The Cayoosh Creek area, including the ground covered by the current Ample-Goldmax Property, has been the focus of gold prospecting and production since the mid 1800s.  Past mining activities include placer gold production from Cayoosh Creek dating from 1886 and gold production from the historic Golden Cache Mine (located on the north side of Cayoosh Creek), which produced 2,722 tonnes of ore yielding 807 ounces of gold between 1897 and 1901.  

Interest in the Ample-Goldmax Property was rekindled in 1993 when a prospector, Mr. Gary Polischuk, discovered a gold-bearing quartz float boulder adjacent to Highway 99.  After securing his Goldmax claim block, Mr. Polischuk began prospecting upslope of the discovery boulder and eventually located an area of rusty soil on the adjacent Ample claim.  Hand excavation, through approximately 0.45m of soil, exposed a quartz vein 0.60m wide, containing visible gold, galena, chalcopyrite and minor arsenopyrite.  Mr. Polischuk subsequently pooled his Goldmax claims with Ample claim owner David Javorsky to form the core of the current Ample-Goldmax Property.

Exploration on the Ample-Goldmax Property since the early 1990s has established a trend of mineralized zones extending for over 3kms along the Cayoosh Creek Fault.  The most promising area, the Ample-Goldmax A Zone, was partially defined by drill programs by Homestake Canada Inc. and Gold-Ore Resources Ltd. between 1996 and 1999.  Total drilling was 5,506m in 37 drill holes, with more than $1.0 million spent on exploration.

Homestake explored the Property under option from Polischuk and Jarovsky between 1995 and 1997.  The initial 1995 program included grid construction, geological mapping, hand trenching and bedrock sampling and geophysical and geochemical surveys.  A soil sampling grid was completed over the A Zoneand 171 soil samples were collected and analyzed for gold, silver, arsenic, lead and zinc.  The B and C Zoneswere also reviewed and detailed descriptions of the mineralization and vein systems were prepared.  The A Zone was identified to have the most potential, returning grades ranging between 3g/t to 7g/t gold over widths up to 7m. 

In 1996, Homestake constructed a steep 2.2km long access trail with several switchbacks to enable diamond drilling, which totaled 1,813m from 14 holes at 8 set-ups, with 649 samples taken for analysis.  Results ranged from trace to 66.34g/t gold.  Sulphide mineralized zones generally carried gold greater than 100 parts per billion.  Trenching resulted in consistent values averaging 3.09g/t gold over 9.0m, attesting to the pervasiveness of gold mineralization.  A grab sample yielded 45.60g/t.  Further drilling was done by Homestake in 1997, including 14 holes totaling 2,786.5m, primarily on the Ample-Goldmax Zone.  In spite of extremely encouraging results from their exploration, Homestake relinquished the Property in 1997 due to the price of gold at the time.  Selected drilling intercepts from the Homestake’s drill programs are presented below:

In 1998 and 1999, Gold-Ore optioned the Property and undertook more drilling and exploration work, better defining areas of gold mineralization associated with the Cayoosh Creek Fault.  In 1998, 1,273 soil samples were analyzed from the B Zone, Ample Mine, Bridge Zone and Upper,Middle and Lower Bonanza Zones.  In 1999, 9 additional drill holes drilled by Gold-Oretotaling 907m tested gold zones that had been previously identified.  The following table highlights selected drill results from Gold-Ore’s program.

Quartz Mountain Resources also took an interest in the Property in 2002, but no significant results were reported.