Wild Duck Inn map

Correction July 2021: North is to the right -- south to the left. The location of the "mine" is east of Widgeon Creek.

What happened to the large map of Pitt River and Pitt Lake mounted on the wall behind the bar in Port Coquitlam's Wild Duck Inn? Some thought that it had been painted on a wall and was  therefore lost but a an article with a photo showing the framed map up mentioned that it and other items were up for sale in 2000.
The map was NOT painted on a wall but on sheets of fibreboard and we now know that it was purchased at the final auction at the Wild Duck Inn by of a long-time frequent visitor to the pub -- now a resident of Whonnock. As the attached pictures show the map is in excellent condition. Space did not allow taking a frontal picture of the entire map -- that has to wait until this summer.
According to the present owner the map was hidden behind behind some other images in the last year.  Click on images to enlarge.

Donnelly Rhodes 1937 – 2018

Veteran actor Donnelly Rhodes played the old prospector in Michael Colliers’s  docudrama “Curse of the Lost Gold Mine.”  

Come and meet us.

Donald Waite, Brian Antonson and Fred Braches will participate in  “Local Author Day" at  Black Bond Books at Haney Place Mall on  Saturday, 18 November. Their time is from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Click here for the day's program.

What is going on?

 Why was Adam Palmer having a secret meeting in Hope with famed veteran prospector Rob Nicholson and what did Crystal Island prospector George McLennan have to tell them? Our man in Hope spotted them but he could not tell anything about their discussion. They let him take a few pictures. The real purpose of the meeting that brought the three together remains a mystery. 

Slumach’s Lost Gold Mine has been found

QuinanBear, a member of the Canadian Gold Prospecting Forum claims that he has found the location of the famous gold. Click here to read the correspondence. 

Noteworthy comment from one of the members of the Lost Pitt Lake Mine Society.

That forum has always been full of beauty... man oh man... it never ends on that forum... just a bunch of internet weirdos sitting in a basement obsessing over childish stories trying to live out their "great outdoorsmen" dreams... Entertaining to say the least, but sad also as it represents a large amount of our population...may they rest in peace if their ever set forth outside of their home....

Fact and Fiction

Click here to open and read a review of Fact and Fiction: Slumach and the Lost Creek Mine in the summer edition of British Columbia History, the magazine of the British Columbia History Federation. The review was written by Mary Trainer, well-known as co-author with Rick and Brian Antonson of Slumach's Gold: In Search of of a Legend and author of Whistle Posts West: Railway Tales from British Columbia, Alberta and the Yukon.

Alfred (Fred) George Gaspard

Fred Gaspard, 1949

Alfred George Gaspard, was a 60-year-old widower who disappeared in the upper Pitt River area in 1950. During his life Fred Gaspard had been logging, prospecting, and farming and in 1949 he started a frog farm. The next summer Gaspard went into the upper Pitt River area never to be seen again.  Reportedly he was flown to a point north of Alvin and a second plane dropped off enough food for him to survive until the snow started falling.
On 28 February 1951, a dozen or so newspapers in the eastern US, all affiliated to Associated Press, published an article about Gaspard’s disappearance but the matter did not seem to catch the attention of BC newspapers until, on June 29, 1951 the Vancouver Sun reported that the RCMP had ended an unsuccessful two-week ground and air search for the lost “gold hunter.”

In October of that year both the Province and the Vancouver Sun reported that RCMP Constable John Dowsett of the Port Coquitlam attachment and Stan Zepeski of Pitt Meadows set out set out to Alvin on a five-day quest. As anyone familiar with the area knows the upper Pitt River at that time is a roaring torrent and the search in the rain in rough terrain was hazardous. As expected nothing was found but the account of their brief expedition made for good copy, in particular for the Province. That may have been the main purpose of this senseless expedition. Click here to read the article in the Province.