BY MARCIE STUMPF/FOLEY

 

Bill StumpfMost miners have a season that is very special. Sometimes because they find a lot of gold, sometimes because of a very special nugget; but they all seem to have one year that stands apart from all the rest. We, too, have such a year, but not for any of the above reasons. Our year stands apart because it really put our love of mining to the test.

The year was 1979, and we were especially looking forward to it. We had a new motor- home; but more important to my husband, Bill, we were upgrading from a 2 1/2″ dredge to a brand new 4-incher. Our three teenage sons were staying home, and we were taking our first vacation alone, ever!

We tried to plan carefully, as usual; but due to our three sons, there was always an ever-present need to economize. We decided that we would carry our mining gear in our aluminum fishing boat on its trailer, which didn’t have really good tires. However, after looking them over, we decided they would make just one more trip. That was our first mistake.

Our second mistake was the date we picked to start our vacation. California was in the midst of a record heat wave, and we left home on the hottest day (anywhere in the State) in a decade. By late afternoon, heading up Interstate 5 near Red Bluff, the temperature was somewhere over 120 degrees. We were wilted; the left tire on the boat trailer had developed an alarming bulge; and the auto air-conditioning in our new motor-home had died. We pulled into a campground, showered, and collapsed under the rig’s air conditioner, too tired to even eat dinner.

A good night’s sleep helped, and we were at a tire store when they opened early the next morning. After they replaced the tire, we pulled out onto the main street and headed out of town-so we thought. We hadn’t gone a block when we heard a big “thunk!”, and our new tire went flying past us, up Main Street. I can still clearly see Bill slumping over the steering wheel, saying “Oh, no!..Oh, no!,” as cars and trucks swerved, trying to dodge the tire as it merrily sped down the street. It looked like something from the Keystone Kops ! Then, a glancing blow from a truck sent it spinning crazily off toward the sidewalk. And as I looked up, I saw that it was headed right for a beautiful little church with stained glass windows.

We could only watch and hold our breath as it jumped the curb, crossed the sidewalk, and started up the church steps. One big bounce, then two, and the next would send it over the top and right into the window! But the tire just didn’t have quite enough “oomph” to go over the top, and we gave a sigh of relief as it hit the edge of the top step to bounce back down and into the street where it finally came to rest.

Only then did we notice that traffic had completely stopped, and we had quite a large audience. Bill was really thrilled to have to get out and retrieve the tire and all the lug bolts, apologizing all along the way. Red Bluff was quite small, and the audience obliged by waiting and watching him.

The lug bolts were stripped, but he put it back together as best he could, and we made it back to the store. Bill had a few things to say the whole time he worked, but I wisely kept silent. In such a situation, I have found it is better to not even murmur sympathy.

Although they did not have what we needed to fix it, they managed to get it together well enough for us to limp along the shoulder to Redding, another 33 miles. There, they managed to make the necessary repairs, and Bill bought a replacement for the spare tire on the trailer.

By this time, we had lost what little coolness the early morning held, and we sped on our way in the heat. Our next stop, Yreka, came at about noon, and we quickly picked up groceries, gasoline and propane, and then headed on our way. About 15 miles further, we had to find a large open area back from the road to stop.

Our third mistake was in not making sure they did not overfill our propane tank. (We have found this is common, and can be very dangerous). By now, it was 114 degrees, and we were in the sun, of course. We gratefully climbed back into the rig to resume our journey. But unfortunately it was not for long. Soon, a passing motorist, by honking the horn and pointing back, signaled another problem. You guessed it! The other trailer tire was flat. There was no shade in sight, and I don’t exaggerate when I say that we sizzled each time we had to touch the hot metal of the boat to get what we needed. I stayed out to help as much as I could, but made sure I stayed out of the way, and behind Bill, in case he reached the stage of throwing things. He was seeing so much red by this time I was afraid he might not see me.

The tire-change went smoothly, however; and in another fifteen miles, we had reached our destination to join our friends, Ned and Dori. What a relief it was to relax in the shade, sip a cool drink, and visit.

When we’d finished our news, Ned told us theirs. They had made a deal for us to dredge on a private claim about 10 miles further up the mountain. We excitedly broke camp, and hauled everything up there, where we labored the rest of the day getting our rigs back into the thick trees, in the cool shade. We were going to be here a while, and we wanted it right.

