An article in the Columbian of 14 March 1963 titled "Lost Pitt Lake Mine--Fortune Still elusive" tells a legend about an old and dying water serpent guarding a cave, mostly hidden by the water, where "deeper within" there "were many shiny pebbles."
On the microfilm print the author of the article can hardly be read. It is something like Brian Makken or Makers. Is anyone out there familiar with this gentleman? Was he the author of this "legend" or did he repeat what he read or heard somewhere else?
I doubt that it is a Native legend. Gold played no role in traditional First Nations culture in the Northwest corner of the Americas before contact. (Note 23 November 2007: I quote from a letter written in 1931 by Jason Allard to Bruce A. McKelvie mentioning first gold finds in BC : "....in the year 1857, what did an Indian know about gold at the time?" Letter in holdings of Langley Centennial Museum).
For another gold/serpent story read The Sea Serpent (E Pauline Johnson-Tekahionwake, 1911)
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Nature does not need a ghost to guard a mine.
In 1891,in New Westminster BC, an elderly Native man was hanged for murder. Today, legends of epic proportions link him with rich gold findings in the mountains around Pitt Lake and multiple killings. What do we really know about this man and where did the legends come from?
Award Winning Web site
The Slumach site received the Web site Award for 2008 from the British Columbia Historical Federation and David Mattison
Memorable quotations
A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top.
Gold makes a fool of us all the time. Nature does not need a ghost to guard a mine.
Gold is where you find it.
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