1–50 Riparian Rights: Although not a general rule, occasions have arisen when a mining claim adjoins a navigable body of water and the shoreline or mean high water mark becomes the boundary of the claim. In such instances it is proper to run such a boundary as a meander line and the field notes of the mineral survey should state that it is a meander line of the mean high water line and that the corners of such line are meander corners. The situation is well stated in Alaska United Gold Mining Co. et al. v. Cincinnati-Alaska Mining Co. et al., decided April 18, 1916, 45 L.D. 330:

“The rule as to meander lines is applicable to mining claims, and where in the course of an official patent survey of a mining claim abutting upon a navigable body of water a meander line has been run, which follows as nearly as practicable the shore line of the water, such shore line and not the meander line, must be taken as the boundary of the claim when patented according to the plat and field notes of the survey.”

“Where one of the boundaries of a patented mining claim is a navigable body of water, all accretions formed after survey and prior to entry and patent of the tract passed under the patent, and all accretions that may thereafter form, become the property of the riparian proprietor.”

Following is an example of a mining claim with a meander line as a boundary taken from Mineral Survey 2154A Alaska. While the notes do not specifically call for meander corners, they do state that the line follows the mean high water mark of Cook Inlet (Figure 2). It is not necessary to monument the intermediate angle points along the meander line, as the example shows.

Should one entire end of a claim be delineated by a meander line, the end line will be protracted parallel to the inland end line at the farthest seaward point for the purpose of determining extralateral rights.