Placer Mining and Heritage Sites

I am a placer gold miner’s daughter. This means I grew up surrounded by heavy machinery and a lot of dirt. In the Yukon, just like in many other places, there are a lot of historic and/or heritage sites. As I grew up I heard a lot of talk about miners unearthing sites that contained human or animal remains and sometimes the remnants of old buildings or mine sites from the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899). The human and animal remains are often quite a lot older. My Dad has found a lot of animal remains in his placer mining career. Usually they are just broken pieces of mammoth tusk or other bones, although he has actually found some truly amazing pieces of tusk and a tooth. He has also encountered many different sites from the Klondike Gold Rush. Dad sometimes takes me exploring to see these sites and explains all the mechanics of a Gold Rush era mine. It really is truly fascinating and I am really proud that I have had these great experiences growing up in the Yukon. Thinking about all those people who would love to learn about these things, and I simply took them for granted because I grew up surrounded by all that amazing history. That is until recently when I found out just how many people are actually really interested in hearing about it. Now I understand how lucky I am.

Although Dad has never found a site that has been deemed a heritage site, others have. There have been sites of multiple burials, possible cemeteries, found by other miners who were none too happy to have to halt all mining and wait for government officials to come and figure out what to do with the site. If you find any historic or archaeological site you have to cordon off the area to a distance of 30m, halt all work in the area, and follow the guidelines given to you in your land use permit. The following link to a handbook gives a general idea of the instructions to follow in Section 9: http://www.tc.gov.yk.ca/pdf/Placer_Mining_BMP.pdf. Section 10 has links to other resources for more information on historic site conservation and management.

As a gold miner’s daughter I can see why miners would be so frustrated with having to halt work, especially for an undetermined amount of time. Their paychecks are in that dirt! What is even worse is if you have done drilling to test the ground in that area and you know that that those remains are sitting on paydirt. Paydirt refers to ground that contains precious minerals, in this case gold. If the officials decide that the site is to become a heritage site that means that the miners won’t be allowed to mine that site at all. If it is just going to be excavated and not labelled a heritage site then the miners are usually allowed to mine that ground after the excavation is complete. Like I said, and undetermined amount of time. Meanwhile, the miners are allowed to continue mining the ground outside of the 30m perimeter. Most miners are not very interested or really care about the sites they just want to get on with their mining.

As an aspiring anthropologist I see things from a slightly different view. I understand that these sites could be really very important finds, or they could be First Nations sites in which case great care must be taken in deciding whether or not to excavate or mark the site as a heritage site. There are so many different things to take into account before making any decisions, and meanwhile the miners are harassing them trying to get them to speed up their decision so they can get on with their work. Another decision that must be made is whether or not the historical site may be larger than anticipated and should the miners stop working all together until that can be determined.

As a gold miner’s daughter and aspiring anthropologist I am slightly torn. On the one hand I would like the miners to be able to continue work so they can get paid, but on the other hand I realize the possible importance of the site and the need to take great care in the making of decisions, especially when it comes to First Nations finds. I think that if I had had a different dad then I would feel more strongly about miners being able to continue work, but as it is my Dad loves history and old mine sites and he believes that whatever is found at those sites should remain at those sites. Other miners take old machinery and such and set it on their property as a type of decoration. Dad disagrees with this completely, and I think it is his influence that has made me really value things in their place. If he comes across an old mine site or piece of old machinery or sometimes even an “old-timers’ trail” or “test pit” he will leave it be. This sometimes means working around it or finding a way to avoid mining that part. Where our camp site is situated there are a couple “old-timers’ trails” and “test pits” and I think he chose that place for the camp so he wouldn’t destroy them. It is for those reasons that I feel that my dad values the land and history a lot more than some of the other miners in the area do. He even won the Robert E. Leckie Award for placer mining restoration in 2002 (http://www.emr.gov.yk.ca/mining/leckie_2002.html).