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Tare REPORT OF THE MINISTER OF MINES, 1929.
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STIKINE AND LIARD MINING DIVISIONS.

These Mining Divisions constitute over 70,000 square miles of the area of the North-western
Mineral Survey District. Transportation into the Divisions is via Wrangell, Alaska, and the
Barrington Transportation Company river-boats up the Stikine river to Telegraph Creek. This
company offers an excellent, prompt, and courteous weekly service to any point between Tele-
graph Creek and the mouth of Stikine river. Freight rates to Telegraph Creek are $60 a ton,
to the Chutine (Clearwater) river $50 a ton, and to the mouth of the Iskut river $25 a ton.
The passenger rate on the riyer-boats, including meals and berth, is $50 from Wrangell to Tele-
graph Creek and return. The trip from Wrangell to Telegraph Creek occupies from two to
three days, depending on river conditions, and about one day returning.

From Telegraph Creek a 70-mile motor-road leads over the Arctie divide to Dease lake, from
whence small-boat navigation on Dease lake and down the Dease and Liard rivers gives access
to the region beyond the Yukon and North-west Territories boundary.

For several seasons a Dominion Geological Survey party under F. A. Kerr has been earrying
on an active survey of the Stikine River area. It is understood that this work was completed
during the 1929 season and that the final report is in process of preparation. A second pre-
liminary report has been published in the Geological Survey of Canada Summary Report, 1928,
Part A, to which readers are referred.

During the 1929 season the prospecting carried out was what might be called a matter of
elimination. Several parties of outside prospectors entered the region. Of these, a party under
A. Skelhorne, employed by the Mining Corporation of Canada, conducted extensive exploration
which resulted in several discoveries. One of these, on 4-Mile creek is reported to be of excep-
tional interest. Some prospectors who came in failed to penetrate the unfavourable granitic
area extending along the Stikine from the Iskut to the Chutine and departed for other fields
without getting into the more promising sections of this worthy area.

In this connection it must be stressed that whereas the 70-mile stretch along the immediate
confines of the Stikine trough from the Iskut River mouth to the Chutine River mouth is
in the disturbed marginal area and can be rightly considered as generally unfavourable to the
continuity of sustained ore-bodies, yet very. favourable areas probably exist to the eastward of
this stretch and also along the drainage areas of these riyers. The following description of
the contact may help to clarify this point. The Coast Range granite-contact strikes into the
area in the form of an inverted “S,” with the bottom or easterly shank paralleling the Iskut
river on its south bank, the central spine following due north for 70 miles along the east bank
of the Stikine river, and the top or westerly shank following the southerly drainage area of the
Chutine river. This throws the 70-mile stretch of the Stikine river between the Iskut and
Chutine rivers, practically entirely in granite, and the immediate vicinity of the Stikine proper,
between these points, not sufficiently distant from the main contact to be entirely favourable,
The Iskut and Chutine rivers penetrate the marginal contact-zone on the south and north of this
inverted “S” and are exceptionally promising areas for prospecting. It is in these sections
and the drainage region north of the Chutine river that the most promising discoveries have been
made. The headwaters of the several streams that penetrate the 70-mile north-south margin of
the contact to the eastward are equally as promising but less accessible,

In the Iskut River area forty-eight Claims were staked during August by A. Vreatt and
partner on Johnnie mountain, prospecting for the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company
of Canada. This staking was not completed until late in the season and the showings have not

yet been explored. It is understood the Consolidated Company intends doing some work on them
during the 1930 season.

In the same area the Bronson claims, staked a number of years ago, have received the
attention of examining engineers.

About 5 miles up Ball creek, a western tributary of the Iskut river about 90 miles from its

mouth, a group of fifteen claims was staked at the end of September by G. V. Carson for the
A. B. Trites interests.

Towards the close of the season a group of claims about 7 miles from the mouth of the Iskut
river was staked by Barrington Bros. on a showing of galena ore from which some nice-looking
specimens had been brought out.

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