Mr. Speaker, the mining claim that I staked to build my home on at mile 18 on the Dempster highway was a placer claim. We were allowed to stake a claim on either side of a creek, 500 feet by 500 feet on both sides, so it was 500 feet by 1,000 feet. We were allowed to surface mine the creek bed for placer gold which is the light gold that is moved along by the flowing water down the creek. As long as the flow of the creek was not interrupted and the clarity or purity of the water was not changed for the person immediately downstream, we were allowed to carry on a gold mining operation as the water flowed by.
The whole Klondike gold rush was placer mining of surface gold in the fast moving waters of the Klondike gold fields.