Placer Gold Production of British Columbia

MINISTRY OF ENERGY, MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES BULLETINNo. 28 Placer Gold Production of British Columbia By Stuart S. Holland In view of the recent increases in the price of gold, renewed interest in placer mining has led to a large number of requests for information. Consequently, Bulletin 28, Placer Gold Production of British Columbia, which was out of print, has now been reprinted for your convenience. The text of the bulletin is unchanged from the original. No attempt has been made to update it. ~ ~ Queen's Prinler for British Columbia 0 Victoria, 1983 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Holland, StuartS. Placer gold production of British Columbia. (Bulletin / Province of British Columbia, Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources; 28) Includes bibliographical references and index. Three fold maps in pocket. ISBN 0-7718-8224-6 1. Gold mines and mining - British Columbia. 2. Gold mines and mining- British Columbia- Statis- tics. I. British Columbia. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. 11. Title. 111. Series: Bulletin (British 'Columbia. Ministryof Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources); 28. H19536.C33B74 1980 338.21741109711 C81-092010-7 NOTE: Bulletin 28 is reprinted here without revision. Its statistical information for the years prior to 1950 is still pertinent and morerecent information is readily accessible in the Ministry's Annual Reports. PREFACE This bulletin sets forth the recorded placer production for the Province and for each placer stream in British Columbia. The data are the most complete now possible; how- ever, they are necessarily incomplete because production was not recorded officially until 1874 and because for many creeks records of production since 1874 are incomplete. Some readers may have records of production of placer gold or of the fineness of placer gold not covered by the tables in this bulletin or that show the tables to be in error. The Departmentof Mines will welcome any such information and will be glad to incorpo- rate into its records data based on Assay Office receipts or other authentic records. The Department will sincerely appreciate any contribution that will make the record of placer production more complete and more accurate. The production data and the accompanying notes are presented because of their interest and value to those who contemplate placer-mining or prospecting for placer deposits in British Columbia and also to those who wish data on placer production as a guide in their search for lode-gold deposits. Incidentally, the tabulated data and the accompanying notes throw light upon an activity that played an extremely important part in the opening-up and the early history of many parts of British Columbia. The data were tabulated by several assistants who worked for varying periods in several years. This work was directed and scrutinized painstakingly by Dr. Stuart S. Holland. HARTLEYSARGENT, Chief,Mineralogical Branch. Victoria, December, 1950. 5 Placer Gold Production in British Columbia -__ CHAPTER I.-INTRODUCTION The new wealth produced through the mining of placer gold in British Columbia was an extremely important factor in the early, rapid exploration of the Province. The incentive offered by the first discovery of coarse placer gold was great enough to draw a large number of prospectors to this country. The rich discoveries on the lower Fraser River bars drove them forward to explore vast, unknown stretches of territory in the hope of finding new placer fields. The discovery of coarse placer gold at the mouth of Nicoamen River in 1857 initiated the gold-rush that led to the discovery of bar gold on the lower Fraser River at Yale, and upstream pointsin 1858. Discoveries madein the Cariboo area, on the Quesnel River and in the vicinity of Barkerville, came in such rapid succession and mining of the rich gravel deposits proceeded so rapidly that 1863 was the year of greatest placer gold production. The most important placer discoveries and their dates are listed below:- 1857-Coarse gold found at mouth of Nicoamen River. 1858-Gold-rush to bars on Fraser River. 1859-Gold discovered on Quesnel and Horsefly Rivers. 1860-Gold discovered on Rock Creek. Quesnel Forks area opened up and gold discoveries made on Keithley and Antler Creeks. 1861-Rich strikes made on Williams Creek near Barkerville and on Lightning Creek near Van Winkle. Bar gold found on the Parsnip River. 1863-Gold discovered on Wild Horse River. 1864-Gold found on Leech River. 1865-Gold discovered on French Creek led to other finds in the Big Bend area. 1869-Strike made on Vital Creek led to other discoveries in the Omineca. 1873-Gold discovered on Dease and Thibert Creeks in the Cassiar. 1885-Gold found on Granite Creek. 1898-Atlin placer field discovered. 1921-Rich strike made on Cedar Creek. 1927-Coarse gold found by Indians on Squaw Creek. 