North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Little Squaw Gold Mining Co. released results in early May from an independent geological analysis of the company's holdings in the Chandalar Mining district, which include both lode and placer prospects.

Recommendations for future lode exploration includes targeting a potential bulk tonnage deposit, based on including lenses of multi-ounce gold quartz veins with auriferous splays and subparallel, sheeted quartz vein systems.

Placer development recommendations suggest targets in the lower Big Squaw Creek and the Little Squaw Creek valleys, which could contain up to 300,000 ounces of gold, according to the company's May 3 press release.

Little Squaw commissioned Pacific Rim Geological Consultants Inc., of Fairbanks, to analyze the historical database for the Chandalar area property and to complete an independent report and recommendation. Pacific Rim's report "offers a scientific basis that verifies the high quality of its Chandalar property as an exploratory gold prospect that could well contain a major gold deposit," Little Squaw said in its press release.

Richard Walters, president of the recently reorganized company, said current plans for the Chandalar property in 2004 will be minimal, "nothing more than claim maintenance this summer - that is unless we accomplish an equity financing (private or public) or secure a joint venture partner (one of the big gold companies)."

Little Squaw is working on both options, he added, and has been in serious discussions with two majors. Walters put together a deal last summer to acquire the Chandalar mining district property, with the intention of putting Little Squaw's gold holdings back into production. Little Squaw holds about 8,200 acres of mining claims on state land, and 425 acres of patented federal land, which covers the main gold-quartz lodes and the principle placer deposit. About 13.4 square miles of land is staked in the district, mostly north and east of Chandalar Lake.

Seeking winter trail upgrade to road

Access is by air or by winter trail, from the Dalton Highway east to Chandalar, a route over which the state has announced its intent to file a quiet title action for the unencumbered right of way, Walters said.

The big story is that the RST 2477 trail from Coldfoot into Chandalar (No. 009) is number one on the state's list for road development, Walters said.

"The long-term key to the economic success of the Chandalar mines is going to be realization of road access. The most practical route for consideration is the 61-mile long Coldfoot to Chandalar Lake winter trail."

Connecting with the Dalton Highway would open up already platted subdivisions and trade and manufacturing sites around Chandalar Lake to development, he added.

The trail crosses no conservation units, staying mostly on state and state-selected lands. Heavy mining equipment has been freighted over the route since the late 1950s, and Little Squaw has requested the state provide funds for an engineering study of a pioneer gravel road.

Technical report released

Pacific Rim's report is the first ever analytical independent technical report conducted on the property and the mining district, according to Walters.

Consultants Thomas Bundtzen and James Barker reviewed historical data to produce their analysis. Little Squaw's lode gold mineralization is "orogenic, mesothermal, low-sulfide deposits hosted in shear zones that have strike lengths of at least four miles, widths of up to 400 feet and vertical extents of at least 1,600 feet," according to the report.

"There are at least four, parallel, quartz-sulfide-vein-and-shear zone structures that control the past productive Mikado, Eneveloe, Summit and Little Squaw gold deposits, and more than 20 additional lode gold prospects, the latter of which have received very little exploration work."

The report also analyzed placer occurrences on the property, recommending development of a gold placer operation capable of producing 15,000 to 25,000 ounces of gold per year. The authors recommend an initial $1.5 million work program that would jointly target a first-phase appraisal of both placer and lode deposits.

Potential exploration prospects are numerous on the property, where gold was first discovered on Little Squaw Creek in 1905. Past production in the district exceeded 84,000 ounces, Walters said. Identified lode gold resources are more than 17,000 tons, with an average grade of 1.5 ounce per ton, for 26,493 ounces of gold.

Walters estimates there is "near-surface potential for more than one half million ounces of high grade on the six main structures, as well as multi-million ounce potential that could come with deep exploration of them and some nine other known veins."