The Montana Blue Jewel Mine, Helena MT

Bruce "The Candy Man". Simply amazing person, knowledgeable, super friendly This is a fun experience for young & old. We left with a small bag of goodies.

They need to flag their dredge piles… multiple boats have thousands upon thousands of dollars in damages!

Always love coming here and finding sapphires it's a great place to take the whole family, Bruce and his staff are very helpful

Great place. We really appreciated how helpful our guide Matt was. He took the time to inspire our budding geologist and really invested in sharing his experience and knowledge with the kids. We came on a cloudy day which made the entire classification process much more pleasant. Bring water and snacks. Plan to make an afternoon out of the experience.

(This review is written on behalf of my 11-year old son) Finding sapphires and garnet was the best part of our trip to Montana. Matt was very helpful and I hope to come back here one day. In total our group came home with 40 sapphires and a few garnets. We also found some pyrite, fossils, and lots of magnetite. If I could give them a 100 star review, I would.

Shame you can only give 5 stars!

The guys were super nice, down to Earth and informative. I loved every second of it. They showed me around their operation and we're very helpful. I had troubles making a reservation due to my works hours but they were determined and flexible enough to ensure I made my reservation.

Great family experience. Bring water, lots of water, and a big hat. Also be sure to fill up your car before you go. Not required, just bad planning on my part.

What a fun day! Loved learning about sapphire mining from Bruce & Eric! Highly recommend this place.

They don't answer their phone and voicemail says they are taking reservations and will return calls.but mailbox is full. Should probably stay on top of that.very basic office management.

The best sapphire mining experience in Montana. Sometimes you get lucky and find a clean 8+ carat sapphire, sometimes some that are smaller. You screen the gravel from a pile of dirt which is the same material the mine runs. Your chance of finding a nice gem or two is the same as for the mine owners. I've been here 5 or 6 days of "mining" and always go home with something I can cut. You will also likely find a few garnets. Also note not all of the Blue Jewels sapphires are blue. You will also find pink, yellow, clear and kind of a pale green. They are all pretty!

Eric was great! Found some nice stones. One was 3.5 carats. One was 3.05. Both seemed very clear!

Great value for the price! We found sapphires that were big and clear enough to be faceted. Eric Sorenson was so helpful & friendly. Such a great experience, we'll definitely be back!

Excellent. No frills, bring your own food etc but they are upfront at the beginning. Super nice people. The owner and his son in law Eric were very nice. It was A LOT of work but cool experience. If you go in the summer you will be fine, but if you go mid September the sun is behind the mountain at 4pm. So you lose light. Go early - you need the light.

Eric did an outstanding job while Bruce was away. We really enjoyed seeing the slues at work. The drive out was a beautiful welcome to Montana.

One of the highlights of our trip! Eric was so kind and explained the process to us and was very knowledgeable. We found many sapphires, some pretty big! Authentic treasure hunting at it's finest, and not gimmicky! Be prepared to drive a gravelly dirt road to get to the spot - really starts and completes the experience. There is a shaded shelter for sitting, but otherwise, can get pretty toasty under the sun so bring water and snacks.

Super helpful guy showed us how to look for the jewels and gave us a history lesson too. Lots of fun

The guy Eric that helped us was really nice and gave us lots of information. He explained everything we needed to do and checked in with us frequently. The experience was fun for the kids even on a super hot day. We were there for about 3 hours. Glad we had ice water. Found some good stones too!

Bruce was awesome and nothing beats digging your own gravel. The excitement of washing our gravel was only topped by what we found. My only regret is that we couldn't spend more time there. Can't wait to go back on our next trip.

These guys were awesome and had a ton of fun with my family finding some sapphires. It gets a bit hot and sunny so bringing a canopy is a plus, just remember to stake it down ;)