Your visit to the Rossland Museum will not be complete without a guided walking tour into a restored section of the historic underground workings of the once famous Le Roi gold mine.
Your guide will be waiting at the entrance to the museum to lead you into the strange and fascinating world of the hard rock gold miner - as it was at the turn of the century. As you enter you will sense the historic presence of that hardy breed of men who laboriously drilled and blasted and hand mucked the 80 miles (128 km) of underground workings in the Rossland mines in search for ore that averaged 0.5 ounces per ton in gold, 1% copper and 0.6 ounces per ton of silver.
You will follow the spacious main haulage way 800 feet into Red Mountain to its intersection with the Le Roi shaft 300 feet below the surface. At this point the shaft extends down 15 levels below you.
You will move on into an underground hoist room and follow the twists and turns of narrow exploration drifts. At one point you will enter a large side chamber to see an early diamond drill machine.
You will gaze up into overhead stopes and peer down into underhand stopes where the ore bodies have been mined out. The guide will point out veins and dykes and you will see a fault plane where in prehistoric time the rock has slipped - the movement which causes earthquakes. You will also see displays of drills and other mining tools. At one point the guide will explain a display depicting how blast hole patterns were drilled to advance the face of a drift.
Throughout the tour your well informed guide will provide a running commentary of geology and mining in general. Do not hesitate to ask questions.
The tour continues on the surface with a visit to an outstanding display in the Geology building and ends with an opportunity to try your luck at panning for the elusive gold!
