M3R1IN said:
wow, functional and Willy, you guys seem to have all the answers
I know i will always get an answer when i pick one of your guys brains
Thanks so much for the info, hopefully i'll get out to some of those areas this season.
I am planning to go to the Yukon and/or Alaska this summer and B.C. is always nice as its next door.
again, thanks
I haven't been up that far north, but if your going there then you should definitely be looking into the mining/prospecting laws in the Yukon. That seems to be where the nuggets are most plentiful still. Take lots of supplies with you though. I've heard the prices of most everything are high. An extra spare tire and a good jack wouldn't hurt either.
Here's a link to the forms used by the Yukon government:
http://www.gov.yk.ca/forms/
I'm not sure if they have a license like the BC Free Miners Cetificate or not, but there are forms for placer and quartz mining. Seems that they have something called an " Assay Coupon Program" and a "Yukon Mining Incentive Program" to help prospectors.
Pretty much everything you need to know is here:
http://www.yukonminingrecorder.ca/
Yukon Law is quite different from BC's. It allows non-citizens to prospect and mine. The following is copied from the Placer Mining Act, (PDF File on this page), here:
http://www.emr.gov.yk.ca/mining/legislation.html
"Right to acquire claims
17(1) Subject to this Act, any individual
eighteen years of age or over, on their own behalf,
on behalf of any corporation authorized to carry on
business in the Yukon, or on behalf of any other
individual eighteen years of age or over, may enter
for mining purposes, locate, prospect, and mine for
gold and other precious minerals or stones on any
lands in the Yukon."
"Permits to prospectors
33 Any person, on satisfying a mining recorder
that they are about to undertake a bona fide
prospecting trip, may, on payment of a fee of two
dollars, receive written permission from the mining
recorder allowing them to record a claim within
the mining recorder’s mining district at any time
within a period not exceeding six months from the
date of the staking the claim."
I can't tell from what I found, whether or not a person has to have a license of some sort just for recreational panning, and whether they allow devices other than gold pans for recreational use.
F.