The McDame Creek Placer occurrence is located along McDame Creek, approximately 99 kilometres north of the community of Dease Lake.

McDame Creek lies in a broad, glaciofluvial drift-filled valley that parallels the northeast margin of the Lower Cretaceous Cassiar granitic batholith. The underlying rocks are quartzites, argillites and limestones of the Sylvester Allochthon (Mississippian to Permian), which strike east-southeast and dip steeply north. The boulders in McDame Creek are composed of quartzite, limestone, volcanic breccia and granite. The gold was noted to be most abundant in the bottom 1.2 metres of gravel, which occurs as 6-metre thick lenses on top of sand. The total depth of material exceeds 30 metres (deepest drillhole).

The source of the placer gold is gold-quartz veins (up to 2.5 metres wide) found in abundance within the Sylvester Allochthon rocks between Pooley and Quartzrock creeks.

Work History

McDame Creek was worked from 1874 to 1949; by 1945, 1818 kilograms (64 117 ounces) of gold were recovered (Bulletin 28).

In 1979, Erickson Gold Mining completed a 2.5 line-kilometre seismic survey on the section of McDame Creek immediately above and below its junction with Snowy Creek to identify the depth of overburden and possible placer deposits in the area.

In 2013 and 2014, Canada Rockies International Investment completed a 1.1 line-kilometre resistivity survey and an air photo interpretation program on the area to identify possible intact placer deposits.