🧭 Claim Land & Explore Sites

Confirm the land is state-owned and open to it

The permit only ever covers STATE land. Maine's public reserved lands and the state's mineral estate are administered jointly by the Bureau of Parks and Lands and the Maine Geological Survey. Private land, town land and tribal land are all separate conversations with separate owners.

A claim polygon does NOT give you access to everything inside it. The state says plainly that if a parcel inside your polygon is privately owned, you still have no right to be on it. This is the single most misunderstood part of staking.

Get the exploration permit from the Director of Survey

Maine issues a permit for mineral exploration on state land for a small annual fee — it has been twenty dollars a year. It runs on a fixed calendar and expires on 30 June, then renews under the same permit number.

The fee is trivial; the point is that the permit exists and is checked. Digging on state land without one is a violation, not a paperwork problem.

Stake the claim — minimum 20 acres

A mining claim on Maine state land is a minimum of twenty acres. Note this is not the federal twenty-acre lode claim you may have read about; it is Maine's own minimum, in Maine acres, on Maine state land.

Post all four corners properly

Four corner posts, at least four feet tall and four inches in diameter, each bearing the locator's name, the permit number, and the date of staking. Lines are additionally marked by painted trees or trimmed brush so the boundary is visible on the ground.

A claim that cannot be found on the ground is not a claim. Post it so a warden standing in the woods can find and read every corner.

Register above the exploration threshold

Registration on private or leased land is triggered once exploration spending passes twenty-five thousand dollars a year. Below that threshold the paperwork is lighter.

This threshold applies to private and leased ground — it is not a state-land rule.

A claim is not a mine — you still need a lease to extract

Staking lets you explore. Actually removing material commercially needs a mining lease from the state, and the state takes royalties on what comes out. Treat the claim as permission to look, and the lease as permission to take.

This is why the honest framing for what we do is field collection and research, not 'we own a mine'.

Never inside a park

Collecting in Maine state parks is prohibited outright. No permit overrides a park prohibition. If you are standing in a park, the answer is no, regardless of what you hold.