Our story · Spruce Creek, 1890s to today
Spruce Creek was the richest creek in the Atlin gold-fields. The surface placers are worked out; the deep channel that fed them is the target.
1890s–1951
Approximately 350,000 oz of gold came out of Spruce Creek — more than all other Atlin-area creeks combined, much of it from underground workings. The largest recorded nugget weighed 83 oz. Noland Mines Limited developed underground workings downstream, documented in a 1950 plan.
The geology
The lower creek cut through a pre-glacial channel gravel with gold concentrated near bedrock. Later downcutting reconcentrated gold into the Grey Gravel that supported the early surface mining. Upstream, beneath the property, the buried paleochannel is the underground target.
1980
The placer lease, approximately 90 hectares, has been held by the Desbien family since 1980. The approximate paleochannel crosses it, from the historic Noland workings through the shaft site.
2016–2020
Steelwater Contracting, the founders' operating company, surface-mined Spruce Creek for five years before turning to the buried channel.
2018
A drilling programme identified an extension of the paleochannel on the property: twelve of twenty-five holes intersected it at about 325 feet. The interpretation remains subject to technical review.
2021–today
Steelwater and AMPEX Mining collared a 14 ft concrete-lined shaft in October 2021. The pre-sink permit is issued and bonded; main shaft, bulk-sample and discharge permits are in application. The company is now seeking a buyer or a partner to carry the project through shaft sinking to a bulk sample — the test of the channel.
Historical figures compiled by the company from published and archival records; not independently verified. No mineral resource has been estimated.