Fergusson and C. Walker. Gun Lake Gold Mines Limited acquired the property in 1931. Ownership was then transferred to Cariboo–Bridge River Gold Properties in 1933 and Pilot Gold Mines Limited in 1934. Pilot Gold Mines developed extensive underground workings at the Pilot mine, situated to the south near the shore of Gun Lake. A total of 1500 metres of underground workings, including drifts, crosscuts and a shallow winze, were completed on a series of quartz veins occurring in a north-trending shear zone.
In 1983, Mazur Resource Consultants, on behalf of X-Calibre Resources Limited, conducted trenching, geological mapping and rock geochemical sampling on the Pilot Reverted Crown Grants, situated between Walker and Sumner creeks.
In 1984, Petroflame International Resources Limited conducted an exploration program of geochemical soil sampling on the Gun Creek claim group situated to the north along Gun Creek. In 1986, Noxe Petroleum Corporation conducted an exploration program on the High Tor claim group, over an area coinciding with the northern portion of the Gunner property. Work that year included geochemical, geophysical and geological surveying across 42.25 kilometres of grid lines. In total, 1800 soil and 48 rock samples were collected. Several areas returned anomalous values for precious and base metals.
Cogema Canada Limited acquired the Pilot property from X-Calibre Resources Limited in 1990. In 1991, Cogema staked two additional claims and conducted an exploration program of mapping, prospecting, rock, soil and stream geochemical sampling and very low-frequency electromagnetic and magnetic geophysical surveying. These efforts resulted in the discovery of a new gold-copper showing on Walker Ridge, situated near the western limit of the Pilot property. The following year, Cogema conducted a follow-up program of detailed prospecting, rock (229 samples) and soil (59 samples) geochemical sampling and diamond drilling. Work was focused on the newly discovered Walker Ridge showing. A total of 103.3 metres of diamond drilling was completed in three holes: two of the holes had to be abandoned at 7.6 and 11.3 metres depth, and the one partly successful hole only reached 84.4 metres depth.
In 2004, the Gunner claim was staked over the area by Daryl Calder on behalf of owners Charles J. Grieg and J. Bernard Kraft. That year, Grieg collected 10 float samples within the general vicinity of the Gun Creek soil anomaly. The samples were only weakly anomalous in terms of precious or base metals.
In 2012, BCT Mining Corporation and Goldbridge Holdings Limited completed 8 line kilometres of ground magnetometer very low-frequency electromagnetic geophysical surveying over the Pilot Gold property to the east. The survey was designed to follow up on recommendations made by Mazur Resource Consultants in 1983.
In 1991, a 5-metre chip sample taken across the Walker Ridge stockwork assayed 2.5 grams per tonne gold, 4.1 grams per tonne silver and 0.27 per cent copper, and a grab sample from the same zone assayed 3.3 grams per tonne gold, 4.7 grams per tonne silver and 0.6 per cent copper (Assessment Report 22117, page 27).
Drillhole PLT-3, drilled by Cogema in 1992, assayed 10.5 metres of 1 gram per tonne gold and 0.16 per cent copper (Assessment Report 22759, page 1). A 10-metre surface chip sample assayed 0.12 per cent copper (Assessment Report 22759, page 1).
