Mineral Claims Canada: Where Explorers Stake, by District

Ask ten land managers where Canadian juniors are staking and you will get ten answers drawn from news releases. We wanted a count instead. On 15 October 2026 we downloaded the open mineral claims files that British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec publish, kept every claim in good standing, and summed them by mining division or administrative region. The result is the Mineral Claims Canada district count for the three busiest exploration provinces: how much ground is held, where it is, and how much of it is new.

For claim systems in other countries, see our mining cadastre portal guide by country; for gold districts, deposit styles and the field season, the overview of gold exploration in Canada. This page stays with one question and shows the numbers behind every chart.

The exclusive exploration right, formerly known as a claim, is the only available exploration title in Québec.” Gouvernement du Québec

How the Mineral Claims Canada count works without naming anyone

Each of the three provinces runs an online registry and publishes its tenure layer as open data. British Columbia serves its mineral, placer and coal tenure spatial view through DataBC, together with a mining divisions layer. Ontario offers its MLAS operational and administrative GIS data on OGSEarth, with cell claims, boundary claims and mining divisions as shapefiles. Quebec posts a weekly file of active titles from GESTIM, its title management system.

All three files carry holder names and client numbers, because the registries are public. We removed those fields when loading the data and never wrote them to disk in our outputs. From there the Mineral Claims Canada method was plain bookkeeping: keep titles that are active on the snapshot date, place each claim in a district using a point inside its polygon, and add up the count and the hectares. Nothing here needs a satellite. That comes later, when a team asks what is on the open ground between the claims.

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How we built the district counts

1. 1Download open tenureDataBC WFS, MLAS shapefiles and the GESTIM file.
2. 2Drop holder fieldsNames, client and title numbers removed on load.
3. 3Keep active claimsTitles in good standing on 15 Oct 2026.
4. 4Assign a districtClaim centre inside a mining division or region.
5. 5Sum and gridCount, hectares, recent share, and 1-degree cells.

What counts as a “claim” differs by province, so for the Mineral Claims Canada count we kept each province’s own definition. In BC we counted active mineral claims and left out placer claims, coal licences, mineral leases and pending applications. In Ontario we counted single-cell, multi-cell and boundary claims with an “Active” status. In Quebec we counted map-designated cells (the CDC title code), which today are called exclusive exploration rights. Districts follow the registries: BC’s 24 mining divisions, Ontario’s 9 mining divisions and Quebec’s administrative regions as recorded on each title.

▶ Video (3 min 11 s): how satellite and soil data are combined to narrow copper and gold targets in British Columbia. · 3:11

Mineral claims Canada by province: three claim systems

The raw totals look lopsided until you check the unit. Ontario reports 414,515 active claims, Quebec 231,485 and BC only 29,985. Measured in hectares, the three are close: 10.62 million in BC, 10.09 million in Ontario and 11.78 million in Quebec. The gap is a design choice, not a difference in exploration interest.

In British Columbia, a claim is selected online in Mineral Titles Online and can bundle many grid cells, so the average active claim in our file covers about 354 ha. In Ontario, the provincial grid has more than 5.2 million cells ranging from about 17.7 ha in the north to 24 ha in the south, according to the Ministry’s conversion guide, and most claims are single cells. Active single-cell claims in our download average 20.5 ha. In Quebec, a title is one designated cell, so claim count and cell count are close to the same thing.

Since BC claims are bundled and Ontario and Quebec claims are mostly single cells, comparing claim counts across provinces overstates Ontario and understates BC by an order of magnitude. Every cross-province chart in the Mineral Claims Canada count uses hectares.

Staking in the last 24 months, province by province

Which province has added the most new ground? We took every active claim whose issue date falls between 15 October 2024 and 15 October 2026 and summed its area. Ontario leads with 3.84 million ha, ahead of Quebec at 2.67 million and BC at 2.01 million. As a share of each province’s claim map, that is 38.1% in Ontario, 22.7% in Quebec and 18.9% in BC.

