Rockhound equipment is pictured in Kamloops.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Robert Davis

Kamloops resident Robert Davis has owned mineral claims in the area for 25 years but let most of them go in the past decade as an increasing number of strangers are digging on claims without permission.

He was mining his claim near Kamloops Lake last month when he saw five strangers digging and hammering at the site looking for agates.

“They were up the hill above me and basically pushing rocks down on me,” he said. “I hollered up and said ‘hello’ and asked what they were doing. The first thing they did is admit they’d been there several times before.”

Davis told the group he was the mineral claim owner and didn’t want them there but the group ignored him and kept digging holes without filling them back in. 

“I started taking pictures of them and it didn’t bother them, they continued digging,” he said. “They asked what the big deal was, and that’s what bothered me.”

Davis left his claim to go home and saw through his rearview mirror the group had gone right to where he had just been digging.

He later identified a guy in the group who had posted his rock findings on a social media group for rockhounds and sent him a message telling him he isn’t welcome on the site. He reported the pictures, descriptions and license plate to RCMP but doesn’t expect action will be taken.

“The RCMP are not going to show up that far out for a misdemeanour crime, but that’s all you can do,” he said.

Similar to mineral claims are placer claims. Mineral claims mostly deal with hard rock like volcanic rock that is in position and gets mined for heavy metals. Placer claims have rock that is deposited by rivers and streams and can be panned for gold, silver or platinum.

Most of the Tranquille Valley west of Kamloops is under mineral and placer claims.

Mineral and Placer Claims are applied for and acquired using the Mineral Titles Online system in BC where people select areas on an electronic map. A person can apply for multiple land units called cells that range in size from 21 hectares in the south to 16 in the north.

Claim owners have to reregister every year and pay a fee for every hectare, but they can also submit hours of development work they’ve done onsite as compensation instead.

Kamloops gold panner Jamie Trudell has his placer claim in Clearwater, and while he hasn’t had intruders on his site yet, he said he only has two options if that happens.

“I can approach the guy and be nice about it and say ‘you guys are on a claim, this is my claim,” he said. “I’d let them keep what they’d found so far that day and ask for their names so I can claim their hours on my work title.

“It’s a fair trade-off between having someone looking out for you now and damaging your truck while you’re not in plain site.”

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His other option is to call the RCMP to come seize the intruder’s gold, equipment and vehicles which would be turned over to Trudell.

“Back in the old days there were claim jumpers,” he said jokingly. “When a person was claim jumping, owners had the rights to shoot and kill them. We’re not there anymore.”

Claim jumping refers to taking minerals from someone else’s claim, or trying to seize the claim altogether.

In the gold rush days miners moved into areas where laws didn’t exist yet, and amidst lawlessness and disorder, claim jumpers were considered the lowest of the low, according to West Coast Placer.

Miners took justice into their own hands with a form of democracy called Miner’s Meetings that were notorious for their swift justice. Communities eventually grew and laws were formed and frontier justice went away.

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In BC, claim jumping falls under the Mineral Tenure Act where a person isn’t allowed to hand pan or remove rocks or minerals from a mineral claim without permission. Claim jumpers can face fines and prison time if proven guilty. They could also be charged with theft under the Criminal Code of Canada.

But just like back in the gold rush days, it appears a code of ethics is guiding activities on the ground.

Rockhounds and panners like Davis and Trudell follow a code of etiquette where they respect the environment, reclaim disturbed land and ensure they have permission from claim owners before they dig. Davis checks the province's Mineral Titles Online website and uses an app to tell him if land is private and who owns it before entering new areas.

Davis used to own all the rockhound claims in the area and ran a rock shop in Kamloops to support his family. The claims were handed down to him from older rockhounds.

“That’s how it always was, claims got handed down to someone who’d be a good caretaker of them,” he said. 

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In the past, Davis kept the claims open for rockhounds that needed somewhere to go but he changed that a decade ago as more and more people he didn’t know were on his claims.

“Liability became an issue and I let a whole bunch of claims go because I couldn’t deal with the stress of all the people going there,” he said. “You can tell people they can’t go somewhere but they don’t get the message.”

A big concern is having people digging holes without reclaiming the land, that is filling in the holes that pose a danger to wildlife, cattle and people walking through.

And Davis recently found litter on his claim.

“There is a real sense of entitlement where we’ve lost family ethics and etiquette where you treated people with common sense and respect,” Davis said.

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