Lillooet British Columbia Canada

The Bridge River Mining District is one of British Columbia’s oldest gold camps. Production commenced in 1858 when placer gold was recovered from Bridge River, near its confluence with the Fraser River. The placer gold was followed upstream from the Fraser, and in 1859, a second discovery was made on Gun Creek, near its confluence with the Bridge River, close to the (then) future site of the Minto Mine. Extensive placer operations were also initiated on Tyaughton and Hurley Rivers and on Cadwallader Creek. It wasn’t until the late 1800’s, however, that an interest emerged in identifying the placer source. This lead to the discovery of the Bralorne and the Pioneer deposits near the turn of the century. The Bralorne Mine became the largest gold producer in the region, yielding over 2.8 million ounces of gold and over 7 million ounces of silver. The Pioneer Mine, south of the Bralorne, and situate along the same greenstone belt, produced over 1.3 million ounces of gold and 25 million ounces of silver. Direct road access is available leading down from HWY 40 directly onto the claim. RV parking available. Recent work has been completed and the Claim is valid until August 14, 2013. The property is offered for mining purposes only and ownership of the tenure does not include ownership of the surface rights or the right to use the surface for residential or recreational purposes.

Comparable properties include the following:

The Bralorne properties are located 241 kilometres north east of Vancouver and 11 kilometres northwest of Gold Bridge, British Columbia. The town site of Bralorne was originally built to support historic mining operations. The property encompasses several historic mine workings including the Pioneer, Bralorne, King and Taylor-Bridge areas in the Bridge River gold district. A total of 30 veins were developed at the mines through a number of shafts and 80 kilometres of tunnels on 44 levels, the deepest of which traced the 77 vein to a depth of 1900 metres. From 1928 to 1971, the Bralorne, Pioneer and King mines produced 4.15 million ounces of gold from 7.9 million tons of ore processed through two 500tpd operations.

Near the turn of the 20th century, placer miners---following gold up the Fraser, Bridge and Hurley Rivers, and then Cadwallader Creek---discovered the source of the yellow metal on the property, staking the first claim in 1896 and starting small scale production shortly thereafter. In 1928, using mining and milling methods of the time, larger scale production commenced and by 1931 a 100 tpd mill had been constructed on the Bralorne property. Production continued at rates between 136 tonnes and 500 tonnes per day from then until low gold prices forced miners to halt their operations in 1971.