Forgotten silver

View from the top of Mt. Haldane towards the Eagle mine, workings visible in the distance on the right.

The Keno Hill Silver District is endowed

with a century’s worth of stories of prospectors, miners, and colourful figures that inevitably inhabit frontier mining towns. Keno City and Elsa owe their existence to the discovery of silver in the region in the early 1900s, shortly after discouraged Klondike prospectors had ventured into the region and discovered gold on Duncan Creek prior to the turn of the century. One such Klondiker, Jack Davidson, had discovered the original silver-rich galena on Galena Creek, but the richness of the ore he found wasn’t appreciated for another decade and silver mining started in 1913. A staking rush covered Galena and Silver Hills, where more silver was discovered in 1918. Keno

City was established shortly thereafter, and the region saw almost continuous mining from 1919 to 1989, when the Keno mines were shut down due to low silver prices. The district produced almost 220 million ounces of silver at an average grade of 1,389 g/t silver over that period. prospectors, miners, and now tourists to the region, is alive once again, with Alexco Resource Corp. having restarted Keno mining operations and Victoria Gold’s new gold mine, Eagle, which opened in 2019. Yukon Energy recently upgraded the Stewart-Keno transmission line from Mayo to McQuesten, spending $34 million to 138 kV to better service the mines. With the

increase in vehicle traffic between Mayo and the various mining and exploration camps, even the Silver Trail itself is slated for a $63 million upgrade.

With two operating mines in the area, exploration companies are searching the region with great success for both silver and gold. Alianza Minerals’ Haldane Silver Project lies in the western portion of the district, on the slopes of Mt. Haldane. Mt. Haldane informally marks the start of the Keno District as one drives the Silver Trail, sitting prominently at the halfway point between Mayo and Keno City. Here, the most westerly exposures of the favourable Keno vein host rocks are found, the Basal Quartzite member of the Keno Hill Quartzite. The original showings on Mt. Haldane date back to the early 1900s with the first documented work in 1918.

In parallel with the activities 25 kilometres away at Keno, small-scale mining took place at Haldane at the Middlecoff vein where reportedly 24.7 tonnes of handsorted ore grading 3,102 g/t silver and 59 per cent lead were produced. At the same time, work was taking place on the Johnson Vein on the north side of Bighorn Creek, including a short adit. In 1926 and 1927, these workings produced a total of 2.1 tonnes at 4,602 g/t Ag and 57.9 per cent Pb, also of hand-sorted ore. Likely due to the rugged nature of the Bighorn Creek valley and the slopes of Mt. Haldane, these occurrences were largely forgotten about except for a short flurry of activity in the 1960s. Today, exploration is still focused near the Middlecoff and Johnson veins, where Alianza is exploring its West Fault target. Alianza’s initial hole at West Fault in 2020 intersected 444 g/t silver over 4.48 metres. Subsequent drilling in 2021 targeted the vein on 50 metre step outs on

View from the Eagle Mine access road towards Mt. Haldane, with electrical substation in the foreground.

strike and down dip returning high-grade silver mineralization, including 1,315 g/t silver over 3.14 metres and 3,267 g/t silver over 1.26 metres, with this new vein target emerging as a significant occurrence in the district.

Like the rest of the Keno District, exploration potential is high, with additional targets available to Alianza, including the centuryold Middlecoff where potential exists to expand beyond the current underground workings and limited drilling. Alianza has also proved the enticing possibility of brand-new vein discoveries at the Bighorn target, where a single drillhole testing a large soil geochemical anomaly intersected four separate vein structures with one returning a very encouraging intersection of 2.35 metres of 125 g/t silver.

The Keno District was known as one of the richest silver camps in world but today, perhaps like Jack Davidson’s original Galena Creek discovery, its value isn’t fully appreciated. With Keno’s resurgence well underway, it is not difficult to imagine it regaining that prestige. 7

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