1. Things to Do
  2. Heritage & Culture
  3. Gilded Panning Made Easy
Regions: Klondike, Kluane, Southern Lakes, Whitehorse Region Communities: Carmacks, Dawson Metropolis, Beaver Creek, Burwash Landing, Destruction Bay, Haines Junction, Carcross, Whitehorse
Themes: Heritage & Culture Categories: Heritage & Culture, Klondike Gold Rush

Calling all gold diggers and panhandlers.

If you've got gilded fever, the Yukon is the place to exist. So, to help you lot get started in your new gold panning career, we've simplified our vast knowledge on the subject downwards to this easy-to-skim guide. If it's insider tips and tricks you lot're after, read on.

01 Gold panning

Allow's talk tools

Before we become to the gold pan, shovel and snuffer bottle, we should talk about keeping your feet warm and dry. Golden panning is done in the water—unremarkably in icy cold mountain streams. You would become existent cranky, real fast without a pair of waterproof boots and some warm socks. And you know what they say about cranky panners: well zilch, really. But they're still miserable. And so keep those tootsies dry.

When information technology comes to pans, you have two choices: metal or plastic. If you fancy feeling like an old-timey prospector, steel pans are the way to go. Nevertheless, plastic pans are more popular as they don't rust or corrode. The coloured pans (typically greenish, red or blackness) provide enough contrast for you to quickly identify the gold at the bottom of your pan, and the riffles molded into the side walls of most pans human action as tiny gold traps. Gold pans tin can exist purchased at Canadian Tire in Whitehorse; or at Home Hardware, Aureate Bottom Mine Tours, the Dawson Trading Post, or Merits 33 in Dawson Metropolis.

Now that y'all accept warm anxiety in your boots and aureate flakes in your pan, what more than could you want? Likewise streamside pizza delivery and a custom-built gold panning robot, there are a few optional tools that could come in handy: a shovel or trowel for digging, tweezers for picking upwards gold flakes, a snuffer bottle for sucking them up, and a glass vial (or five!) for storing all of your difficult-earned gold.

02 Gold Panning

Let'southward talk location

Looking for a place to acquire to pan? It's best to go learn from some of our great local providers. In Dawson Metropolis, Claim 33 offers preparation on how to pan, at km 13 on Bonanza Creek Road. Farther down this historic creek, yous'll observe Klondike Visitors Association's Free Claim No. 6, where you can pan for free at their claim. Bring your own tools and stay within the boundaries of their claim. Goldbottom Mine Tours, offers daily trips to their agile mine, where you get to examination their ground at the junction of Crouch and Goldbottom Creeks. Looking to go stake something for yourself or to do some more than serious prospecting? Contact our friends at the Mining Recorder's Office and they'll assistance you figure out your next stride on the road to gold glory.

Gold is heavy. And then you lot won't observe it floating on the river's surface. It's probable to settle where the water slows down, such every bit the inside of river bends. Gilded also collects nether big rocks or inside crevasses. So retrieve to dig deep.

Make sure you test a few spots along the river before settling in for the day. A slow-moving stream or river is ideal, and if you tin can find one with a big rock or log for you to sit down on—well, that's the good life. Always follow mining etiquette (yep, it exists) and fill in open holes or rocks dislodged while excavation. Information technology's like Mom always said: put things dorsum where you institute them. Thanks Mom.

03 Golden Panning

Allow'southward talk technique

Panning is a process of separation—you split the gilt from everything that isn't aureate. Sure, it sounds unproblematic. But you tin go crazy trying to discover those miniscule gold flakes. Over time you'll develop your own technique. For now, you lot can borrow ours:

  • Make full your pan upward with gravel.
  • Remove big rocks past paw, taking care to rinse them with water to uncover any stray gold clinging to them. Break upwardly any clumps of clay.
  • Submerge the pan in the water. Arouse the gravel past swirling the pan with a vigorous side-to-side or round motion. Put some musculus into it. The gold will settle at the bottom of the pan.
  • Now here'southward the fun function: tip the pan away from your trunk at a slight angle to wash away the tiptop layer of gravel from your pan. With any luck, you lot'll detect gold.
  • Now rinse and repeat, literally.
  • When all you accept left is a very small amount of black sand, selection out any gilded flakes (or nuggets, if you lot're really lucky) with your tweezers. Use your snuffer bottle to choice up any fine gold left backside.
  • Continue prospecting! It may not make you rich, but it's guaranteed to be rewarding.

Habitation Hardware Dawson City

Gratis Gold Panning - Claim #6

Free Gold Panning - Claim #6

Dig deeper into the Yukon below.