Interested in collecting your own? Spend a day or a week collecting at the Bear Lake Diggings. This collecting site is run by the Bancroft Chamber of Commerce. Visit the Bancroft Mineral Museum and pay a collecting fee. Group and season collecting passes available. For details on self guided collecting trips and geologist guided trips for schools and other groups check out the web page.
The Bear Lake area is underlain by the Glamorgan Gneiss Complex. This is mainly composed of quartz feldspar gneiss and amphibolite, with lenses of pegmatites and bands of marble. A series of north-south striking veins cut through these rocks and are filled with calcite, apatite, biotite, hornblende and titanite. The best crystals are found in areas of weathered calcite.