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By Peter Smith, Director & CEO, Sasquatch Resources
Editor’s Note: This Blog first appeared in the Fall 2026 issue of Canadian Mining magazine, and the full digital edition is available at www.canadianminingmagazine.com/current-issue.
Across Canada, thousands of legacy mine sites have been left behind following the end of historic mining operations. More than a century later, these sites continue to present environmental and public safety concerns, while questions about responsibility for cleanup often remain unresolved.
Over the past three and a half years, Sasquatch Resources has been studying one such site: Mount Sicker, a historic mining district near Duncan, British Columbia. Mount Sicker was once one of British Columbia’s most significant mining districts, producing substantial quantities of copper, gold, and other metals while supporting a thriving community in the Cowichan Valley. When mining ended in the early 1900s, the site was abandoned.
Today, its legacy is still visible. An estimated 300,000 tonnes of waste rock remains on the site – material that was once mined, brought to the surface, and left behind in massive piles – along with open shafts, collapsed workings, and other physical hazards.
Today, the former Mount Sicker mine site stands in stark contrast to the surrounding landscape. While the area around it is covered by lush Vancouver Island forest, much of the land disturbed by historic mining remains barren. Natural regrowth has been limited, and the site continues to present both environmental and public safety hazards.
An unexpected discovery
When Sasquatch first became involved at Mount Sicker, we were looking at the possibility of reopening the mine. However, as we began conducting geological mapping, water sampling, and laboratory analysis of samples within the historic waste piles, the direction of the project started to change.
This testing revealed elevated concentrations of sulphides within the waste rock. These sulphides are associated with acid generation, which can affect surrounding soil and water over time. Runoff from parts of the site has tested as low as pH 3, roughly the acidity of vinegar. Those findings might help explain why some areas of Mount Sicker have seen so little natural regrowth over the past century.
At the same time, sampling revealed something that fundamentally changed how we viewed the project: the waste rock still contained significant quantities of copper, gold, silver, and zinc.
The environmental challenge and the economic opportunity were concentrated in the same material.
A different approach
This discovery led us to explore a different approach to remediation. Historically, environmental cleanup and resource development have been viewed as separate activities. One focuses on addressing environmental liabilities, while the other focuses on recovering economic value.
At Mount Sicker, we found that the environmental challenge and the economic opportunity were not separate issues – they were two sides of the same problem.
We began investigating whether the material could be crushed and mechanically sorted to separate the sulphide-rich material from the rest of the waste rock. If successful, the sulphides could be removed, valuable metals recovered, and the remaining material (now benign) returned to the site as part of reclamation efforts. The value recovered from the metals could help fund cleanup activities that might otherwise be difficult to finance.
Proving the concept
Over the past three and a half years, we have completed extensive sampling, surveying, and ore-sort testing. Representative samples underwent full-scale ore-sorting trials using X-ray transmission (XRT) technology. The testing was designed to determine whether sulphide-rich material could be separated from the remaining waste rock at a commercially viable scale.
The results were encouraging. The sorting process successfully separated a high-grade fraction containing strong copper, gold, silver, and zinc values while significantly improving the acid-generating characteristics of the remaining material.
What makes this opportunity unusual is that the material in question is already sitting on the surface. Unlike a conventional mining project, there is no need for a new open pit, underground development, tailings facility, or large-scale processing plant.
Instead, waste rock is crushed and sorted. The high-sulphide material can be shipped to existing smelting facilities, while the remaining material can be returned to the site.
The result could be a smaller environmental footprint (in fact a significant environmental improvement to what’s there now), lower capital costs, and a shorter path to mineral production. Water is recycled throughout the process, no new chemicals are introduced, and no new waste streams are created.
Independent experts from Okane Consultants, Vancouver Island University, and Synergy Enterprises continue to evaluate the environmental implications of the approach. Their work includes preliminary closure planning, water quality monitoring, metallurgy analysis, and lifecycle assessment to better understand the potential environmental benefits of the project.
The remaining challenge
While the technical results have been promising, the greatest challenge has not been engineering; it has been permitting. Mount Sicker does not fit neatly into an existing regulatory category. We are not proposing a conventional mining project, but the scale of material handling extends beyond what would typically be considered bulk sampling.
As a result, the project is moving through a permitting pathway that is relatively new territory for everyone involved.
The process has taken some time to figure out, but significant progress has been made. Over the past few years, the project has advanced through extensive technical studies, engagement with regulators, and ongoing discussions with local governments, First Nations, and other stakeholders as a pathway forward is being developed.
If approvals proceed as anticipated, the work itself could be completed within approximately two years, with broader reclamation activities continuing over time.
What’s next: The vision for Mount Sicker
The proposed sorting work is only one phase of a much longer effort to improve the site and reshape what Mount Sicker could become in the decades ahead.
Over time, reclamation would focus on securing physical hazards, improving conditions in areas affected by historic mining, and supporting the gradual return of vegetation. Our vision is to see areas that have remained barren for decades become part of a recovering landscape once again.
We are also exploring opportunities for Mount Sicker to serve as a place for education, research, and community engagement. The site occupies an important place in British Columbia’s mining history. We believe it also has the potential to become a place where people can learn about environmental restoration, resource development, and the long-term stewardship of historic industrial sites.
That conversation must include the First Nations whose territories overlap the site. Their knowledge, perspectives, and stewardship will be an important part of how decisions are made and how the site evolves in the years ahead.
Looking beyond Mount Sicker
As we’ve worked through the challenges and opportunities at Mount Sicker, it has become clear that this site is not unique. We’ve identified similar waste rock conditions in the surrounding area, and are currently developing additional projects including Blue Grouse, Santana, and Copper Road, all a relatively short distance from Duncan, British Columbia.
More importantly, the opportunity extends far beyond Vancouver Island. British Columbia may have as many as 2,000 legacy mine sites, while estimates across Canada reach as high as 10,000.
If Mount Sicker proves successful, we believe it could establish a new model for addressing legacy mine sites – one that helps recover critical minerals, reduces the need for new mining infrastructure, and accelerates the cleanup of environmental liabilities that have remained untouched for generations.
Readers interested in learning more about Sasquatch Resources and our work at Mount Sicker can visit https://sasquatchresources.com.
About Peter Smith
Peter Smith is Director & CEO of Sasquatch Resources, and he was also a director and former CEO of Myriad Uranium Corp. Smith was educated at SFU, UBC, and Cambridge University (Trinity Hall College). He is also a former clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada and lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton (New York). In 2013, Smith co-founded Less Mess Storage, a storage business based in Central and Eastern Europe. Less Mess now has multiple storage centers throughout Poland and the Czech Republic, and an estimated value of over $400 million CAD. Smith also spent over ten years teaching criminal law and criminology at Simon Fraser University.
About Sasquatch Resources
Sasquatch Resources Corp. is a mineral exploration company primarily focused on reclamation of waste rock, both at legacy mine sites and in areas where logging roads have encountered and been constructed with significant volumes of mineralized material.