I have a fragment that you may think is worthy of adding to the [Slumach's Gold] story. I am almost 83 years old and I grew up in Langley seeing, and being curious about, the newspaper articles regarding the many attempts to find the gold.
Sometime during the '70's I was hired to do a brief survey of a slag deposit at the site of the old smelter at Anyox, B.C. During the idle chatter on the flight in I mentioned that another attempt to find the "mine" was in the news. My new employer then identified himself as having previously been in a very senior position at the Department of Mines and added something to the effect that "they" had that tall tale figured out.
What makes his story plausible is the fact that the purity of placer gold can vary considerably depending on the source, and thus can be used to identify the source. He said that the gold that Slumach brought out from the Pitt area was "Barkerville gold" and that the Dept. of Mines was pretty sure that, somewhere north of Pitt Lake, he would travel east to the Fraser River. There he would waylay miners (probably many Chinese) coming down from the gold fields and dump their bodies in the river. When he had enough gold he would retrace his steps to the Pitt and thus complete the illusion that the gold came from the Pitt area.
This story sounds as good or better than any other I've heard, but who knows? The source sounded pretty sure of himself.
The premise of this account is that Slumach had gold to show, something not confirmed by any contemporary records. The provenance of the sample allegedly essayed by the Department of Mines is unknown and there is no evidence linking this sample with Slumach other than the words of the informant
No comments:
Post a Comment