The Okanagan past-producing gold-silver mine is located 1.0 kilometre north of Penticton, on the east side of Okanagan Lake, in the Osoyoos Mining Division. Note that the mine is also known as Torpedo (Freeland, 1919) or Lakeside Mines, Ltd. (Freeland, 1935).

For a review of this deposit, refer to the British Columbia Minfile page, current to February 2008. The Minfile page has the following capsule comment regarding the deposit:

“The mine workings consist of an adit driven eastward on a shear zone for about 27 metres and extending to the east about 20 metres. Two drifts of unknown length have been driven along the fault to the north and south. Near the mouth of the adit an inclined shaft has been sunk 30 metres. On the "100-foot" level crosscuts extend east and west on the shear. In the west drift and crosscuts, which extend over 30 metres, no ore was found. To the east, the drift follows the east-west shear zone and developed about 18 metres of mineralization varying from a thin stringer to 30 centimetres in thickness. Beyond that point the vein pinches and passes into a crushed fault zone. On the lake shore bluffs, about 20 metres above the lake, a shear in granodiorite strikes east-west and dips 70 to 80 degrees to the north. The shear is filled with quartz. At a point about 30 metres to the east of the portal of the adit, a quartz vein has been displaced by a north-south, nearly perpendicular fault. Beyond this, the rock is severely crushed, sheared, and broken. Mineralization consists of pyrite, chalcopyrite, galena and sphalerite in a gangue of quartz and sheared granite.”

Giles Peatfield comments:

Official government records show that the total production between 1918 and 1952 was 130 tonnes of ore from which 48 Troy ounces of gold and 307 Troy ounces of silver, were recovered, as well as 735 kilograms of copper, 284 kilograms of zinc and 231 kilograms of lead. This production was almost all in 1918; production in 1948 and 1952 totalled 8 tonnes, yielding 4 Troy ounces gold and 17 Troy ounces silver, with 284 kilograms of zinc and 231 kilograms of lead. All the material mined was direct shipping ore.

Comments on the minerals reported:

The minerals listed were reported by Freeland (1935).

Comments on the rock types reported:

It is not clear what the country rocks for the deposit are. Freeland (1919) wrote that “The lead [note this means the vein, not the metal] lies between two nearly perpendicular walls of granite, the gangue being mainly silica, with some disintegrated particles of wall-rock.” Freeland (1935) reiterated that the host rock was “granite”. Cairnes (1940) showed that the deposit was probably hosted by Mesozoic intrusive rocks, “mainly diorite and quartz diorite.” Little (1961) mapped the rocks as part of the Monashee Group of mostly layered gneiss. Templeman-Kluit (1989) compiled the regional geology and showed this area as underlain by “Okanagan Gneiss”, described as “hornblende-biotite granodiorite orthogneiss.” Minfile mentions both granite and granodiorite. It is thus clear that there is no real consensus – the host could perhaps best be described as “granitic rocks”.

Other Databases

Link to British Columbia Minfile:	082ENW029

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References