The Alice Shea Creek placer deposit is located about 64 kilometres east of the south end of Dease Lake. Alice Creek is a tributary of Wheaton (Boulder) Creek.

The area is underlain by a 5-kilometre-wide belt of Upper Mississippian to Permian ultramafic rocks of the Cache Creek Complex. These rocks consist of peridotite, dunite, and pyroxenite which are generally serpentinized. A fault-bound assemblage of Mississippian to Triassic Kedahda Formation rock (Cache Creek Complex) sits within the ultramafic belt and underlies the central portion of Alice Shea Creek. This portion is reported to consist of slate, argillite, limestone, and andesitic volcanics. There are many quartz veins and stringers in the slate and schist. Some are mineralized with pyrite, but none are known to be gold-bearing.

Placer gold was recovered from the shallow gravel deposits overlying bedrock in the bottom of the creek, from the top of the bedrock or from cracks within the bedrock. Almost all the gold from these creeks is coarse and nuggety and most of the large nuggets have quartz adhering to them. The largest nugget found on Alice Shea Creek weighed 1612 grams (52 ounces) (the Turnagain Nugget). Numerous other nuggets were found, weighing up to 496 grams (16 ounces). The Turnagain Nugget was purchased by the provincial British Columbia government and is periodically put on display.

In 1874, coarse gold was found in creeks tributary to the headwaters of the Turnagain River. In 1932, coarse gold was found on Wheaton Creek (104I 004) just above the falls. The Wheaton Creek area was worked from 1972 until operations ceased in 1940. In 1970, Demsey Mines Ltd. acquired eight placer leases on the creek. During July and August of 2007, Turnagain River Exploration Ltd. conducted a reconnaissance exploration program over the Turnagain property, consisting of prospecting and heavy mineral concentrate stream sediment sampling over at least seven showings (King Kong, 104I 067; Spring, 104I 110; King Mountain, 104I 108; PR8, 104I 109; PR7, 104I 107; Alice Shea Jade, 104I 104; and Alice Shea Creek, 104I 005).

Recorded production between 1936 and 1940 totalled 10,294 grams (331 ounces).