When the Klondike stampeders came to the Yukon a century ago, they set up their sluices anywhere they pleased and began digging up the creeks in search of gold. Today it's not that easy. Placer miners, governments and environmental agencies have established a system to allow mining without destroying other resources like fish. It's a better approach, but it takes more time, says Al Kapty, chair of the Yukon Placer Committee.
Nobody goes out there on a whim.
You have to be pretty serious about placer mining to go through the process, because it could take up to two years. Under regulations that govern placer mining in the territory, a placer operation requires a water licence from the Yukon Territory Water Board. In the Yukon Placer Authorization, all Yukon streams and lakes fall into five groupings. Most of them are Type V, or unclassified, which means that the level of protection they require has not yet been determined. An application to put a placer mine on a Type V stream triggers the process that determines how the stream will be classified.