(Annual Christmas Poetry)
Santa’s Fate
One winter’s day, in ’82,
Well, things were lookin’ mighty blue,
Cause Santa’s sleigh was runnin’ late,
And this produced an awful state.
The kids was feelin’ mighty down.
‘Cause Santa might not get to town!
An avalanch
I found a prospecting entry today from the summer of 1997 that I’d like to post:
“Most of the prospecting I get to do is in the summer (up here in Canada) because that's when things thaw enough to get out and root around. Well, one summer in the Omine
I added some pictures (above) to show some of the gold we've got the last couple of trips out this summer.
All the best,
Lanny
Read more…A New Learning Curve
My son and I loaded up our blue mule (Dodge 3/4 ton diesel) and headed for the mountains Friday evening.
That meant we'd be doing part of the drive in the dark, and setting up camp in the dark, but when we're out chasing the gol
Lake Placers #4
I knew there were signals in the bedrock, and they sounded sweet, so I headed off to gather tools. We had a small sledge back in the truck, an assortment of rock chisels, and the Estwing pry-bar, the one that has the pointed chisel end
Lake Placers #3
As part of this ongoing series of gold tales, I’ll explain the channel depositions of this area. From what the geologists and the miners out-lined, the glaciers were masters of that northern kingdom for eons. There were glacial stream
A Few Hours To Hunt
On Saturday, my son and I headed to the mine in the mountains with only a few hours to hunt the gold.
We arrived at the placer cut, and we could hear an excavator working somewhere on the placer lease.
We looked over the bank and saw
Return to the Gold Fields.
It couldn't have been almost nine months since we'd hit the goldfields, but that's what it turned out to be. Yes, Co-Virus has made for one crazy year, with various places requesting outsiders not to travel due to health con
Lost Drift-Mine Cache
Quite a few summers back, I heard a fascinating story, one set in a mountainous, heavily wooded area with pines, firs, balsams, birches, and aspens. The forest floor is covered in undergrowth, dark canyons abound in the wildern
More Nuggets In The Bedrock Tips
One Saturday, June 14th, I got ready to head to the hills to try to find some gold. I grabbed my pulse machine, and I picked up my partner. We drove the four hours to get to the gold fields. The day was incredibly be
Checking old hand-stacks of rock and old bedrock workings
I ran into a guy from the Yukon a few years ago while I was up in north-central British Columbia, and he was running a big placer operation in the Yukon. He told me that they always pushed off
Read more…Discouraged at not finding a nugget?
I've been doing some reflecting lately on the topic of finding that first nugget.
I've read many posts on this forum over the years of people that buy a nugget machine, but then they're quickly discouraged after a f
Another tip, High up bedrock.
I was out one day digging a whole bunch of old boot tacks from long since disintegrated miner's boots! The little nails were all over the place, including down in crevices, well rusted or (for the non-ferrous) green with
Just thought I'd post this: Move Those Rocks!
One of the greatest mistakes I see made in gold country by eager rookies, is the mistake of not wanting to move the rocks--the ones in the channel, or the ones high-and-dry out of the present channel. I'll
Now, for a few things I've learned about working bedrock.
When checking bedrock, always look very closely at the surface. Clear all of the material off of it first. Moreover, any clay, and associated material, that is sticking close to the bedrock, ca
Warning! Annual Prospecting Poetry.
The New Year’s Shift
Now Blackjack Bill rode the outlaw trail
But he somehow dodged the marshal’s jail.
He’d rustle cows when his poke was slim,
Then rob a stage if the mood hit him.
He tried his hand at the mi
The Ballad of Shifty Eye and Curly Sue:
A handsome thing, named Shifty Eye,
Just never worked, nor would he try.
Yet he was always flush with dough.
Well, this set folks to wonder so
Just where that Shifty got his cash.
Was Shifty doin’ something b
Deep Canyon Ghost Camp
(No gold found on this outing, so read on only if you're interested in the adventure of discovery.)
We’d heard rumours, but we’d never followed up on the information . . .
We were told to head down the logging road until we saw a
Lake Placers #1
(This story continues on after we heard the story of the giant nugget found on the rock pile just below the dam of the lake whose banks and mountain slopes host placer gold.)
So, after we’d jawed with the rock-pile owner some more, we d
Lake Placers #2
To get back on track with my lake placers stories, we fired up our detectors and asked the miners where we could start hunting. They laughed, and they laughed--loudly! They told us to have at it, but we’d get nothing but grief. They'd
