Further clarification.

The person who holds the right to a "claim" holds exclusive rights to explore for minerals on that claim. They DO NOT have ANY surface rights (they remain with the Crown). The right to explore requires the holder of the claim to conduct/expend a certain amount of exploration each year to hold the claims in good standing for a defined period of time. How and when the holder of that claim conducts exploration has to be approved by the government (Crown) via granted a work permit. That includes permission to build any sort of infrastructure such as docks, camps, roads/trails, water crossings etc, in addition to the geological and geophysical work.

Once the holder of a "claim" has conducted sufficient exploration so that they can demonstrate to the Crown that there is economic mineralization on a claim they can initiate the process of being granted a LEASE on the land (they never "Own" the land) to develop/mine it. At that point restrictions can be placed on how others may or may not use the land (for safety, to ensure their right to extract minerals is not interfered with etc). If you can't demonstrate that it is going to be mined you won't be granted a lease. The rules are different in every province.

As RHammer pointed out you can't prevent someone from asking the government for legal access (e.g. building a rail line/road etc) on an unleased claim. Similarly as far as I know anybody can go for a walk on an unleased mineral claim and watch the drill turn (as long as you don't infringe on the holder's exclusive right to explore the claim or violate their work permit).

.... Been There