Staking a placer claim in B.C. (MTO) and in Yukon

Why stake at all

A placer claim gives you the exclusive right to the placer minerals on a piece of ground. It is the thing that turns a sluice from an offence into placer mining, that lets you tell a stranger to pan elsewhere, and that lets you sell what you find. It is not a right to the surface, not a permit to disturb a stream, and not a guarantee there is any gold. Most productive creeks in both jurisdictions have been staked for a century; the honest use of a first claim is a piece of open ground you have already test-panned and want to work properly with a sluice.

British Columbia: Mineral Titles Online

B.C. has been map-staked since 2005. Nobody drives a post; you select cells on a web map.

1. Free Miner Certificate. You must be 18 or older and ordinarily resident in Canada 183 days a year (or authorized to work here). $25 for a 12-month individual certificate, free at 65+. Paper form at a Mineral Titles, Service BC or FrontCounter BC office, or online.
2. Business BCeID. The login for Mineral Titles Online. No fee, but you are identity-proofed in person at a Service BC counter. Do this first; it takes days, not minutes.
3. Find placer ground. Placer claims can only be acquired inside designated placer claim areas — layers on the MTO map. Turn on placer titles, parks, reserves and reserves-for-panning; what is left inside the placer claim area and not already staked is what you can take.
4. Register. Select one or more adjoining cells (each roughly 21 ha in the south, 16 ha in the north; up to 100 cells per submission), confirm, and pay $5 per hectare — about $100 per cell — by credit card. The cells are yours the moment payment clears; nobody can take them while you are in the checkout.
5. Keep it. Every year before the anniversary date you register exploration and development work on the claim, or pay cash in lieu, at the rates on the fees page. Miss it and the claim forfeits.
6. Before you dig with anything but a pan. Mechanical placer work needs a Mines Act Notice of Work through FrontCounter BC, and instream work triggers the Water Sustainability Act and the Fisheries Act. Hand sluicing on your own claim is the low end; a highbanker is the high end.

Yukon: posts, a location line and the Mining Recorder

Yukon still stakes on the ground under the Placer Mining Act. There is no map staking, no residency requirement and no free miner certificate; the Mining Recorder’s office in Dawson, Mayo, Watson Lake or Whitehorse is the whole system.

1. Eligibility. Anyone 18 or older may stake, for themselves, a company or another person.
2. Check the ground. A claim cannot be staked inside another valid placer claim, in a park, on withdrawn land or on certain First Nation settlement land. The Recorder’s maps and staff tell you what is open; look at the ground too — staked ground carries tagged posts.
3. Stake. Cut and set two legal posts, one at each end of a location line that runs along or parallel to the creek’s base line, inscribed as the staking guidelines require, with the claim’s dimensions measured from the line. Follow the province’s staking guidelines to the letter; a defective post is a defective claim.
4. Record. Bring the application to the district Mining Recorder within the Act’s deadline — it scales with your distance from the office — and pay the $10 application fee per claim. The claim exists from recording, not from staking.
5. Notify before work. A Class 1 placer notification is required before any Class 1 activity on your claim, Yukon-wide since April 2020, with a review period before you start. Using or diverting water brings the Yukon Water Board. The Recorder will tell you which class your plan falls into.
6. Renew. Placer claims are renewed annually by filing representation work or paying in lieu. Miss it and the ground is open to the next person with an axe.

What a claim does not do

• It does not open private land: surface access still needs the owner’s consent in both jurisdictions, and Yukon has a Surface Rights Board for disputes.
• It does not authorize disturbing a stream. Fish habitat is federal law everywhere.
• It does not cover your friends. In B.C. everyone working the claim needs an FMC and the holder’s written agency; in Yukon the notification and any water licence must cover the activity.
• It does not make the ground yours to camp on, fence or exclude hikers from.

Budget honestly: a single B.C. cell is about $100 plus the FMC and the annual work; a Yukon claim is $10 plus a few days of walking, cutting posts and driving to Dawson, plus the annual work. Either is cheaper than a highbanker. Neither is worth it until your test pans say so.

General information for recreational prospectors — not legal advice. Rules change and vary by site; check the official sources listed under this article and the LocalKarat “Can I pan here?” wizard before you go.

Sources

• Mineral and placer claims — Mineral Titles B.C.
• Free Miner Certificate FAQ — Mineral Titles B.C.
• New client to Mineral Titles Online (BCeID)
• Mineral and placer title fees — B.C.
• Apply for a placer claim — Yukon.ca
• Guidelines for placer claim staking in Yukon
• Placer Mining Act: Class 1 placer notification — Yukon.ca
• Find a mining recorder’s office — Yukon.ca

Updated 2026-09.