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 .
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.