Arsenic in Plants Important to Two Yukon First nations: Impacts of Gold Mining and Reclamation Practices

This project examines arsenic in plants growing enar closed or reclaimed gold mines located in the traditional territories of two Yukon First Nations. A total of 238 soil and plant amples (comprising 9 different species) were collected from Mt. Nansen, Arctic Gold and Silver, and Venus Mine tailing properties. At each property, samples were collected near the suspected point source of contamination, approximately 1-3 km away, and from background sites. Species were chosen for their ethnobotanical significance to the Little Salmon/Carmacks and the Carcross/Tagish First nations, based on interviews with Elders and other knowledgeable people. Total and inorganic arsenic concentrations were determined using ICP-MS and AAS instrumentation, and organic arsenic concentrations were calculated from the difference. Uptake of arsenic by plants was low compared to soil arsenic concentrations. In both plants and soil, the arsenic form was predominantly inorganic. Concentrations in berries at all three sites were low or undetectable, and are therefore considered safe to eat under Health Canada tolerable daily intake guidelines for inorganic arsenic. At Mt. Nansen, the lichen "caribou moss" (Cetrarial/Cladina spp.), Bolete mushrooms (Leccinum spp.), and the medicinal shrubs willow (Saliz spp.) and Labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicum/L.decumbens spp.) had high mean arsenic concentrations around point sources or at sites up to 1.5 km away. These localized high concentrations will not likely affect foraging animals, given their constant movement. However, Carmacks residents could avoid gathering all species with elevated arsenic around the Mt. Nansen mining property until reclamation is complete.

Datasets available for download

• Yukon Geological Survey publication metadataHTML
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• ReportPDF
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• Original metadata (https://open.yukon.ca)HTML
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• Science and Technology
• ygs-import
• ygs-import-20250711
• ygs-publications
• yukon-geological-survey

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (46%)
• Maturity Level 2 (38%)
• Maturity Level 3 (0%)
• Maturity Level 4 (0%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 20, 2025, 02:24 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 02:24 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
Title Title for the Dataset.	Arsenic in Plants Important to Two Yukon First nations: Impacts of Gold Mining and Reclamation Practices
Description A description of the dataset.	This project examines arsenic in plants growing enar closed or reclaimed gold mines located in the traditional territories of two Yukon First Nations. A total of 238 soil and plant amples (comprising 9 different species) were collected from Mt. Nansen, Arctic Gold and Silver, and Venus Mine tailing properties. At each property, samples were collected near the suspected point source of contamination, approximately 1-3 km away, and from background sites. Species were chosen for their ethnobotanical significance to the Little Salmon/Carmacks and the Carcross/Tagish First nations, based on interviews with Elders and other knowledgeable people. Total and inorganic arsenic concentrations were determined using ICP-MS and AAS instrumentation, and organic arsenic concentrations were calculated from the difference. Uptake of arsenic by plants was low compared to soil arsenic concentrations. In both plants and soil, the arsenic form was predominantly inorganic. Concentrations in berries at all three sites were low or undetectable, and are therefore considered safe to eat under Health Canada tolerable daily intake guidelines for inorganic arsenic. At Mt. Nansen, the lichen "caribou moss" (Cetrarial/Cladina spp.), Bolete mushrooms (Leccinum spp.), and the medicinal shrubs willow (Saliz spp.) and Labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicum/L.decumbens spp.) had high mean arsenic concentrations around point sources or at sites up to 1.5 km away. These localized high concentrations will not likely affect foraging animals, given their constant movement. However, Carmacks residents could avoid gathering all species with elevated arsenic around the Mt. Nansen mining property until reclamation is complete.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Science and Technology ygs-import ygs-import-20250711 ygs-publications yukon-geological-survey
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2011-04-04
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License License used to access the dataset.	Open Government Licence - Yukon
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/155089a3-ca43-4d15-8da0-7018143a92d0
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	Government of Yukon | Gouvernement du Yukon
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?	Yukon Geological Survey
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.	[email protected]
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	None
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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