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Southeast locals form mining company Recreational cabin building among friends results in Olympic Resources Patricia Jones Petroleum News Contributing Writer
One of just a few Alaska-based mineral exploration companies, Olympic Resources LLC, evolved from a small group of friends prospecting some patented land in Southeast Alaska purchased for recreational use.
Phil Beardslee, a Petersburg dentist and a founder of the privately held exploration company, serves as one of seven managers of Olympic Resources. He said about 60 people are currently members of the organization and most live in either Petersburg or Wrangell.
The group’s key project has been developing a polymetallic occurrence on Woewodski Island, about halfway between the two small Southeast Alaska communities. (See related story.)
“It’s been a weekend thing. We’ve never paid any labor for work on the property,” Beardslee said. “Between all of us, we’ve been able to make it work. If things do go good, we want the community to benefit.”
The group formally organized as Olympic Resources in 1997, when holding costs for the federal claims on the island began creeping up. In recent years, those annual fees have been more than $50,000, Beardslee said.
His interest in mineral prospecting on Woewodski came about in 1980, shortly after he and some friends purchased patented mining claims on the island and began building a cabin.
“It was purely for recreational purposes — it’s a beautiful location,” he said, adding that the nearby Duncan Canal is also a “big producer” of seafood products such as shrimp and Dungeness crab. USGS sparks interest One Sunday afternoon, geologists working for the United States Geological Survey visited the cabin-building site, Beardslee said. While initially the geologists wanted a closer look at rocks from an abandoned underground mine nearby, they “got excited about some of the ugly gray rock in the tailings pile,” Beardslee said.
Those discarded rocks showed signs of a massive sulfide mineralization in the area. After some additional work, USGS published a preliminary geological report on the area noting the sulfide mineralization, which sparked exploration efforts by a variety of companies, Beardslee said.
“At least a dozen different companies were involved,” he said. “Gradually they dropped out and the claims that had been staked had been dropped.”
In the meantime, Beardslee’s interest was piqued. He began taking geology classes and prospecting the island with a small group of friends, which included a retired state geologist who now operates a boat shop in Wrangell.
“The more we looked, the more we found,” Beardslee said. “We wound up with basically the whole island in claims.”
An airborne geophysical survey covering 1,111 square miles in the area, funded by the Bureau of Land Management and the City of Wrangell, was released in 1997. That helped spark more interest in regional exploration, although market prices in the 1990s made for a “lousy time for mining companies,” Beardslee said. “Everybody (else) kept dropping claims, while we were core drilling.”
Olympic Resources purchased a lightweight core drill named after its developer, a former Juneau resident named Wink, and began drilling to depths of about 600 feet. Lands exploration deal The local group brought in Fairbanks-based geological consultant Curt Freeman, owner of Avalon Development, as early as 1998. “It looks pretty good — they’ve got a lot of low, brushy, boggy country to work in,” he said.
Freeman visited the site in 2002, after Olympic Resources discovered new mineralization at Brushy Creek. “At that point I felt the property had advanced to a level some of my clients could deal with,” Freeman said.
He proposed it to the Manex Group, among other exploration firms, in January 2003. One consultant who saw core from Woewodski noted its similarity to Greens Creek core, helping to facilitate the deal inked in April with Bravo Ventures, Freeman said.
“Olympic Resources was ahead of the game and spent the time, personal money and lots of wet, soggy, sweaty time in the bushes to prove that something significant was there,” he said.
While still in the early stages of exploration, Woewodski Island offers a glimmer of hope for its neighboring communities. “It’s in a place that’s really hurting in terms of the economy,” Freeman said.
Local support for the project has also been noted by Bravo Ventures. “Generally there is a lot of support for what we’re trying to do out there … which is a refreshing change,” said Rob Macdonald, Bravo’s senior geologist. “We just can’t help but to love their enthusiasm.”
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