Work History

First staked as the Old Kentucky Lode and Old Kentucky Lode Extensions No. 2 and No. 3 (5033, 5143, 5146) by B. Shelton, E. Bennett and R. Conner in August and September, 1901. Explored by shallow shafts and trenches until 1903. Re-staked in June, 1922 as the Paymaster Group (13927, etc) by J. Devine and others who explored with shallow shafts and trenches until 1928. Subsequently re-staked in May, 1929 to July, 1930 as the Tara Group (Tara 15455, Salvatore 15466, Peerless 15507) by J. Devine, who sank shallow shafts on the claims until 1938.

Re-staked in June, 1984 as Lass cl 1-24 (YA79884) and Gate cl 1-8 (YA84088) by L. Gatenby, who soil sampled in 1984 and trenched in 1985. United Keno Hill Mines Ltd. tied on Run cl 1-22 (YA80452), cl 25-61 (YA 83496), cl 63-78 (YA83976) and cl 80-111 (YA83992) to the north, east and south in June, 1984.

Later in the year the company flew a large airborne geophysical program over the Klondike region followed by a large percussion drill program on company held claims.

Doron Explorations Inc. staked BTTA cl 1-8 (YA87935) and cl 9-32 (YA87997) to the southwest in May, 1986 and prospected and collected a line of soil samples across the width of the claim block.

Re-staked as Kentucky cl 1-16 (YA88329) in June, 1987 by T. Peever who immediately optioned the property to Doron Explorations. In the summer of 1988, the company carried out a detailed soil sampling program over the Kentucky claims.

W. Hawkes staked G. Hawk cl 1-100 (YB40728) to the east, overtop Gold Run Creek in June, 1982. Some of the claims covered active claims and were ultimately refused.

Re-staked within G. Hawk cl 85-91 (YB44824) in June, 1993 by W. Hawks. Hawks staked several other small groups of claims at the same time to cover newly opened ground. Hawks performed trenching and geological mapping on the claims later in the year. In September, 1994 Hawks optioned the entire claim block to Wealth Resources which carried out soil sampling later the fall.

C. Little staked MGR cl 1-8 (YB52331) to the south in July, 1994. In April, 1995 Little transferred 100% interest in the claims to Wealth Resources Ltd.

Re-staked as Mon cl 1-32 (YB94617) in October, 1996 by Barramundi Gold Ltd. No work appears to have been performed on the claims and they were allowed to expire in October, 1997.

Re-staked as Hit cl 1-83 (YC20131) between June and August, 2000 by KSL Exploration (Yukon) Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Klondike Source Ltd.; public company registered in Australia. In 2000, the company collected 3 lines of soil samples on the southwest side of the Hit claim block. The following year the company collected 6 lines of sample around the main showings and in 2002 the company collected 3 lines of samples across the northeast end of the claim block. In 2004, 155 soil samples were collected across the claim block. All of the samples were analyzed using Mobile Metal Ion (MMI) geochemistry.

Re-staked as the GR cl 1-26 by B. Kreft in 2007 who performed prospecting and 94 soil samples followed by excavator and hand dug trenching of 5 trenches and chip sampling of exposed bedrock in trenches on the Devine claims to follow up on historical work. Soil sampling and prospecting, as well as channel sampling, was also performed in 2008 and 2009. A total of seven trenches were also dug mechanically in 2009 over soil anomalies.

In 2010, B. Kreft optioned the GR claims to Kestrel Gold Inc. who performed a regional soil survey over the claims in 2011.

Capsule Geology

The area was last mapped in detail by Debicki (1985), however, no age dates were assigned to the rock units. Mortensen (1996) re-mapped adjoining topographic map sheet 115O 15 and Ryan and Gordey (2002, 2003) mapped the area south of the Indian River. The following synopsis is from Debicki’s descriptions and extrapolating outwards.

The area around the occurrence is underlain by chlorite-quartz schist and muscovite-feldspar-quartz schist. Amphibolite occurs to the southwest and quartzite is present on the Kentucky Lode. The area is underlain by a sequence of metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks, overlain and/or intruded by various metavolcanic and metaplutonic suites. Mortensen’s mapping suggests that the rocks likely belong to the Permian Klondike Schist assemblage, while to the south Ryan and Gordey suggested that the rocks may be Upper Devonian to Mississippian in age. The differences in ages can be explained by each groups mapping methods. Mortensen mapped suites which he correlated to isotopically dated rocks to the north. Ryan and Gordey mapped units based on individual outcrop descriptions which they correlated to assumed protoliths. In summary, current research suggests that the oldest rocks in the area are as old as Upper Devonian.

