Jackfish Lake
Location and Access
The Jackfish Lake property consists of three claims (29 units) in Syine Township (claim map G-634) of the Thunder Bay Mining Division. The property is situated approximately 20 km east of Terrace Bay, Ontario and lies along the north and east side of Jackfish Bay, Lake Superior. The claims may be accessed by the Trans-Canada highway, which cuts through the eastern part of the claim block. A well-kept gravel road that leads to the old village of Jackfish provides access to the southern part of the property.
The property straddles a 4 km long strike of the easternmost Terrace Bay batholith/mafic volcanic contact. This contact has numerous gold zones associated with it, the most notable being the Empress Gold Mine, a former producer, discovered in 1895. Other past producing mines exist on the western end of the batholith/volcanic contact near the town of Schreiber. Gold showings lie within both the felsic stock and the volcanic rocks.
Northwest Claim
One intriguing target lies at the southwest end of Jackfish Lake. There is a 900 meter long AEM conductor within the batholith just north of the point where Jackfish Lake flows into Lake Superior. Four hundred meters to the northeast of the AEM conductor a creek flows into Jackfish Lake from Robertson Lake. Sediment sampling from the mouth of this creek has returned up to 8.8 grams/tonne gold from past work (Russel Renner, July 2003). Renner noted the granites in this area were highly carbonatized and altered. Renner was following up on previous sediment sampling at this location by the Highmark/MacMillan joint venture in 1983, which returned 2.6 grams/tonne gold from the same area. Neither Renner, nor the Highmark - MacMillan joint venture located the source of the high gold in sediment.
Northeast Claim
Another area of interest is the irregular lens of intermediate to felsic volcanics, which is present within the northeastern part of the claim. These are associated with narrow chert horizons containing massive pyrite mineralization. A showing termed the Santoy Mountain Occurrence, reportedly contains small amounts of copper and nickel and lies near one of these cherty units. The general area of the showing was sampled by Brian Fowler in 1993 and returned negligible values of gold, copper and zinc but gave 68.6 g/t silver (assay report dated Aug. 25th, 1993, sample #93-43). The rocks strike N70E at this location.
South Claim
A gold occurrence south of Jackfish Station (old Jackfish town site) lies just south of the granite/volcanic contact. The approximate location for this showing would be 502250E and 5404600N and falls within an old patent (RK421) some 275 meters west of our claim boundary. There are four airborne mag and electromagnetic anomalies immediately east of the reported occurrence. One is in the vicinity of a small, patented claim, which may have been the location of another gold occurrence from the early 1900's.
Exploration in the Area
At the present time the area is actively being explored for gold. An option this year by Galahad Metals on the Kellyn property, owned by Wayne Richards and James Hamel, has renewed exploration in this area. The highly prospective Kellyn property, 3 km to the north of the Jackfish property, contains a gold and base metal vein system that occurs along the contact between ultramafic rocks and a granitoid body. Historic data indicate that up to 2.72 oz/ton gold and 31.4 oz/ton silver were found on the property. One sample collected by Galahad Metals contains 26.8 g/t (0.84 oz/tonne) gold and two contain from 3 to 13 oz/tonne silver. Preliminary sampling by Galahad confirms the gold-rich content of the vein system (Galahad press release dated Jan. 21st, 2009).
In addition, Alto Ventures remains active on their Empress Mine property 4 km to the north. Channel sampling by Alto on the Empress structure has returned 16.2 metres of 1.3 g/t gold, including 2.8 meters of 5.31 g/t gold. Drilling has intersected values as high as 44.23 g/t gold over 0.61 meters. Selected grab samples have assayed as high as 66.93 g/t gold (Alto Ventures website).
Both Galahad Metals and Lund Gold continue to work their Bozema Lake and Black Fox Lake properties, 10 km east and 8 km east respectively. Galahad is following up on high-grade zinc intercepts by Gulf Minerals in 1980 (10m of 8.65 % Zn, including 4.7 m of 16.9 % Zn). Lund Gold is following up on a discovery in 2001 of high-grade gold float (189 g/t gold). Grab samples assaying up to approximately 2.8 g/t. Au from a zone 900 meters northeast of the float have been reported. Both companies are expected to be drilling in 2009.
The Jackfish Lake property has high potential for both gold and VMS deposits and requires a systematic exploration approach. As such, the property is currently available for option.
