188
(46 h-i) Gordon River Group, Gordon River

LOCATION

The Gordon River group of Crown-granted mineral claims is located
along both sides of Gordon river, and extends from the Wax claim of the
Bugaboo Creek group in a southeasterly downstream direction for a distance
of about 2 miles (Figure 27). There are twelve claims in the group, named
as follows, beginning with the most northwesterly: Max, Fizz, Gold Steel,
Fizz Fraction, Pig Iron, Puffing Billy, Thorn, Rose, Jen, Rambler, Sophia.
They are located along both sides of a diorite-limestone contact that follows
closely the bed of Gordon river.

The main showings, which are on the Rose and the Thorn claims, are
located about 5 miles from the mouth of Gordon river, and can only be

reached now by the same route as that described above for the Bugaboo
’ Creek deposits. The old trail is impassable for this distance, so that the
present means of access is by dug-out canoe and back-packing.

Gordon river flows through the centre of this group, and where it
traverses the lower claims it occupies a channel filled with boulders, that is
from 200 to 300 feet wide. Above the Rose claim the river flows through
a deep box canyon that is difficult to navigate even in a canoe. The
exposures of magnetite are all close to the river, at elevations varying
between 200 and 250 feet above sea-level. The highest outcrops are only
about 50 feet above the level of Gordon river. The banks of the river are
steeply sloping, thickly wooded, and densely covered with underbrush.
All the areas that had been stripped and open-cut at the time of the opera-
tions are now covered with a network of fallen timber and a very dense
growth of salal brush and salmon berry bushes, that made their mapping
very arduous and inaccurate.

HISTORY AND OWNERSHIP

These claims were located in 1900 and 1901 and Crown-granted some
five years later. Most of the development, including the sinking of the
300-foot shaft, with accompanying drifting, was done prior to 1903, under
the direction of N. E. Newton, representing English interests. No work
has been done since 1906.

The property was controlled by the Gordon River Iron Ore Company,
and is now owned by the Godman estate, of which Edwards and Ames,
Pacific building, Vancouver, are the agents.

(46 h) Rose Claim

The magnetite deposit on this claim is located on the northeast side
of Gordon river, and 200 feet from the bank, almost on the line of junction
with the Jen claim. The exposures are close to the bed of a small tributary
ereek. An old cable, for an aerial cage, crosses Gordon river at this
locality, which is locally called No. 1 or Newton’s mine.

The deposit is located in the proximity of a diorite-limestone contact
that follows up the bed of Gordon river for about half a mile above this
point. With the limited exposures in the immediate vicinity of the deposit,
the rock relations could not definitely be deciphered. There is diorite,
andesite (either a fine-grained phase of the diorite or a member of the
Vancouver series of volcanics), and bluish-grey finely crystalline limestone.