Alice Creek is a tributary of Wheaton (Boulder) Creek, and is located about 64 kilometres east of the south end of Dease Lake. In 1874, coarse gold was found in creeks tributary to the headwaters of the Turnagain River. In 1932, coarse gold was found on Wheaton Creek just above the falls.

The placer gold was recovered from the shallow gravel deposits overlying bedrock in the bottom of the creek, from the top of the bedrock or from cracks within the bedrock. Almost all the gold from these creeks is coarse and nuggety and most of the large nuggets have quartz adhering to them. The largest nugget found on Alice Shea Creek weighed 1612 grams (52 ounces) (the Turnagain Nugget). The nugget was found in 1937 by Alice Shea, wife of prospector Vern Shea. She found the huge nugget while walking along the creek on her husband’s claim wedged in a boulder. Numerous other nuggets were found, weighing up to 496 grams (16 ounces). The Turnagain Nugget was purchased by the provincial British Columbia Department of Mines for $1500 and displayed it at the 1939 World’s Fair in San Francisco.

One could say that Alice Shea Creek has produced much gold but the fine gold material was found at the bottom of the hill where the slope of the creek flattens out and dumps into the Turnagain River. Only the larger nuggets are left upstream on the steep slopes of Alice Shea Creek.

Between 1930 and 1940 nuggets from 30 to 500 grams were reported to the B.C. Ministry of Mines as common. The souce of the gold has not been found!