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Claim area staked in the last 24 months

Million hectares of active claims first issued 15 Oct 2024 to 15 Oct 2026

One reading is that Ontario’s ground turns over faster. Another is simple survivorship: claims staked two years ago are still inside their first term in all three provinces, while older ground has had more chances to lapse. The chart cannot separate the two, which is why we also look at issue years further down. BC context matters too. The BC Geological Survey’s review of 2025 reports that the Mineral Claims Consultation Framework took effect on 25 March 2025, after a 2023 BC Supreme Court ruling, and that 1,254,146 ha of mineral claims were recorded in 2025, down 845,628 ha from 2024.

Mineral claims Canada hotspots: the districts holding the most area

Eight districts hold 64% of all the claim area in the three provinces. Quebec’s Nord-du-Québec region stands out at 7.63 million ha, which is 65% of Quebec’s claim area and more than any two other districts combined. It is followed by Ontario’s Thunder Bay Mining Division at 2.84 million ha and BC’s Omineca Mining Division at 2.48 million ha.

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The eight districts holding the most claim area

Million hectares under active mineral claims, 15 Oct 2026

The ranking mixes very different geography. Nord-du-Québec is a vast region that takes in the Eeyou Istchee Baie-James territory, so a big total partly reflects its size. Thunder Bay covers much of northwestern Ontario. Omineca spans central BC. A fair comparison would divide by land area that is open to staking, which none of the registries publishes in a ready-made form. We therefore list the totals plainly and let the share of recent staking do the comparing.

The table shows the 15 largest districts in the Mineral Claims Canada count by claim area. The last column, the share of each district’s claim area first issued since October 2024, is where the story changes. Patricia in Ontario has 45.7% young ground and Thunder Bay 50.0%, while Liard in BC sits at 14.7%. A district can be large and quiet, or smaller and busy.

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Where Canadian explorers are staking now

Which districts added the most ground in the last two years? Ranked by area first issued since 15 October 2024, the Mineral Claims Canada count puts Nord-du-Québec first at 1.44 million ha, almost level with Thunder Bay at 1.42 million ha. Porcupine, Omineca, Patricia and Red Lake follow. The chart sets each district’s new ground against its whole claim map.

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Where the new ground is: total vs recent

Million hectares: all active claim area vs area first issued since 15 Oct 2024

The two leaders differ in character. In Nord-du-Québec, 18.8% of the claim area is new, so most of the region’s held ground was staked earlier. In Thunder Bay, 50.0% is new, which makes it the fastest-turning large district in the dataset. Omineca shows the BC pattern: a big claim map where most ground is older than two years.

The staking map: 1-degree grid cells with the most new ground

Districts are large, so for the Mineral Claims Canada map we also cut the new ground into one-degree grid cells (one degree of latitude by one degree of longitude, about 111 km north to south and 60 to 75 km east to west at these latitudes). The table below lists the ten cells with the most claim area first issued since October 2024. A cell that straddles two districts appears once per district.

Seven of the ten busiest cells are in Ontario, most of them in the Thunder Bay division between 49° and 54° N, with the 50-51° N, 87-88° W cell at the top. The Quebec cells sit between 48° and 50° N, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue and the southern part of Nord-du-Québec. No BC cell makes the top ten: BC’s new ground is spread more thinly, with its largest cells in the Cariboo and Liard divisions. The full Mineral Claims Canada cell table is in the study’s result files.

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Staking over time: what the issue dates show

Each active claim in the Mineral Claims Canada count carries the date it was first issued. Counting active claims by issue year gives a rough history of staking, with one big caveat: it only counts survivors. A claim staked in 2019 and dropped in 2022 is not in the file, so older years always look smaller than they were.

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Active claims by year first issued

Claims still active on 15 Oct 2026, by issue year (survivors only)

Three features stand out. Ontario has 89,094 active claims first issued in 2025, more than three times any earlier year from 2019 on. Quebec peaked in 2023 with 32,521 surviving claims and has held near 25,000 a year since. BC’s line is flat at this scale because its claims are bundled: 1,827 active BC claims date from 2025, but they cover far more ground per claim.

Ontario has one more quirk. 147,271 of its active claims carry a 2018 issue date. That is the conversion: legacy claims staked on the ground were turned into cell and boundary claims on the provincial grid in April 2018, after a pre-conversion period from 9 January to 9 April 2018 when staking was paused, as the Ministry’s claim holder’s guide to conversion explains. Read 2018 as “converted”, not “staked”. The chart starts in 2019 for that reason.