1932-Discovery of gold on Wheaton Creek. Methods of placer-mining have changed very little over the years, except for the recent adoption of modern dirt-moving machinery. In the early days much of the gold was won by hand mining in shallow, accessible ground or by drift mining either from shafts in deep ground or from level workings in bench ground. These methods require high values. Mining of gravel much lower in grade than that which could have been worked profitably by other known methods began with the introduction of hydranlicking tothe Cariboo about 1880. Fromtime to time attempts have been madein various places to operate bucket-line or suction dredges, but the Kafue bucket-line dredge, which operated on Antler Creek from 1925 to 1928, is the only one that came close to being economically successful. The introduction of dragline dredging in 1941 permitted the mining of gravel that could not be worked successfully otherwise. Production of gold from dragline dredges rose from $52,147 in 1946 to its peak production of $458,523 in 1948. Dragline dredging in the Province is reviewed in the Annual Report of the Minister of Mines, British Columbia, for 1949, pages 227 to 237. 7 CHAPTER 11.-ANNUAL PRODUCTION OF PLACER GOLD, 1858 TO 1949 Details of placer gold production for all parts of British Columbia are compiled for the first time in this publication. The previously published total gold production of British Columbia is shown in Table I (p. 9) and is shown graphically in Figure 1 (facing p. lo), which also relates high points of production with specific events. Figures for the first part of Table I were originally prepared in Victoria in the winter of 1875 by the Deputy. Minister of Mines (Mr. Charles Good) and Dr. G. M. Dawson, and were published in theAnnual Report of the Minister of Mines, British Columbia, for 1875. Since then the table has been republished annually with the necessary additions. SOURCE OF INFORMATION For the early years the total is based on the amounts of gold shipped from Victoria by the banks, and by express and other companies, this being the best available means of approximatingthe yearly production. For 1874,the year of formation of the Department of Mines, and for the succeeding years additional information is available from yearly reports of production sent in by the Gold Commissioners, who were resident in each placer field and were familiar with placer activity. It was impossible to determine the annual amount of gold taken away privately, for which there is absolutely no record, nor the amount of gold, shipped south from the Kootenayand Similkameen areas, which did not pass through Victoria. To allow for these amounts for the years up to and including 1877, an additional one-third was added tothe amount actually known to have been exported.Dr. G. M. Dawson considered that this addition might be an under-estimate for the early years but probably was an over-estimate for the years immediately preceding 1877.From 1878 to 1899, except for 1896 and 1897, one-fifth of the amount has been added, and from 1900 to 1925 one-tenth. Since 1900,the yearly production figure has been derived largely from returns of the Gold Commissioners.. This information, since 1925, is further augmented by annual returns of productionmade by operating companies and by individuals. Additional information regarding gold that has been shipped is made available by banks and by theMint. Current production figures are compiled by the Mining Statistician of the Bureau of Economics and Statistics. CONVERSIONFACTORS ANDFINENESS OF PLACERGOLD The dollar value of the production in Table I has been converted into ounces of crude placer gold by using a conversion factor of $17 per ounce when the price of fine gold was $20.67. Since 1932 aproportionately greater figure is used, based on the higher price of fine gold that has prevailed. The basic factor of $17 per ounce has been used for many years and was considered toapproximate the average price of crude placer gold. A total of 1,181 fineness determinations on placer gold from 173 different creeks is now available. The numerical average of these1,181 separate recordings is862* andthe numerical average of the average fineness of gold from 173 creeks is 861. This is equivalent to a basic conversion factor of $17.85 per ounce of crude gold (see Table 111). 8 Table 1.-Placer Gold Production. 1858 to 1949 . I)_L Value s $ 1858 .......................................... 41. 470 m.oon I 969. 300 I859 .......................................... 95. 000 1.615. 072 948. 400 1860 ........................................... 131.090 2.228. 543 828. 000 1861 ......................................... 156. 830 2.666. 118 647. 000 1862 .......................................... 156.290 2.656. 903 ! 477.000 1863 ......................................... 230. 210 3.913. 563 540. ooo It64 ......................................... 219. 1611 3.135. 850 426. 000 1865 ...................................... 205.365 3,491.205 55s.500 1866 ....................................

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