by Mark Sproxton
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 21/97) - A piece of Yellowknife's storied history will be revisited this summer.

The city's original gold mine will undergo exploration work this summer by Roberts Bay Resources, a small oil and gas company from Calgary.

The company, headed by former Yellowknife resident Rob Hugo, will drill the original vein at the Burwash mine next month.

"It's got enough appeal to us to see what it's all about," said Hugo, president of Roberts Bay. "Initially when they worked on the property, they thought it was exciting.

"We'll start next month near where they trenched to see if their story has more to it."

"Their story" refers to Yellowknife Johnney Baker and Hugh Muir.

The pair discovered the deposit in 1934 almost by accident when a storm on Great Slave Lake forced them back to land. While there, they came across some curious rocks and staked the area across Yellowknife Bay from Giant Mine.

The original Burwash vein showed ore samples with up to 100 ounces of gold per tonne. Baker said the vein was "lousy with gold." A sampling and trenching program in 1935 that also showed good results.

A 45-metre shaft was sunk on the property and it became the first producing gold mine in the NWT. The Burwash discovery and others nearby led to the Yellowknife gold rush in the mid 1930s.

About this time other properties in the area began to show lower values but higher gold concentrations.

Those properties eventually became what we know as the Giant and Con mines. From that time on, the Burwash has sat idle.

"We're a small oil and gas company but I've always been intrigued by some of those old properties around Yellowknife," said Hugo, a former territorial government employee who worked on the government's Northern Accord plans in the early 1990s.

The company will also examine a second showing near the Burwash vein called the Beau Zone and will continue work on its properties near Prosperous Lake.

Roberts Bay optioned the leases that made up the old Burwash property from local prospectors Walt Humphries and Dave Smith. The Dettah Road intersects the property.

"It's always puzzled me whey no one has drilled it or done more work on it," Humphries said. "You never know what those things do unless you follow them down. It's worth a shot."