Holding costs behind the mineral claims Canada map

A claim map is also a cost map, because every hectare has to be kept in good standing. The rules are set by each province, and they differ enough to change how teams size a land position.

British Columbia. Under the Mineral Tenure Act Regulation, registering a mineral cell claim costs C$1.75 per hectare. To keep it, the holder registers exploration and development work worth C$5 per hectare a year in anniversary years 1 and 2, C$10 in years 3 and 4, C$15 in years 5 and 6 and C$20 after that, or pays cash in lieu at double those rates. Registered holders need a valid Free Miner Certificate.

At the defaults, a 500 ha block held for two years costs C$5,875 in registration and minimum work, roughly C$11.75 per hectare. Extend it to six years and the work requirement climbs to C$15,000 on the same ground, which is one reason BC claim maps thin out as blocks age.

Ontario. The Ministry’s administrative fee schedule sets claim registration at C$50 per cell. O. Reg. 65/18 under the Mining Act requires C$400 of assessment work per cell per year on cell claims, and a flat C$200 a year on boundary claims. Claims are registered online through MLAS by holders with a prospector’s licence.

A 16-cell block, roughly 330 ha, costs C$13,600 over two years at the defaults. Per hectare that is several times the BC minimum, which partly explains why Ontario claims are so often single cells: holders can trim a position cell by cell rather than block by block.

Quebec. The exclusive exploration right, formerly called a claim, is obtained by map designation in GESTIM. The first term is three years and the holder may renew for two-year terms. Fees are published on the Government of Québec’s rates and indexation page; as published there in October 2026, a right over 50 ha north of the 52nd parallel costs C$244.40 for holders filing up to 150 rights, and C$104.98 for 25 to 100 ha south of the 52nd parallel. Minimum work amounts are set by regulation and vary by area and term, so we leave them out of the calculators.

Reading the claim map with satellite data

A district count such as Mineral Claims Canada tells a land team where competition for ground is heaviest. It does not tell anyone what is on the ground that remains open. That is where satellite screening helps. Multispectral sensors such as Sentinel-2 record reflected light in bands that respond to iron oxides, clays and other alteration minerals at the surface. Over a large open block, those signals help decide where to send a crew first.

Canadian ground makes this harder than desert ground. Most of the Thunder Bay, Porcupine and Nord-du-Québec claim areas are boreal forest, wetland and glacial overburden, so the bedrock is rarely visible. Snow covers the ground for much of the year, and summer cloud cuts the number of usable scenes. In BC’s mountains, steep terrain, ice and shadow do the same. A satellite indicator in these settings is a reason to look closer, never a discovery.

At Farmonaut, we analyse multispectral and hyperspectral imagery to flag alteration zones, structures and other surface patterns linked to mineralisation. Clients send an area as coordinates, KML/KMZ or a polygon, choose the target minerals, and receive a report with prospectivity maps and GIS files in 5 to 20 business days, depending on size and complexity. We report exploration targets that sit ahead of any resource estimate; our work is not an NI 43-101 report and does not replace field mapping, sampling or drilling.

Limits of this study

We want readers to use these numbers well, so here is what the Mineral Claims Canada numbers cannot do. First, they are a single-day snapshot. Second, the active-claim filter misses ground that was staked and dropped, so recent activity is measured more fully than old activity. Third, we used each province’s own claim definition, which is the honest choice but means the provinces are compared only on area. Fourth, a few claims straddle district lines; we assigned each to the district that holds a point inside it, and in Quebec to the first region listed on the title. Fifth, the Ontario and Quebec files are labelled as unofficial copies of the registry and the official record is the online system.

We did not cover Yukon, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Manitoba, Saskatchewan or Newfoundland and Labrador. Each runs its own registry, and they deserve the same treatment in a later study.

Mineral claims Canada: frequently asked questions

General information, not legal, tax or investment advice; confirm with your advisers and the provincial registry. Satellite indicators are exploration indicators, not deposits, resources or reserves. Farmonaut results are exploration targets ahead of any resource estimate.