IN LONDON: Across North America, thousands of legacy mine sites pre-date modern environmental regulation remain either abandoned or only partially addressed – reflecting complex challenges.
In British Columbia alone, there are up to 2,000 identified legacy mine sites, leaving sulphide-rich waste rocks exposed at surface along with physical hazards from past mining activity.
Speaking to Mining.com.au, Peter Smith, CEO of reclamation-focused explorer Sasquatch Resources (CSE:SASQ), says there are tens of thousands of legacy mine sites in North America.
“If it’s 100-plus years old, then we’ve got a pretty good idea that the grades are going to be higher just because the technology wasn’t there compared to how it is today,” Smith tells this news service.
Sasquatch is aiming to reshape modern approaches to legacy mine cleanup via its Mount Sicker Project in British Columbia.
Operated between 1895 and 1915, Mount Sicker contains historical waste rock piles with gold, silver, copper and zinc. If approved, Mount Sicker could become one of the first modern examples in Canada of linking large-scale legacy site remediation directly with mineral recovery.
“It’s a beautiful environment except this legacy site, which is about five football fields or so in size,” Smith says.
“It is a wasteland, it’s Mad Max. And it has been like that for 120 years”
Smith says looking at the surface grades at Mount Sicker, which is some 300,000 tonnes, there is C$200 million plus of metal value there that could be potentially exploited.
“One of the wonderful things about this project for me personally, and the thing that keeps me motivated, is the thought that a year from now we could see real improvements environmentally up there at that site,” Smith explains to Mining.com.au.
“We’d love to be able to go up there two years from now and say, look, there are trees growing again, there are new bushes and grass and this was all made possible by us going through this permitting process and ultimately removing these high sulphides and making the site friendly again for nature to step in.”
Mount Sicker contains a lot of sulphide, as well as sulphur such as arsenic, lead and other contaminants. These sulphurs are sitting in piles which suffocate any growth.
Smith explains that when water, rain, and snow melts come through these piles, acid is generated.
“We have confirmed that it is in fact acid generating – even after 120 years,” he says.
“All of these things together essentially, and proof is in the pudding, means no growth.”
Making a legacy
Sasquatch’s proposed process is limited to crushing and mechanical sorting – no chemical additives, no new waste streams and water recycled onsite.
Controlled independent ore sorting trials on representative samples indicate the potential to remove more than 95% of sulphide-related contaminants and post-sorting material scoring between 5.3 and 6.3 on a neutralisation scale.
“Once we actually start operations and we’re crushing and sorting this material, we’ll hopefully be on to the next legacy mine site from there,” Smith says.
The company is currently progressing permitting, with an engineering report recently completed by a qualified engineering company, as well as a preliminary reclamation overview completed by Okane Consultants.
Together, these reports have been submitted for consideration to obtain a permit to remove the high-sulphide material under a notice of work application. Once a mutually acceptable application process has been determined, it is expected that future similar permits might be obtained more efficiently in the future.
By establishing a waste rock reclamation framework, more companies will presumably make and accelerate plans to address legacy mine sites and other mining waste opportunities.
Smith says once this is achieved, more junior mining companies will be motivated to look at legacy mine sites.
“When we get through this process, you might see new legislation in British Columbia and essentially use this experience that they’ve had with us and maybe a few others to generate their own permitting process,” he adds.
“If you don’t know it’s there, you could easily just walk right into it”
Beyond reducing acid-generation potential, Sasquatch’s proposal would remove substantial volumes of historical waste rock, address physical hazards associated with unstable material and open shafts, and create conditions for land stabilisation and natural regrowth.
As Mining.com.au reported, some of the hazards of an abandoned or old mine working are openings where someone can fall into an open pit or quarry, deadly gases, cave-ins, unsafe structures, unstable explosives, highwalls, and water hazards – to name a few.
One extreme example of the hazards at Mount Sicker is two 200-plus-foot (61m) mine shafts from 1910-1915, that remain open – further highlighting the dangers that were left behind are still very much present.
“If you don’t know it’s there, you could easily just walk right into it.”
“We found them and there are probably more, but one of them we found is 200 feet across by 20 feet deep and it’s in an area that has been grown over and very hard to find,” the CEO says.
British Columbia’s legacy
Under the plan, mobile ore sorting would separate metal-rich material from lower grade rock. Concentrate would be transported to existing licenced facilities, with revenue helping offset the cost of waste removal and site rehabilitation – without introducing land disturbances or new mining infrastructure.
Further metallurgical testing will be conducted in the coming months to help determine the best offtake terms for the high-sulphide product.
Sasquatch is primarily focused on legacy mining sites and mineralised logging and mining roads, as well as the potential to recover high-grade mineralisation from historical mine waste dumps while also rehabilitating sites and addressing hazards left behind.
The approach aims to be a win-win for all stakeholders, in that it addresses some serious ongoing environmental liabilities while allowing Sasquatch to recover waste rock containing gold, silver, copper and other valuable elements sitting at the surface.
British Columbia’s mining industry has a rich history, beginning in the 1850s which brought rapid population growth, infrastructure and political organisations to the region.
The province’s mining sector supports more than 35,000 jobs and nearly 4,000 small, medium and First Nations businesses in every region. As of May 2025, the industry accounted for C$18 billion in annual economic activity and almost 30% of the province’s goods exports.
Sasquatch also owns five other projects – Copper Road, Blue Grouse, Santana, Slesse and Alberni – located in Canada.
Copper Road is located near Mount Sicker, which contains a volcanic massive sulphide system that was exposed by logging activity.
Historical mining at Blue Grouse has left behind large volumes of copper waste, as well as numerous physical hazards.
The Santana mining area, located on Quadra Island, operated around 1915 and contains numerous high-sulphide waste piles and other hazards left behind. The waste contains copper, silver, and gold.
Slesse comprises 11 mineral claims covering 1,567 hectares south of Sardis, British Columbia, near the US border.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Sasquatch Resources
