Gambled and Lost

We’ve visited the Payroll Property a number of times before. The mine here never amounted to much, even if one shipment of ore was sent out to the smelter long ago. They were testing the waters for its development potential and came up short. It was a “prospect” mine…finger’s crossed and start digging! Based on the production reports they took a bath, gambled and lost, all that work for naught. Simply, the ore here was not valuable enough to justify further work. It’d never pay.

The location is the East Kootenays of British Columbia, up the Moyie River watershed in the Cranbrook area. Access is via an old pack trail, a hike in for a click or two, and on the property there’s numerous adits (tunnels) along with open cuts and a shaft which we’ve never yet found and some logs marking the remains of two tumbled down cabins. Odd bits of metal are scattered about too.

Before we get touch on the history of this operation…know this, entering a mine, any mine even a small one like this, is super dangerous. Rocks can dislodge or worst still, there could be total collapse, there may be deep shafts appearing out of nowhere that you can fall into, tripping hazards, sharp metal bits, air quality problems and even undetonated explosives or nasty biting animals denning inside. At every turn it’s trouble and it’s best to just avoid it. We’re experienced underground explorers and are super cautious so as not to put ourselves in harm’s way. We live to see another day.

Official records are a bit spotty in regards to this operation. Still we can piece together a history. It’s suggested work took place in the years 1905-1907 with a small test shipment (16 tonnes) being sent out by pack train that last year. From this came some four hundred dollars worth of silver (here, a secondary metal within a lead ore) and gold (in a native state, but mostly in sulphide form), based on metal values at the time. Today, that’d be worth closer to ten thousand dollars. Not much really no matter how you slice it. And those numbers don’t take in overhead, transport costs, smelting costs and so on. No chance to make money here.

In this ore-body lead values were not exploited for what ever reason, and while copper ore can be found here too it was not in any great quantity. Some (potentially) semi-precious material was also reported in some of the workings, interestingly (Tourmaline). It’s not said if it was of gem quality however (and probably wasn’t). Overall it would never be economical to mine here even if once in a while they found small pockets of good stuff.

It’s not odd, by the way, for various metals to be found together within a mine such as this. Many of them form under similar conditions and so tend to “hang out” together, and sometimes even combine in a sense. For example, silver is often found within lead ore and sometime even becomes the dominate metal within it. Metal minerals are rarely found in a native form and typically need smelting to be released. And before that step, they look quite different than the final product. It takes an eye and some experience to know what ore is what.

It appears some additional exploratory work was done in the 1930s, but we don’t know the extent of it. Not odd. New folks come in hoping to hit the jackpot that maybe the previous miners missed. If there ever was a jackpot. In more recent times some drilling programs have been undertaken but results have been consistently discouraging.

There are somewhere around eight adits on the property exploring a number of veins and stringers. We search out as many as we can, often scrambling up steep slopes to get to them. Mostly these are drifts (tunnels following a vein), some are cross-cuts (tunnels hoping to intercept a vein), some going back a few metres, others maybe a hundred or so long and everything in between along with some open cuts and a shaft with a number of side drifts at lower levels. Most of these tunnels have collapsed or sloughed and otherwise are too sketchy to enter. And some are simply inaccessible due to steep or difficult terrain. That shaft mentioned, heading down some thirty or forty metres, is said to be on the property but it’s never been found by this author. Although it could have collapsed and partially filled in…and there is this deep depression on the property at one waste dump. Maybe? Records are unclear as to its exact location.

An adit down there by a picturesque little pond, accessed via a very steep scree slope, was explored by your author in the 1980s. As you went in deeper water the water level increased to a point we had to turn back. Today access looks too dangerous to attempt anyway, and one trip and it’d be curtains for sure. Back then I was invincible. Not so much today.

One one entry is what we’d call safe (relativity – see the warning earlier) over it’s entire length. At the end there’s a stope (an excavated room larger than the tunnel itself) and a raise (upward trending shaft) that abruptly ends a story or two up. At each entry there’s an ore dump, where the waste rock was deposited. Sometimes you can find ore specimens here. Ore and waste material was brought out by wheelbarrow – so much hard work.

Two fallen-down cabins, well hidden in the bush, were homes for the miners I suppose. An air compressor was used to power drills, is found at the base of a waste dump. It’s home to a geocache. Here and here, other bits of metal can be found.

A well engineered pack trail leads to the mine from a nearby logging road. In places it takes a precipitous high line well above a series of ponds. The time and cost to construction it and the cabins, and to do the mining must have sapped resources. We don’t know the names of the people, or their story, but like all miners they must have been dreamers, hoping one day for that big strike. But it didn’t happen here.

Kudos for them having the courage to try though.

A nearby river, the Moyie, is known for placer gold. That’s native gold found among alluvial gravels. It was heavily mined even into the modern era. Your author used to pan at a friend’s claim and made some fun money doing it.

The blue thing, a caving/mine exploration helmet, essential wear when going underground. Mine is deeply gouged speaking of the many times which I knocked my noggin and likely would have injured myself if not for its protection. These, some high lumen flashlights along with enough batteries to keep them lit for the better part of a day, are just some of the tools of the trade.

Coloured gels were used on some of he underground shots. A lame attempt at being creative, but hey it’s fun.

We don’t get underground much these days but are hoping to change that. It is a happy place for us. Most of our mine exploration predates this website (and rarely got photographed) but we are planning to revisit some we did before BIGDoer.com and share them with you. Here’s to more like this.

More like this…
Mystery Mine.
Protection Mountain Mine.
Mining Under Moyie Falls.

If you wish more information on what you’ve seen here, by all means contact us!

Date: July, 2018.
Location: East Kootenays, BC.
Article references and thanks: BC Ministry of Mines.

Mines are Dangerous!

On the pack trail to the mine.

Cabin remains.

Into the bowels of the earth.

Using coloured gels for fun and effect.

Connie follows.

This drift goes back a short distance.

Connie’s way down there.

Bits and pieces from a century ago.

To power an air drill.

View from the mine dump – old metal down there.

A hole punched into the rock.

A slump at the entrance.

It takes metal to make metal.

The trail’s in good shape after all these years.