Eskay Creek

Geotech Exploration, under their partnership with the Tahltan Nation Development Corporation (Tahltech Drilling), was awarded a heli-portable/skid-portable exploration program located at the former Eskay Creek mine site in 2019 and continued drilling throughout 2020. A total of 19,000 meters was drilled by the end of March 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic halted operations at the site. The Tahltech team was able to return with 3 drills in July 2020, after several months of Covid planning and preparation by the dedicated Skeena management and HSE team to ensure all site personnel could operate safely.

As the summer progressed, our team continued to add resources to the project, increasing from 4 drills to 11 drills, which operated until the end of 2020.

Further to the exploration drilling, Tahltech completed over 2,200 meters with hole depths from 25 to 270 meters, in a geotechnical program for the pit wall design and other infrastructure needs. This program included core-orientated drilling, standard penetration testing, shelby tubes, and pneumatic packer testing down to 250 meters! Further to this, the crews also installed vibrating wire piezometers and monitoring wells.

Between the exploration and geotechnical drilling programs, a staggering total of over 110,000 meters were drilled in 2020/2021 on the Eskay property, utilizing Zinex A5 and Hydracore 2000 drills.