How to Start:
1) Start as a "Recreational Panner". As such you are not required to
have a Free Miners Certificate (FMC).
Whether you have an FMC or Not, you CANNOT hand pan on a valid
mineral title unless you have obtained permission from the recorded
holder of the claim.
Even if you decide to get your FMC you "don't have to buy a
claim". To many first time miners unfortunately spend the
majority of their resources to acquire ground. Then find they can't
afford to do anything else and give up in frustration.
Believe it or not, 95% of claim owners will allow you to work their
claim at no charge. As a thankyou, tidy up after yourselves and take
your garbage out, as well as keep track of the hours of everyone
involved and submit them to the owner. The owner can then use this
time toward the physical exploration requirement on their claim.
Unfortunately, if an owner is new to mining, they will be far more
unwilling to grant you access, but after they have done enough
hand panning, they will be more than happy to accomodate you.
If it is a lease you would like to hand pan on, I fully expect the
owner to say no. A lease is entirely different from a claim, which
I am not going to cover here.
Remember, the Provincial Government has set aside various areas
of the province strictly for "recreational panning". For more
information on these areas go to the "Panning" page.
2) Now comes the hard part choosing your shovel and pan! There are
so many different types, styles
and colours of pans and shovels on
the market today. With the internet, it makes it easy to check into
all the different aspects of design which will allow you to make an
informed choice.
Where to Start:
Check into known gold areas either through the internet, your local
library or government offices. Believe it or not Barkerville is not
the only area that has gold in British Columbia.
and have decided it's time for your
own claim.
Then ....
Click on the "Free Miners Cert." button
on how to proceed.