The Peace River placer occurrence is located near Gold Bar, north of Williston Lake, approximately 45 kilometres west-northwest of Hudson’s Hope, in the Liard Mining Division.

The area is located approximately 20 kilometres west of the eastern extent of deformation in the fold-and-thrust belt that characterizes the Rocky Mountain Front. The region is underlain by dominantly Jurassic to Cretaceous sedimentary rocks of Ancestral North American tectonic provenance. Deformation is characterized by kilometre-scale complex folding and dominantly west-dipping thrusting. The Peace River showing is hosted by Triassic sediments of the Toad and Grayling Formations.

Gold and platinum placer occurrences found in the Finlay, Parsnip and Peace rivers have been worked since the first discovery by Bill Cust in 1861. The placers generally occur in the top 1.5 to 3 metres of reworked glacial gravels deposited as bars and benches along streams and rivers. Normally worked by hand, these placer operations had limited success. The gold is fine and flat and platinum, while common with high values reported locally, was considered unimportant in most of these placers.

The Peace River deposit comprises placers worked from the confluence of the Peace and Parsnip rivers, downstream to Fort St. John, excluding Branham Flats (MINFILE 094B 002). Between 1926 and 1945, 75,302 grams (2421 ounces) of gold were recovered from unspecified placers along the Peace River. Most of these placers are now covered by the flood waters of Williston Lake.