Vital Creek flows northeasterly from the Vital Range into Silver Creek approximately 41 kilometres northeast of Takla Landing.

Exploration on the creek dates back to 1869 when gold was originally discovered in the district. Initial work was by means of drift diggings, followed later by ground sluicing and hydraulicking. Between 1922 and 1934, two adits, 285 and 42 metres long respectively, were driven along the bedrock/sediment contact in order to follow the preglacial channel. In 1935, drift mining was abandoned in favor of hydraulicking, which too was soon abandoned due to lack of dumping facilities. Subsequent to this, a 27-metre shaft was sunk to bedrock without much success (Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 252, pages 141-142).

The creek drains an area underlain by a north-northwest striking, east-dipping metasedimentary/volcanic suite assigned to the Carboniferous to Jurassic Cache Creek Complex. Here, phyllite, limestone and tuff are the most common members. These rocks host numerous barren-looking, locally rusty, white quartz veins varying up to a metre in width.

Recorded gold production from Vital Creek was 117,091 grams, between 1876 and 1900, and 26,031 grams between 1926 and 1940; a total of 143,122 grams of gold (Bulletin 28, page 46). Early recoveries came from the present-day channel below a waterfall, 3 kilometres above the mouth of the creek. Later, gold in the form of extremely coarse, well-worn flakes which lay along bedrock was recovered from the preglacial channel upstream from this point.

Arquerite, a native amalgam of silver and mercury, is also fairly abundant in the gold-bearing gravels of Vital Creek.