The Casey Property is a 711 hectare claim block comprised of 85 claims and is located less than 1 kilometer south of the Company’sTexas Creek property; approximately 14 kilometers northwest of the town of Hyder. Blackwolf Copper and Gold acquired 100% interest in this property through physical staking in June of 2021.
Very little exploration has been completed on the property, with virtually none in the past 25 years. During the 1920’s, a trail was built on the north side of the West Fork of Texas Creek, which opened the valley to prospecting. The Engineer prospect was among the early discoveries that were made in the 1920’s and was staked in 1924 and mapped by Buddington in 1929. This prospect was then further developed with pits, trenches, and adits in the 1930’s. Sampling from Engineer by the US Bureau of Mines in the 1990’s returned samples up to 26.3 g/t Au and 366.9 g/t Ag from polymetallic quartz veins(1).
In addition to the Engineer, US Bureau of Mines geologists discovered mineralized boulders up to 1m in diameter spanning a roughly 1000m by 2000m wide zone. Mineralization is hosted in massive bands and veinlets of sphalerite with lesser galena, silver, and trace gold with associated intense silica and carbonate alteration associated with mineralization and brecciation. Outcrop associated with these subcrop samples was never located in historic exploration work, suggesting the likely source of these boulders was underneath the summit icefield located between the Ferguson and Casey Glaciers.
Of 35 historic float, subcrop, grab, and channel samples taken on the property, 17 assayed over 1% zinc, including 8 which assayed over 10% zinc, often associated with high base and precious metal counts. Individual high-grade samples include: 5.0 g/t Au, 62.4 g/t Ag, 0.1% Cu and 29.5% Zn; 195.4 g/t Ag, 2.0% Cu, 2.6% Zn, 300.3 g/t Ag, and 0.3% Cu(1).
Initial exploration by the Company in 2022 included prospecting, geologic mapping, LiDAR, and remote sensing surveys(2). Results from the work include grab samples up to 16.9 g/t Au, 226 g/t Ag, 10.6% Pb, and 0.56% Zn from a series of NE trending quartz-sulfide veins near the historic Engineer Mine. And identification of >1km NW oriented structurally controlled trend of quartz veining, alteration, and sulfide mineralization associated with the historic Casey Sphalerite occurrence. Samples returned strong base metals values up to 2.9% Pb and 13.7% Zn, and represent the upper portions may of a larger, epithermal vein system with similarities to the Premier deposit approximately 10 km to the east.
(1) Refer to the US Bureau of Mines Open File Report 11-95: Mineral Investigations in the Ketchikan Mining District Southeastern Alaska by Maas et. al. (1995).
(2) Refer to the Company's news release dated January 17, 2023. Available on SEDAR.