The Ben-My-Chree occurrence is located at an elevation of 1830 metres, on the southwest side of White Moose Mountain, above the south end of Taku Arm.
At Ben-My-Chree, an Early Cretaceous tonalite intrusion, proximal to a granite to alkali feldspar granite intrusion of the Paleocene to Eocene Sloko-Hyder Plutonic Suite, hosts quartz and quartz-calcite veins carrying up to 4 per cent galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, and pyrite, with significant silver and gold values.
In 1911, about 7 tonnes of ore was shipped, from which 93 grams of gold and 31,103 grams of silver were recovered. A grab sample taken in 1985 with 4 per cent galena and pyrite assayed 11 grams per tonne gold, 450 grams per tonne silver, 0.14 per cent copper, 4.25 per cent lead and 0.037 per cent zinc (Fieldwork 1985, pages 184, 187).
In 2013, host rocks were described as fine-grained hornblendite, grading to a megacrystic hornblendite 50 metres from mineralized veins. Magmatic breccias and granitic rocks were observed in the talus. At least two mineralized veins were observed, two were unmineralized. Quartz veins are associated with iron carbonate. Mineralized quartz veins have a width of between 5 to 30 centimetres, strike 260 to 333 degrees and dip from 20 degrees north to 39 degrees south. The mineralized veins split and horse-tailed. Non-mineralized quartz veins outside the adit had a width of up to 40 centimetres. They were rusty, striking west. One drift, strikes north, 6.5 metres west of the portal, filled with ice 3 metres in. A number of burlap ore sacks (with ore) were visible, frozen in the ice since the 1912. These bags were assumed to be one of the sacks prepared for shipping when the tramway was completed, which never happened. The closest frozen bag to the adit was chiseled out from the ice, and graded 1.51 grams per tonne gold, 3800 grams per tonne silver 9.38 per cent lead, 0.21 per cent zinc, 0.26 per cent copper, 0.26 per cent antimony and 0.0096 per cent molybdenum. Nine rock samples were delivered to ALS Canada laboratory for analysis. Other samples were chipped from inside or outside the adit and others were collected as float material away from the adit. The samples, including nearby float material, contained quartz plus/minus galena, sphalerite, stibnite, pyrite, chalcopyrite or malachite. Sample M387774, which returned the highest gold value at 11.3 parts per million, was taken from the vein showing at the portal entrance (Assessment Report 34072).
WORK HISTORY.
According to the author of Assessment Report 9133, a mining camp was built on lot 4684, and initial mining began. Blasting to open an upper adit triggered an avalanche which was reported to have killed the influential members of the original company (Assessment Report 9133). In 1911, considerable development work was completed on the best showing and a drift was advanced into the steep mountainside.
The Ben-my-Chree property, under the claim name “Steep”, was staked by Karl Gruber of Whitehorse, B.C. in, or just prior to, 1980. Gruber soon entered into an agreement with Silver Ice Mining Ltd. of Victoria, BC. and in 1980 an exploration program was conducted by Silver Ice who collected 9 samples from a series of sites near the previous workings at the 1675 metre level. The 9 rock-chip samples taken from the Steep claims ranged up to 2.4 grams per tonne gold and 651 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 9133).
In 2005, Lewis Wiggins staked the tenures 509005 and 509008 calling them the “Ben My Chree” claims. Owner Lewis Wiggins and geologist Clive Aspinall visited the area via helicopter on September 06 of 2013 and collected various rock samples.
