These gullies, from a hundred feet to as much as a thousand feet long and from 10 to
40 feet deep, range in direction from north to about north 30 degrees east. They may
cross the tops of ridges or may run at any angle to the slope of a hillside. It was pos-
sible to demonstrate that several gullies mark the courses of faults. Consequently, in
many instances it is probable that these straight, north-trending depressions are the
result of erosion along either a fault or a zone of closely spaced fractures. Long, par-
ticularly noticeable gullies lie at the divide between Oregon Gulch and Nelson Creek on
Lot 10481, along the hillside on Lots 11354 and 10443c south of the right-angle bend in
Devils Lake Creek east of the Public Works camp, by the Foster Ledge adit on Lot
8897, and on the divide between Olally Creek and Amador Creek.

The area for the most part is covered by a mantle of glacial drift which, in the
valley-bottom and on lower hill-slopes, is very thick, but which thins to a few feet or
less at about 5,000 feet elevation. As a consequence, natural bedrock-outerops, except
in certain places, are scarce.

Good natural bedrock-exposures may be seen along Devils Lake Creek and the lower
rocky slopes flanking it, on the ridge to the west of the Public Works camp, on the
upper few hundred feet on Burns Mountain, along the canyon section of Lightning
Creek, and in the canyon sections in the lower stretches of tributary creeks. Excellent
exposures of bedrock are laid bare by hydraulic operations on the Slough Creek benches,
in the Ketch pit, Butcher Bench and Amador pits, and along Houseman, Perkins, Last
Chance Creeks, and a few others.

In contrast, few, if any, outcrops are to be seen along the upper stretches of
Nelson, Coulter, Burns, Davis, Last Chance, Van Winkle, and Amador Creeks. The
chances of seeing more than a few outcrops on the slopes of Grub Mountain and Mount
Nelson appear very remote. It was observed that even on hillsides having a slope of
20 to 25 degrees the drift-cover is sufficiently thick to obscure bedrock over large areas.
In numerous instances full-sized mineral claims are known to have no bedrock exposures
at all. This lack of outcrop makes geological mapping difficult. It has deterred pros-
pecting in the past and will hamper any future exploration.

The drift-cover above 5,000 feet elevation on the top of the ridge leading to Burns
Mountain, and in certain places along the ridge-top west of Chisholm and Devils Lake
Creeks, is shallow enough to allow extensive economical bulldozer stripping, but few
other places were seen where bulldozer stripping would be economical.

BRIEF HISTORY OF MINING.

Interest in the Stanley area since the discovery of placer gold on Lightning Creek
in 1861 has been largely centred on placer-mining. Lode discoveries were made in the
1870’s, and although a small amount of gold has been recovered from the Perkins vein
on Burns Mountain, there has been little lode-mining of consequence.

Placer gold was first discovered on Lightning Creek in 1861. For several years
thereafter there was a large production of gold from shallow, easily worked gravel on
Last Chance and Van Winkle Creeks and from bench gravel on Nason Point, Butcher
Bench, and Spruce Canyon. The claims were then largely abandoned, and it was not
until ten years later that the richest ground on the creek was found and worked when
the Victoria, Vancouver, Van Winkle, and other companies sank shafts to work the
extremely rich bedrock gravels at depths of 60 to 90 feet below creek-level. By 1879
the deep ground had been largely worked out. Later, attempts to work ground left by
earlier companies were made by deep drifting from La Fontaine shaft near the mouth
of Anderson Creek and by using hydraulic elevators at the mouth of Amador Creek.
Other remnants left unworked in the 1870’s were salvaged near the Point early in 1900,
and by Stanley Mines, Limited, as recently as 1941 and 1942.

After the period of deep drift-mining, hydraulic operations were begun on Last
Chance, Perkins, and Davis Creeks, and at the mouth of Amador Creek, and drifting in
shallow ground largely by individuals was continued in a number of other places.

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