The Flying Game

From: Furniss, Harry, Memoirs-One: The Flying Game, Victoria: Trafford Publishing, 2003

The Collishaw/Furniss expedition into darkest British Columbia was not just a shot in the dark. There was really gold in there, and wasn't Ray [Collishaw] the son of a miner who had roamed the fabled fields of Australia, California and the Yukon?
The whole plan was based on newspaper stories recently published in The Vancouver Province by my fellow-worker and ex-RCAF pilot Ray Munro. Ray had picked up the ages-old story of Slumach, a coastal Indian who had mysteriously turned up in New Westminster in the 1800s with gabs of gold which he said he found "just over there" in the mountains near Harrison Lake.
Munro and another reporter flew into the area, staked claims, wrote tantalizing newspaper stories, formed a company, sold shares—and did everything except find the lost mine of old Slumach.
It was this publicity that brought Collishaw to my door that particular day. “Munro’s got the Slumach story right,” he said, “but he’s got the wrong place. I’ve examined the old records and I think I know where that Indian really went. So let’s go in there, Harry Old Boy, and lay claim to fortune.”
It was a marvelous idea and it got better with each successive drink, but in the end I realized that I just couldn’t possibly afford to quite my $45 a week job and go prospecting. Ray finally hiked in by himself, the air drops worked perfectly, he found the area Munro had missed, but damned if he could find any gold.
The next summer Ray [Collisham] went up to Barkerville...and found gold but it wasn't profitable. The following year he struck it rich, only this time it was a copper deposit. which became on of the countries largest mines.