Kirjoittaja Kivenkääntäjä » 21.08.2017 20:31
Hello lekhim,
nice to hear that you have found Lapland and gold prospecting! I hope you stay with us, but I had to say its not fully legal to search gold as you planned. As "every men rights" you are able to take small samples and pan them, you can take a little bit dirt from different places with shovel (small) and pan it. If you make an announcement to Metsähallitus two weeks before, you can make bit bigger test holes and take small samples on those, but you need to restore the landscape as it was before you stared to dig. But this sample taking is only allowed only progressed by panning, sluicing is prohibited. So you are not allowed to use any kind of sluices (from stream sluice to motor pump sluices). And you need to be citizen of EU of course.
If you want to use sluices, you need to make a claim and thats quite expensive and means that you must come back gold mining year after year. But there is lighter way as well, you can rent your mining site or you can join in LKL (Lapin Kullankaivajan Liitto). By joining to LKL, you are allowed to use LKL's own claims and dig there as much as you want. This cost only 10€ (joining fee) + 25€ (yearly fee) / person and you can see from LKL's websites all the open claims.
If you have more questions, don't hesitate to ask, I'm glad to help you as much as needed and I hope others will join to this conversation.