Slate Creek, about 19 kilometres long, flows south into the O'Donnel River. At the Slate Creek occurrence, most of the placer work was carried out around the midpoint of the creek, which is about 27 kilometres southeast of the community of Atlin.

Slate Creek is underlain by chert, argillite, and limestone of the Mississippian to Triassic Kedahda Formation (Cache Creek Complex). To the north and west of the creek around Sentinel Mountain, extensive exposures of massive, dark grey, mafic volcanic flows (greenstone) of the upper Mississippian to Permian Nakina Formation (Cache Creek Complex) occur and underlies the Cache Creek sediments.

Gold was first discovered on the creek in 1898 during the discovery years in the Atlin Camp and was subsequently staked. The creek was more or less abandoned until 1905 when it was worked almost continuously until 1921. The creek has produced 48,863 grams of gold from 1906 to 1940 but has not received much recent work (Bulletin 28).

Geological Survey of Canada Map 1082A from Memoir 307 (1959) has incorrectly named Slate Creek as Wilson Creek, which is actually located 5 kilometres to the east.