William “Billy Barker”

Billy Barker, a famous gold prospector from the 1880’s, who the historic gold rush town of Barkerville was aptly named after, was known also to have prospected in the Cedar Creek area.  Some of the claims were entitled the “Aurora” and “Cedar Draw” area of Cedar Creek. These placer workings were among the earliest in the Likely area. Early workings along the creek beds were largely confined to post-glacial gravels in the lower bed of the creek.

Data from the Caribou mining district indicate that supergene leaching of gold dispersed within massive sulphides by Tertiary deep weathering, followed by Cenzoic erosion is the most likely explanation for the occurrence of coarse gold nuggets in Quaternary sediments. At the Cedar Creek placer occurrence, gold gravels were mined along the creek intermittently between 1886 to present.  During the 1800’s over 40,000 ounces of gold were recovered from the placer workings at Cedar Creek.  In a 1926 report to the B.C. Minister of Mines it was noted the richness of the Cedar Creek area was most evident with the discovery of gold pans yielding 28, 35 and 49 ounces each per pan.

There also was the discovery by John Lynne, as recorded in the Victoria B.C. archives.  It became known later as the Paddy Creagh adit, and gold assays ran as high as 112 grams/ton (3.2 ounces/ton).  In the last week of October of 1922, over 697 ounces of gold were recovered at the Cedar Creek mine.  The area was so rich in gold that it was known as the “Nugget Patch”.

In 1923, John Creagh drove an adit on the north canyon wall of Cedar Creek, located 1.6 kilometres from the junction of Cedar Creek and Quesnel Lake (Figure 3).
The adit penetrated a shear zone containing gold-sulphide veins with pyrrhotite, pyrite, arsenopyrite, galena and chalcopyrite, reported as irregular mineralization in a calcite-chlorite- altered andesite gangue (Scott, 1986). The “Paddy Creagh Tunnel” (“JOY Showing” Minfile 093A072) is now covered with extensive talus.

In the 1940’s, the Cedar Dam was constructed to provide water for placer operations and hydraulicking. The construction led to the excavation of a 40 metre by 20 metre pit that exposed a large amount of outcrop. Rocks exposed on the eastern and southeastern edges comprise sandstone, greywacke and chert in contact with hornblende diorite, basalt and tuff along the southeastern edge. Disseminated pyrite and veining containing pyrite, pyrrhotite and minor chalcopyrite, are common throughout the Cedar Dam Showing (Dawson, 2006).

In 1969, Leemac Mines Inc. completed 25 kilometres of grid line cutting on their newly acquired Cedar Creek area claims. The grid baseline was oriented “almost” East-west with cross lines spaced at 120 Metre intervals running “almost” north-south. A geochemical soil sampling program was completed with samples taken at 60 metre intervals along the cross lines. A ground magnetic geophysical survey was then performed on the same grid with stations also spaced at 30 metre intervals. The Results of the geochemical survey was one large (200 by 300 metres) northeast-southwest trending anomaly, with copper values ranging from 2 to 15 times the background values. Four smaller east–west trending anomalies, of 2 to 4 times the background copper values, were also identified. The number of soil samples and the exact location of the copper in soil anomaly is unclear from the assessment report.

In 1974, Union Carbide Exploration Corporation completed a geophysical and geochemical gird over a portion of their Cedar Group claims, along Grogan Creek, which was suspected to host a “bedrock Sulphide Zone”. The baseline of the grid ran parallel to the strike of Grogan Creek with cross lines at 120 metre intervals and geophysical stations along cross lines at 30 metre intervals. A total of 15 kilometres of grid were cut and a total of 9.5 kilometres of magnetic and 9 kilometres of IP readings were completed. Geochemical soil sampling was conducted over the entire grid with samples taken at 100 foot (30 metre) intervals. A strongly anomalous IP zone was found to parallel the base line which consisted of two sub-parallel chargeability anomalies flanked by areas of higher resistivity. There was no correlative magnetic anomaly associated with the IP anomaly. The 100 to 150 foot anomaly was interpreted as a very flat or very steeply dipping non-magnetic sulphide bearing zone under overburden. Soil samples were analyzed for copper, arsenic and mercury only, and the survey did not identify any significantly anomalous areas. The exact location and number of soil samples is unclear from the report.

In 1980 Raymond A. Cook performed geological mapping, prospecting, panning of creek beds and chip, rock grab, channel sampling and minor trenching on his Ban, Rox and Mick Group claims. There were 2 rock grab, 12 rock channel and 6 rock grab and 8 channel samples collected at the Ban, Rox and Mick Group claims respectively. The complete assay results are not available, but the highlights reported by Mr. Cook indicate that: (1) no anomalous samples were collected within the Ban claims; (2) one sample contained 1150 ppb Au from within the Rox claims and 7 of the channel samples are anomalous with respect to one or more of Au, Ag, Pb and Zn values (Table 2); and (3) One sample from the Mick Group claims contains 560 ppm Cu. The remainder of the samples are not anomalous with respect to Cu, Pb, Zn and Ag. The specific rock grab and channel sample locations were not included in the report.