The Mosquito Creek placer occurrence is located on the west side of the Willow River about 1.6 kilometres south of its confluence with Peep O'Day Creek, approximately 2.1 kilometres northwest of Wells.

Placer gold deposits of the Quesnel Highland region, including the former rich producers of the Barkerville camp, have accounted for a large proportion of British Columbia's alluvial gold production. With the exception of a few producers in the Wingdam area, which are underlain by Upper Triassic sediments correlative with the Nicola Group, almost all the deposits are underlain by the Upper Proterozoic to Lower Paleozoic Snowshoe Group. These predominantly metasedimentary rocks have been metamorphosed to greenschist facies.

Placer gold deposits in the region are generally found in relatively young Pleistocene gravels. The morphology and mineral associations of the gold suggests that it was derived locally, the most obvious sources are the numerous auriferous veins in the Downey succession of the Snowshoe Group.

Placer gold production along Mosquito Creek has primarily been from buried channels consisting of a main pre-glacial channel and two tributary channels. The majority of the gold occurred in the gravels along the troughs of these channels, however, a bench varying in height from 30 to 45 metres above the deep channel also carried good gold values. The gold is generally coarse and ragged. The deposits were first mined by drifting but later a considerable amount of hydraulicking was done.

Total production from Mosquito Creek and Red Gulch (093H 115) from the years 1876-1915 and 1931-1945 totalled 18,295 ounces (568,974 grams) gold (Bulletin 28).

"Data from the Cariboo mining district indicate that supergene leaching of gold dispersed within massive sulphides by Tertiary deep weathering followed by Cenozoic erosion is the most likely explanation for the occurrence of coarse gold nuggets in Quaternary sediments" (Exploration in British Columbia 1989, page 147).