Northern British Columbia.—The placer fields of
British Columbia lie along a broad belt between the Coast
Mountains on the west and the Rocky Mountains on the
east. In the northern part of the Province, they include
the Omineca, Cassiar, and Atlin districts. These fields
were covered by the Pleistocene ice-sheet and owe their
preservation to their presence in narrow valleys or in valleys
that lay across the general direction of glacial movement.
They did not, however, entirely escape the effects of
glaciation, since a great part of the auriferous gravels are
overlain by, and mixed with, glacial drift. A notable
feature of the deposits, which should receive consideration
in the search for other fields, is that nearly all the important
occurrences are in plateau areas that have been deeply
dissected by streams.

The Omineca placer goldfields lie between Takla Lake
and Finlay Forks. The deposits of the district have been
found both in present stream gravels and in former stream
channels underlying glacial drift. The recent gravels
are easily worked by individual miners and probably supplied
most of the gold recovered prior to 1900. During recent
years, attention has been directed chiefly to the area about
the headwaters of Manson River, to Rainbow Creek
in the southern part of the district, and to McConnell
Creek in the northern part. During the 1930's, several
companies carried on large-scale operations, and, in 1937,
a motor road was completed from Vanderhoof to Manson
Creek in the centre of the district. Production increased
steadily from 627 ounces in 1932 to 5,432 ounces in 1940.

The chief gold placers of the Cassiar district are found
in the Dease Lake area. The gold in the creek beds of the
area was derived from older stream channels and rock
benches that occur at various heights along the sides of
the present valleys. The field was discovered in 1872
and reached its maximum production two years later.
The total recovery from the Cassiar district amounts to
about 260,000 ounces, of which nearly four-fifths were
produced during the seventies.’ Production from the
district was practically nothing in 1930 but gradually
increased to over 2,000 ounces in 1938.

The Atlin district is a deeply eroded and glaciated
plateau bordered on the west by the rugged mountains of
the Coast Range. The main gold-bearing streams traverse
an area on the east side of Atlin Lake which Was not so
heavily glaciated as other parts of the district. Gold is
found either in yellow, decomposed gravels which are
usually buried under glacial drift, or in gravels formed
by stream erosion of the glacial drift. The placer fields
were discovered in 1898 at the time of the Klondike rush,
and in 1899 produced 40,000 ounces of gold. Recovery
for the next year fell to 22,500 ounces and gradually de-
creased to 2,400 ounces in 1929. During the 1930’s new
discoveries were made and Operations extended, with the
result that immediately prior to the war annu

al production
rose to about 25,000 ounces.

—<_

Black sands containing finely divided gold have been
found in places on the Queen Charlotte Islands. The most
extensive deposits occur on the northeast coast of Graham
Island. Wave action along the shore has eroded thick
deposits of glacial drift and has concentrated the gold in
the black sands. These sands collect.on the beach, partic-
ularly after severe storms, and form lenses one to several
inches thick, a few feet wide, and up to 30 feet in length.
There is also some concentration by stream action at
places where streams traverse the beach deposits. Recovery
of the gold by large-scale operations would probably prove
uneconomic, but mining by hand methods at favourable
locations where water for sluicing is available may afford
fair returns. In places the sands carry 0-15 ounce of gold
per cubic yard, but because of the fineness of the metal
and the consequent difficulty of separation, probably only
50 to 60 per cent of the values could be recovered by sluicing.

Yukon.—The placer fields of Yukon are found in both
unglaciated and glaciated areas. The chief fields in the
unglaciated area are those of the Klondike, Sixtymile, and
Stewart Rivers. In these areas, the gold-bearing streams
run through comparatively narrow valleys bordered on
each side by wide benches, beyond which the surface rises
gradually. In places, remnants of the erosive action of
the streams occur as terraces between the benches and the
bottoms of the valleys. The highest values have been
found in the creek gravels on the valley floors.

The main production of placer gold in Canada has come
from Yukon Territory, more especially from the Klondike
area. After the discovery of the Klondike placers in 1896, the
output of gold from Yukon increased rapidly, and reached a
maximum of 1,120,000 ounces in 1900. By 1906, most of the
richer ground amenable to hand methods had been worked
out, and in 1907, production declined to 158,700 ounces. Fol
lowing an amalgamation of interests and the introduction
of hydraulicking and dredging, recovery increased in 1913
to 294,500 ounces. From that year until 1926, output
steadily decreased to the low point of 25,000 ounces.
During the early 1930's, the introduction of new methods
of exploration and the advance in the price of gold stimulated
the revival of placer mining. In the Klondike and Clear
Creek areas, prospect drilling disclosed the presence of
large reserves of commercial gravels. Exploration of
formerly productive creeks in the southern part of the
Territory proved some of them to be worthy of develop-
ment by modern methods. As a result of more efficient

efforts, annual production during 1939 and 1940 increased
to about 100,000 ounces.

During the war years production
declined markedly, fal

ling to 23,818 ounces in 1944, but

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