JUNEAU (AP) — A Canadian mining company has been looking for precious metals on Chichagof Island in Southeast Alaska.
Millrock Resources, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based company, several years ago applied to the U.S. Forest Service for drilling permits to renew exploration on claims that once comprised the historic Apex and El Nido gold mines.
However, the exploration never happened. CEO Gregory Beischer said the company wasn’t able to secure financing.
The mines produced precious metals in the early 20th century. “But it really has been dormant since the mining activity took place in the ’20s and ’30s,” Beischer told CoastAlaska public radio.
Some exploration resumed in the 1980s.
Millrock has now formed a partnership with a mining company already working in Southeast which has allowed it to take soil samples on claims less than three miles from Pelican, a community with fewer than 100 year-round residents.
The operator of Kensington Mine north of Juneau, which is a subsidiary of Coeur Mining, invested about $200,000 for a small team of geologists based in Pelican to pursue the samples. The property is about 175 miles northwest of Wrangell.
Beischer said soil sample results are pending. But he said geologists hope they will show that gold-bearing quartz veins continue down the mountain.
Taking soil samples doesn’t require permits, according to state and federal regulators.
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