The Mystery and Little Chief adits lie within the Barkerville terrane of the Omineca Belt. The Barkerville terrane is in thrust contact with Triassic Quesnellia terrane rocks to the west and Hadrynian to Lower Paleozoic Cariboo terrane rocks to the east. The Barkerville terrane in this region is underlain by the dominantly metasedimentary rocks of the Hadrynian to Lower Paleozoic Snowshoe Group. These rocks have been regionally metamorphosed to greenschist facies.

The area is underlain by phyllite, argillite and slate of the Snowshoe Group Downey succession. The showing consists of a 3.7 metre wide quartz vein from which a grab sample assayed 5 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 13255).

Two sections of broken core from 1987 drilling were analysed, and yielded 4.4 metres with 0.1 gram per tonne gold and 174 ppm arsenic; and 4.7 metres of 0.3 grams per tonne gold and 375 ppm arsenic (Assessment Report 17276). Of great exploration interest was the intersection of more than 46 metres of limestone with finely laminated, fine grained pyrite. This mineralization style is similar to that of the Mosquito deposit (93H 010).

HISTORY

The earliest reported work on what are the Whipsaw claims is a description of the Mystery and Little Chief prospect (B.C. Minister of Mines Annual Report, 1903), located near the boundary of 1987 claims Whipsaw 3 and 6. Three adits are reported, a 3.7 metres wide quartz vein having been drifted on. An assay of $3/ton gold is given, which is equivalent to 0.14 oz/ton or 4.8 grams per tonne. Native tin was also found at the contact of the quartz vein with slates.

The Whipsaw claims were staked in 1980 because of their location along strike from gold mineralization at the Mosquito Creek mine (093H 010). In 1980 and 1981 the streams were prospected and a reconnaissance VLF-EM16 survey performed. This work was successful in delineating geological trends and the critical quartzite-phyllite contact on the overburden covered property. In the fall of 1981 and spring of 1982, a reconnaissance geochemical soil survey was done (Campbell, 1982) but only arsenic was analyzed for. Anomalous arsenic was found to be distributed across the central part of the claim.

In February, 1983, Northgane Minerals Ltd. (later General Minerals Corporation) optioned the Whipsaw property from owner K.V. Campbell. In 1984 they undertook geological mapping and geochemical soil sampling. This work confirmed the presence of multielement (arsenic, gold, lead and silver) geochemical anomalies along the rock contact interpreted from the earlier geophysical survey.

In 1987, Wells Gold Ltd. was formed. This company entered into a joint venture agreement with K.V. Campbell and commenced the 1987 work program on the property. This included remedial work on the track along the old hydraulic ditch and the drilling of a single NQ diamond-drill hole totaling 219 metres.

The area later became part of the large land package of the Cariboo Gold Project held by International Wayside Gold Mines Ltd. See Cariboo Gold Quartz (093H 019) for some related details.