In 1901-1903 the vein on the Old Kentucky Lode claim was reported to assay 7.9 g/t Au with traces of silver and copper, although no gold was visible. In 1922, a 2.4 m wide, gold-bearing quartz vein was discovered in the same area on the Paymaster claim. Gold-bearing quartz veins were also reported from the Old Lady claim which adjoined the Paymaster on the northwest side and apparently covered the original Old Kentucky Lode discovery.

In 1901, A. McMillan reported a gold-bearing quartz vein on the ridge crest between Gold Run and Sulphur Creeks immediately south of the Kentucky Lode occurrence. The vein was described as trending northwest and lying along the contact between gneiss to the west and broken quartzite to the east. The vein measured 3.7 m wide and was exposed by hand trenching over a strike length of at least 500 m. The visible gold was apparently confined to quartz stringers up to 20 cm wide that cut the main vein. An airborne regional EM/VLF geophysical survey flown by United Keno Hill Mines outlined a discrete high priority conductor over the assumed location of this vein. Follow-up prospecting turned up abundant quartz float, but no evidence of the vein or trenches.

United Keno Hill Mines drilled 1 set of 5 percussion drill holes on Gold Run Creek approximately 4 km north of this occurrence. None of the hole returned anomalous values. A second set of five holes was drilled approximately 3.5 south of this occurrence. One hole (hole 5), returned slightly anomalous gold values over most of its length.

Soil sampling carried out by Doron Exploration in 1988 outlined 4 strong spot anomalies across the Kentucky claims. None of the anomalies appear to be associated with known mineralization. No follow-up work was carried out by the company.

A soil survey (HW2 grid) by Wealth Resources over the central portion of the G. Hawk claims, identified a northwest trending Cu anomaly (183 ppm) that extended off the G. Hawk claims towards Debicki's (1985) Kentucky West showing. The survey also identified two, 250 m long narrow, parallel gold anomalies lying northwest of the Kentucky Lode showing. Two grab samples taken from waste piles located at the Kentucky Lode showing returned 1,550 ppb and 715 ppb gold.

KSL Exploration’s soil sampling program was designed to verify and extend the gold soil anomalies identified in Doran Exploration’s 1988 conventional soil sampling program. KSL Exploration chose Mobile Metal Ion (MMI) geochemistry as its method of analysis in the hopes it would pick up any subtle anomalies. The survey identified anomalous gold values in the vicinity of the Kentucky West showing but did not identify any new anomalous areas.

Trenching, soil sampling and prospecting performed by B. Kreft in 2007 returned several significant gold assays, including a prospecting grab sample up to 75 ppb Au and soils ranging from 25 ppb Au to 864 ppb Au. Trench samples returned several anomalous intervals, including: 15,250 ppb Au over 1.2 m in Trench 1; 921 ppb Au over 1.5 m and 451 ppb Au over 1.1 m in Trench 2; 704 ppb Au over 1.9 m in Trench 3; and 3,265 ppb Au over 8 m in Trench 4. 

Soil sampling results in 2008 confirmed the presence of a gold anomaly in the Devine area, with samples ranging from 34 ppb Au to 147 ppb Au; however, results generally did not improve tenor in the area. The majority of rock samples taken in 2008 were material from trenches dug in 2007 to confirm assay results, with a follow-up sample in Trench 1 from a 3 cm vein returning 26.9 ppm Au. Resampling of Trench 4 returned gold values ranging from 0.68 ppm Au to 5.37 ppm Au in samples weighing between 1.78 and 4.1 kg. 

Soil sampling in 2009 consisted of 58 samples in the vicinity of the 2007 trenches. Trenching in 2009 returned anomalous gold in two trenches that included 0.33 g/t Au over 14.6 in Trench GRT09-03 and 14.7 g/t Au over 1.9 m in Trench GRT09-02. Results of soil sampling and trenching during this program also suggested that mineralization is primarily vein hosted.

Regional soil sampling performed by Kestrel Gold Inc. in 2011 confirmed anomalies over the GR 10 and 12 claims in the vicinity of the Devine showing that suggests a 600 m northward trending zone. The most significant soil results over this area ranged from 75.0 to 200.1 ppb Au.