The Carissa Gold Mine at South Pass City was one of the Cowboy State’s most productive gold mines, drawing thousands of hopeful miners to South Pass City in 1867. The miners never found their mother lode, though, and the Carissa petered out within just a couple years.
The town — which, along with the mine, is a state historic site today — remains remote and all but deserted.
But a new gold explorer has been digging around in that area, and believes the old historic strike wasn’t far off the mark, after all. The old miners just lacked the technology to go deep enough. Past that level where water starts pouring into the mine.
Canada-based Relevant Gold, founded by geologists Rob Bergmann and Brian Lentz, say they have already found several promising metal belts in Wyoming, including one near the old Carissa Mine. And, unlike those historic miners, they do not lack the technology to go after it.
They are gearing up for what they believe is going to be a transformational summer this year in Wyoming.
“When you look at historic mining projects, the reason they shut down is always economic,” Bergmann, Relevant Gold co-founder and CEO, told Cowboy State Daily. “That doesn’t mean the resource has necessarily run out, though. And that’s exactly what we see in South Pass.”
The Abitibi What?
The data Relevant Gold has collected includes both drilling samples, as well as new magnetic surveys, performed in partnership with Wyoming Geological Survey and U.S. Geological Survey. But it also includes historical geological information, which University of Wyoming scientists have known about for a while.
In fact, it was that research that led Bergmann to think that the area that is today Wyoming has been sitting on an immense gold belt deep below the surface of the earth. Maybe even Abitibi gold belt immense — a formation that spans Ontario and Quebec and is well-known in mining circles for producing tremendous amounts of gold.
The Abitibi belt formed between 2.6 to 2.8 billion years ago, a timeframe geologist have linked to volcanic activity that led to precious metal deposits like silver, gold, copper and nickel. The extension of the Abitibi formation into Wyoming was documented by University of Wyoming researcher Kevin Chamberlain.
“His work is one of the reasons we were so attracted to Wyoming,” Bergmann said. “He has published the science showing there’s this connection to these old rocks from Canada in Wyoming.”
Other Gold Belts Exist
The Carissa Mine area isn’t the only place in Wyoming that Relevant Gold is exploring. In fact, this summer, the company plans to drill at its Bradley Peak project, which is located in the Seminoe Mountains near Rawlins.
“There was historic mining there, similar to South Pass City, and it’s never been drilled before,” Bergmann said. “We are the first to go test the rocks below the surface, to see if there are opportunities there to unlock value.”
Bergmann said the company will also be looking at several other areas throughout Wyoming, to find and flag the areas where it believes there’s the highest potential.
“We will put it through our systematic exploration process,” he said. “We start by looking at all the data to analyze an area, and then we’ll put a plan together for boots on the ground.”
Bergmann said he and his partner, Lentz, have built a number of successful companies in the natural resource space, including one called Big Rock Exploration.
The success of that company allowed the duo to capitalize this new venture, Relevant Gold, in 2020, with a mission focused on following Canada’s Abitibi formation in Wyoming to map out its metal belts.
So far, they believe they’ve identified five, large-scale projects in Wyoming.
Children and adults gathered by the sides of Willow Creek during Gold Rush Days at South Pass City to try their hand at panning for gold. (Renée Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Home and office of Esther Hobart Morris. (Renée Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
CK Project Near Cheyenne Still Going
While Relevant Gold’s headquarters is in Vancouver, Canada, the company does have a field office in Riverton, Wyoming, as well as an operational office in Minnesota. They listed on the Canadian exchange starting out because that venue is friendlier to a more speculative enterprise like a gold prospecting company.
Relevant Gold has been gaining steam, lately, though, with the data its team has put together on likely gold belts in Wyoming. That data attracted some high-powered investors, Bergmann said.
Among them is major gold producer Kinross Gold Corp., which has purchased a significant number of shares in the company, as well as prominent mining industry figure, William G. Bollinger, who has also placed a significant, multi-million dollar bet on the future of Relevant Gold.
Bollinger, in a news release about his investment, said he believes Relevant Gold is on the cusp of a huge gold breakthrough, a breakthrough that’s happening in Wyoming.
“This substantial common share purchase is a mark of my confidence in this talented team and the highly prospective potential of this under explored and untapped resource,” he said in the statement.
Relevant Gold is now the second gold prospector to land in Wyoming. The other project, CK Gold Project, is located near Cheyenne at the site of the historic Copper King Mine, developed in 1881, in Wyoming’s Silver Crown Mining District.
That project ceased mining just before World War II, but mineable quantities of gold, copper, and other metals remain in the area.
That project is still underway, Cowboy State Daily has confirmed with the company that owns it, U.S. Gold Corp. They just released a study in January, exploring feasibility of the mine, and expect to begin production in 2027.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
