Work History

Placer gold was discovered in the Sixtymile River area in 1892 by C. Miller. The principal creeks mined were Miller, Glacier, Big Gold, Little Gold and Bedrock creeks. In 1915 and 1916, the North American Trading and Transportation Co. dredged near the mouth of Miller Creek. The dredge was refurbished by the Holbrook Dredging Co., which mined in the Sixtymile Valley below Miller Creek between 1929 and 1941. A new dredge was constructed by Yukon Exploration sand Yukon Placer Mining Co., which mined the lower reaches of Glacier and Big Gold Creeks and part of the Sixty Mile River from 1947 to 1959. Total placer production from the Sixtymile area from discovery to 1990 is estimated at 570,000 crude ounces (17.7 million grams).

The Glasmacher showing was staked as LGC cl 1-129 (YA87404) in Dec/84 by Noranda Exploration Company Ltd, which performed geochem sampling in 1985. Esso Minerals Canada Ltd tied on Sixty Mile cl 1-51 (YA88238) to the southwest in Oct/86 and explored with mapping and geochem sampling in 1987. Homestake purchased Esso's interest and mapped in 1989.

Restaked Aug/90 by Sixty Mile Placers Ltd as part of a 64 km long block of EP 1-168 (YB31367) and ET 1-64 (YB31764) quartz claims in conjunction with placer mining in the Sixtymile River area. The EP claims cover a 40 km stretch of the Sixtymile River above Enchantment Creek, and the ET claims cover the entire length of Enchantment Creek (NTS 115N/16). A stretch of the Sixtymile River from the mouth of Big Gold Creek to a point 1.2 km below the mouth of Five Mile Creek was explored in 1990 and 1991; 250 auger drill holes, 8 inch (20.3 cm) diameter. Sixtymile Placers Ltd trenched the EP claims in 1993.

Restaked as Hem cl 1-16 (YB81764) by B. Kreft in May/96. F. Hawker et al. staked Kurt cl 1-4 (YB81760) southwest at the same time. J. Milhouse and S. Ciesla staked Vance cl 3-5 (YC04305) 3 km to the south west in Jun/97.

In Jun/2003 R. Hulstein staked Paul cl 1-10 (YC27136) and Toni cl 1-8 (YC27146) southwest of the occurrence. In Nov/2004 Hulstein sold the claims to North American Gold Inc which carried out a small trenching program in 2005. In Sep/2005 North American Gold became a wholly own subsidiary of Northland Resources Incorporated.
Restaked Toni cl 9-14 (YC36199) and Toni cl 15-28 YC44641) in Jul/2005 by R. Hulstein, who carried out a small prospecting program on Toni claims 9-14 in Jun/2006. In 2007 Hulstein carried out a small ground magnetometer survey, prospected and carried out rock and soil sampling programs. In Sept/08 Hulstein added Toni cl 29-32 (YC76463).

Capsule Geology

The occurrence is located within the Yukon-Tanana terrane west of Dawson City, Yukon. The region escaped glaciation thus there is very little exposed outcrop in the area. Extrapolating geological mapping carried out by Mortensen (1996) immediately to the south on topographic map sheet 115N/13, indicates that the area south of the claims is underlain by Devonian to Mississippian graphitic quartzite and muscovite rich schist assigned to the Nasina assemblage. The claim block itself is predominantly underlain by Cretaceous age andesite volcanic flows and breccia correlated to the Carmacks Group. North of the claim block the area is mainly underlain by Carboniferous to Permian metamorphosed pellitic and volcanic rocks informally referred to as Klondike Schist.

Late Cretaceous volcanic flows and pyroclastic rocks underlying the Cogasa placer operation show evidence of strong hydrothermal alteration, including the presence of alunite and quartz-sericite adularia. Gold is associated with pyrite and arsenopyrite in quartz-barite veinlets which cut silicified and brecciated volcanic rocks.

Glasmacher and Friedrich (1992) described four stages of mineralization. Most of the gold appears to have been deposited as inclusions in pyrite during the third stage. Fluid inclusion data indicates that the gold precipitated from a low salinity fluid with a temperature of about 200°C. These authors reported values as high as 12 g/t gold from quartz-sulphide samples.

Sixty Mile Placers outlined a small area of elevated gold values on the EP 5-8 claims near the mouth of Five Mile Creek.

Hulstein collected five rock samples in 2006. Four of the samples were collected from float. The 5th sample consisted of calcite veining in a shear zone cutting grey propylitic altered andesite ash tuff, and contained 13 mm bladed calcite indicating evidence of an epithermal system. All of the samples were collected from andesites and although none of the samples returned significant gold values (~0.005 ppm) most displayed evidence of argillic or propylitic alteration and their anomalous elemental suite supports an epithermal source.

The 2007 magnetic survey showed that this occurrence lies within a magnetic low. Soil sampling outlined a 500 m gold anomaly over the presumed trace of the Sixtymile fault.

Assessment Reports that overlap occurrence