Vancouver Island has potential

Skarn deposits on Vancouver Island, particularly where there are indications of precious metal enrichment, should offer targets for exploration.

At the end of the 19th century and into the early 1900s, there was a great surge of prospecting and staking activity on the island, centred mainly on occurrences of base metal mineralization found at various points where intrusive rocks came in contact with limestone.

These skarn deposits were found from one end of the island to the other, and from the west coast of British Columbia across to Texada Island, a small atoll off Vancouver Island’s east side.

The economic potential of these deposits created considerable interest in the early stages, but when adits and shafts excavated “by guess and by God” failed to develop substantial ore reserves, or missed the target entirely, interest waned and sources of investment dried up.

However, some production was achieved; ore shipments were made to smelters on Vancouver Island, and later to Tacoma, Wash. The Indian Chief mine in Clayoquot Sound, with its own mill and concentrator, operated at various stages between 1905 and 1938. It produced a total of 2.4 million lbs. copper, 54,895 oz. silver and 722 oz. gold from 81,139 tons of ore (according to government statistics).

The metallic content of these deposits varies from almost pure magnetite to sulphides occurring either mixed with or separate from the magnetite. Copper sulphides, chalcopyrite and occasionally bornite, predominate in some sections. Others may run to pyrite with or without chalcopyrite, and sphalerite. Of note, one deposit in the Clayoquot sound area produced spectacular specimens of molybdenite. An old report cited an example of an deposit in a mine on Texada Island having “gold values of half an ounce to the ton with about 40% copper.”

More recently, between 1950 and 1974, a number of these skarn deposits were put into production on a larger scale. The Brymor Iron mine, east of Kennedy Lake, operated by a subsidiary of Noranda Mines, shipped more than 3 million tons of iron concentrate to Japan between 1964 and 1968. It closed with ore in the ground after a 1,000-ft.-deep shaft was put down to recover material below the limit of the open pit. A labour dispute, followed by a slump in the price for iron concentrate, seems to be the reason for its closing.

A mine that produced copper as well as iron concentrate was the Old Sport, operated by Cominco at Benson Lake, near the north end of Vancouver Island. Between 1960 and 1972, it produced 62.5 million lbs. of copper, 124,388 oz. gold and 377,081 oz. silver along with almost 500,000 tons of iron concentrate from 2.8 million tons of ore.

The largest skarn-based operation on this coast drew ore from six mines on Texada Island. It produced, between 1952 and 1974, 49.5 million lbs. copper, 26,000 oz. gold and 668,981 oz. silver, along with 9.9 million tons of iron concentrate from 21 million tons of ore.

The other skarn-based mines, each of which produced more than a million tons of iron concentrate, were the Argonaut, near Campbell River, the Merry Ediow-Kingfisher, at Benson River, and Zeballos Iron, at Zeballos.

None of the above mines on Vancouver Island remained in operation after 1974, the same year the New Democratic Party government’s “super royalty” legislation imposed a tax on the value of production. Only the Westmin operation, now owned by Boliden, which derives its production from massive sulphide deposits, remained in production.

Some of the skarn-based mines closed with known reserves, and there are some with significant surface showings that have never been drilled or even extensively explored by geochemical or geophysical methods.

Walter Guppy

Tofino, B.C.