Three generations of the Millar family run this working placer mine at the confluence of Hunker and Goldbottom creeks, about 25 km from Dawson City. Tours walk you through a modern placer operation and finish with panning real Hunker Creek pay dirt — you keep what you find.
Before you go
Paid tour, roughly May–September, departing from Front Street in Dawson City. Working mine site — access by tour only. Verify current status and schedule before visiting.
Marked Verified: confirmed against an official or authoritative source at the time of writing.
This guide is general information for recreational prospectors — it is not legal advice. Mining, land-access, and environmental regulations change and vary site by site. Always verify the current rules with the official sources linked above before heading out, obtain permission from private landowners and mineral-claim holders, and respect First Nations rights, settlement lands, and treaty areas — some lands require permission or are closed to panning entirely.
Conditions at Goldbottom Mine Tours
Snapshot at build time · 2026-09-03
Read once, when this page was generated — not live. The gauge is the closest Environment and Climate Change Canada hydrometric station to this point. Open the live page for Goldbottom Mine Tours for the current reading, the full forecast and the map.
Klondike River at Rock Creek
7.09 m
Window: unknown≈ 24 km away
Station 09EA006 · observed 2026-09-01 22:10 UTC · build-time snapshot
Weather
9°CMostly Cloudywind 2 km/h N
Station Dawson Airport · 2026-09-03 04:00 UTC
Wed
— / -2°
30% rain
Chance of showers
Thu
12° / 3°
30% rain
Mainly sunny
Fri
14° / 6°
60% rain
Chance of showers
Sat
16° / 4°
Cloudy
Past 72 h rain 0.1 mmNext 24 h 0.0 mmNext 72 h 0.8 mm
Conditions look stable. Normal river safety still applies — check the gauge before wading and keep an eye upstream.
Washout risk and the panning window are heuristics — rainfall against gauge trend — not a safety assessment. Check advisories and the forecast before entering any river.
Getting there
Nearest town:Dawson City, Yukon — about 31 km SE of it in a straight line. That is not driving distance: in gold country a 40 km straight line is regularly a two-hour drive on gravel.
Centre used for the links below: 63.8500, -139.0200
Paid tour, roughly May–September, departing from Front Street in Dawson City. Working mine site — access by tour only. Verify current status and schedule before visiting.
The last mile
Both map apps route to the coordinate, not to a legal access point. The final stretch to a river is routinely an unmaintained forest service road, a locked gate, private frontage or a bank you cannot get down. Check the road status before you leave, tell someone your plan, carry a paper backup — cell coverage in these valleys is patchy — and turn around rather than trespass. Water crossings and washouts are normal after rain.
Know before you dig — Yukon
checked 2026-09
Hand pan on Crown land:✅ Yes
Yukon welcomes recreational panning with hand tools — pan, shovel, bucket and classifier — on public land that is open to staking and not under a claim. The territory’s own advice: ask the nearest Mining Recorder where panning is permitted before you go.
Gold pan & hand shovel · on Crown land✅ Yes
Hand sluice box / rocker · on Crown land🪪 With a permit / licence
Highbanker / power sluice · on Crown land🪪 With a permit / licence
Metal detector · on Crown land❓ Depends — ask the authority
Suction dredge · on Crown land🪪 With a permit / licence
Recorded placer claim via the Mining Recorder (Yukon has no free miner certificate): Nothing is needed to hand-pan open ground. To use a sluice or anything mechanical you stake your own placer claim: anyone 18 or older may stake, with no residency or citizenship requirement. Confirm the ground is open… Apply / details ↗
Claims, parks and reserves are decided ground by ground. Check the registry map for the stretch you want, get the owner's or holder's permission where one exists, and acknowledge whose territory you are standing on — native-land.ca is a starting point, not an authority.
Panning-area, claims, and regulation information on LocalKarat is general information for recreational prospectors — it is not legal advice. Mining, land-access, and environmental rules change and vary site by site. Verify current rules with the official sources linked on each page, get permission from private landowners and claim holders, and respect First Nations rights, settlement lands, and treaty areas.
Founding offer
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