13 legal places to look for gold in Alaska — fees, seasons, and official sources below. The historic record adds the underground story: 8,287 entries.
Hours, fees, and access rules change. Verify with the operator or land agency before you go.
Bertha Creek Panning Area (Chugach National Forest)
Girdwood / Moose Pass, AK
placer goldpyritequartz
Forest Service collecting area · Free · Free; no permit for hand tools. Camping at Bertha Creek Campground is a separate fee.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Caribou Creek Recreational Mining Area
Sutton / Chickaloon, AK
placer gold
State-designated locality · Free · Free. Gold pans and hand shovels need no permit at all. A free ADF&G permit is required for a suction dredge, and also for the water pump if you run a sluice box or highbanker.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Chicken, AK
placer gold
Fee dig · Fee, seasonal · Panning at the campground troughs is free with pans provided. Guided recreational mining on the Myers Fork Creek claims is priced by method, and equipment rental is available, but rates are not published online - call 907-782-4427 for current pricing.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Crescent Creek Panning Area (Quartz Creek Road)
Cooper Landing, AK
placer gold
Forest Service collecting area · Free · Free to pan. The adjacent Forest Service campground has a day-use parking area; camping and any day-use fees there are separate.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Girdwood, AK
placer gold
Fee dig · Fee, seasonal · Mine tour/admission $15 adult (13-64), $10 child 12 and under, $12 senior 65+ and Alaska resident/military. Gold panning $39 adult, $30 child, $35 senior/resident/military, including gold pan, shovel, bucket, demonstration, glass vial and a paydirt packet. Sluice box rental $27 for the day; suction dredging $40 per inch of hose intake on top of the panning fee. Camping $25-$35 a night.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Fairbanks, AK
placer goldpyritequartz crystals
Fee dig · Fee, seasonal · $30 per person, kids 5 and under free. Admission includes equipment, a panning lesson, one bag of paydirt guaranteed to contain gold, museum access, and unlimited panning from the on-site paydirt piles all day at no extra charge. Upgrade bags run $60 to $1,000 for progressively better odds at a nugget. Reservations are not needed.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Fairbanks, AK
placer gold
Fee dig · Fee, seasonal · Paid two-hour tour covering the train ride, the dredge, the mining museum and hands-on panning. Current prices appear only in the online booking system, so check there before you go. Reservations are not required but are highly recommended; cancellations 48 or more hours ahead are fully refundable.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Independence Mine State Historical Park
Palmer / Wasilla, AK
placer gold
State park dig · Fee · Daily parking fee per vehicle - the park page links to the Alaska State Parks fee schedule rather than listing a rate, so check current pricing. The park page does not advertise gold pan rentals; Salmon Berry Travel & Tours runs the concession at Bunkhouse #2, so call ahead if you want to rent rather than bring your own pan and shovel.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Nome Creek Valley Gold Panning Area (White Mountains NRA)
Fairbanks, AK (Steese Highway MP 57, then 7 miles of US Creek Road), AK
placer gold
BLM collecting area · Free · Free, no permit required - hand panning is casual use under BLM rules. Mount Prindle and Ophir Creek campgrounds in the same valley are fee sites.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Nome East and West Public Beach Mining Areas
Nome, AK
placer gold
State-designated locality · Free · Free and permit-free if you use a gold pan, rocker box, highbanker or sluice box in the surf below mean high tide - DNR states that miners using these apparatus in the surf zone are not required to file a permit application. Suction dredging in either public mining area requires a state Annual Placer Mining Application and a Miscellaneous Land Use Permit regardless of dredge size, plus ADEC and possibly Army Corps review, a Department of Revenue mining license, and U.S. Coast Guard registration for the craft.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Petersville Recreational Mining Area
Trapper Creek, AK
placer gold
State-designated locality · Free · Free; pick, shovel, pan and earth auger need no permit at all. Motorized gear - suction dredge or water pump - requires ADF&G and Alaska DEC authorization, and the DEC general permit carries a fee that varies with projected use. Backpack power drills and augers are not authorized at all.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Resurrection Creek Panning Area (Chugach National Forest)
Hope, AK
placer gold
Forest Service collecting area · Free · Free; hand tools and hand-fed sluice boxes need no permit. A suction dredge of 4 inches or smaller requires a free permit from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Sixmile Creek Panning Area (Chugach National Forest)
Hope, AK
placer goldpyrite
Forest Service collecting area · Free · Free; hand tools need no permit. Suction dredges of 4 inches or less require a free ADF&G permit.
Checked against its source August 16, 2026
Mineral history, not an invitation. This mineral history comes from a federal record of historic mines, prospects, and occurrences. It is not a list of places to collect. Historic mine sites are usually on private land, under active mining claims, or unsafe to enter — and often all three. The places you can actually collect are in the legal-access directory below.
The federal record lists 8,287 historic entries involving gold in Alaska , clustered in Livengood, Anchorage, Bendeleben counties. That geography is the honest clue about which corners of the state carry the right rocks — read it as geology, then pick a legal place to test it.
Records from the USGS Mineral Resources Data System, a legacy federal database last revised August 2022 and no longer updated.
Start with the 13 legal places listed on this page — each shows what you can find, its fees, and its season, with a link to the official source. Hours, fees, and access rules change. Verify with the operator or land agency before you go.
Treat Alaska's historic mines as history, not destinations. Most sit on private land or active mining claims, and old workings are dangerous even to walk. The mineral record on this page tells you what the ground holds — the directory tells you where you are welcome to look for it.