In the News

NOTE: The "Looking Back" column of the Maple Ridge - Pitt Meadows News of today is a write-up on Searching for Pitt Lake Gold. Click here to read or download. 

Book-signing at Black Bond Books in Maple Ridge

Brian Antonson, Don Waite, and Fred Braches

Jack Mould revisited

Jack Mould, who disappeared in 2007 fetching fresh water from the Southgate River, thought that Slumach’s “glory hole” was on the Southgate Peak at Bute Inlet and not somewhere around Pitt Lake. 

Click here to read more about that. 

Suggested other reading: Elizabeth Hawkins, Jack Mould and the Curse of Gold, published by Hancock House in 1993

It seems that Judith Williams’s book Cougar Companions: Bute Inlet County and the Legendary Schnarrs, Raincoast Chronicles 24, published last month by Harbour Publishing, includes a dozen or so pages retelling this story.  

Harrison Lake -- Black Diamond Mine

Adam in the Black Diamond Mine

ADAM: Researching some  Harrison Lake mining history -- the Black Diamond Mine came up. I  thought, well we should check and see if this old mine from the mid-1890s is still there! Sure enough, given the clues that were given based on its location, we set off to find it.
We found it in a matter of minutes, but it wasn’t obvious. We pulled back the debris and growth that had enclosed its entrance, fallen trees,  vine maple entanglements, and deadfall carried down from the waterfall that it is under.
With mud and water up past my knees I trudged through to the end...it’s fascinating that it has held up this long in such a temperate environment!

Click here for a few more pictures

Following from the Annual Report of the BC Minister of Mines, 1895 (click on image to enlarge.)

The 1896 report of the Minister includes the following. The names “Discovery” and the “Black Diamond” claims seem to cover the same territory. (click on image to enlarge.)