There had been a cabin here at one time, and the cleared area where it had stood would be perfect for campfires at night. We also discovered, off a ways, a “Three- Holer .” For you city folks, that is an outhouse with three holes. Actually, I’d never heard of one, either. It had critters, and it was dirty; but was still sound. Dori and I decided we’d clean it up when we had time. That night, as we sat around a fire, the tension from our trip faded, and the wonderful peace that we always felt when we got away like this descended upon us. It was August, and the days were long. By bedtime, the guys had made plans to get going early in the morning, and be dredging by noon.

In the morning, Bill sprang from the bed, eager to get the day started. Unfortunately, his aim was off a little, and he smashed his knee into the cupboard next to the bed. Ignoring my offer of a band-aid, he quickly donned a pair of shorts and went out to get things ready. In an hour or so he was back. He had added a bee sting to his other knee, and a huge multi-colored goose egg to a shin. Now he was ready for band-aids and medicine.

After I’d done what I could, he put on his wetsuit. His fourth mistake was in not putting his wet suit on first thing in the morning. They are good protection! He then hobbled off to finish putting the dredges into the water with Ned’s help.

When they finished, we took a break for lunch; and as we finished, we had a visitor. It was the miner who had the next claim up the creek, and he was very nice about it, but…Ned and Bill had launched the dredges over the claim line. So they spent the rest of the day moving the dredges and setting up in a new location.

When we arose the next morning, Bill’s cut, sting, and goose egg were surrounded by rash and were inflamed. His fifth mistake was in not watching carefully enough for poison oak. From there, he proceeded right to his sixth mistake. He dredged anyway.

By the next morning it was obvious even to Bill that everything was infected, and his poison oak was rapidly spreading to cover his entire body. Reluctantly he stayed out of the water; we soaked and applied creams and ointments, as he stared at it all, willing it to go away.

Despite all of our efforts, Bill looked much worse the following day, and we were growing concerned. He still refused to see a doctor. Our seventh mistake was to use band-aids and tape, which Bill has always been allergic to. As I tried to remove them to put fresh ones on, each small tug of the tape caused Bill to say “~UGH!!!” The sound was approximately equivalent to the ones they make in a movie when having a leg sawn off without anesthetic. No matter how hard I tried to be careful, each tug brought forth another “~UGH!!!”. To make matters worse, I soon had tears flowing freely from laughing so hard.

Ned and Dori came running to see what had happened now, and when I answered the door with tears running, they were really concerned. As I tried to explain, they became very confused, since Bill had a huge scowl, and was at the same time telling them about the cruel and inhuman torture I was putting him through. Finally, I removed just a small piece to show them (and to shut Bill up), and his words changed to “~UGH!!!” Then they were laughing, too, and Ned insisted on staying to the end to get even for the many things Bill had done in the past.

We decided we’d better leave it the band-aids off, which meant that Bill had to stay indoors to keep dirt out. With that development, and the seriousness of the infection, Bill finally agreed to see a doctor. We went to the hospital in Medford (Oregon) the next morning. The doctor kept his hands in his pockets the entire time he looked at Bill, said he had severe staph infection along with the poison oak. He prescribed several medications, along with many restrictions to keep it from spreading. This really sent Bill into the depths of depression, and it took us several days to get all the soaking, etc., worked out in our small motorhome. But then we came up with a plan to ease his problem. I became Bill’s “surrogate dredger,” and this is how it worked: (Until then, I had always participated in his dredging, but only as a dredge-tender, or by shoveling tailings.) Bill would stand up on the bank, about 30 feet high, and tell me where to dredge, and shout directions, which I was to follow. In most places here, bedrock was extremely shallow, only 2 or 3 feet deep, and I soon found that working the nozzle was actually a lot of fun. It sucked up all the stuff, and then I could fan the crevices and cracks; and most of the time, there would be some gold that I could see and pick up with my tweezers.

It was hard to hear Bill over the dredge engine, and he was frustrated because he could not see very well what I was doing. More often than not, he said that the gold I was recovering wasn’t good enough, and that I should move to a different place. Now this was the very first gold that I personally had ever found on my own, and I had a very special feeling for it. I was most-often content to stay right where I was. Also, one of the things I am not known for is my muscles or athletic ability, and dragging (the water wasn’t deep enough to float the dredge in many places) a 4-inch dredge over rocks is not a fun thing to do. Besides, I always believed he did not sample thoroughly enough when testing.

Naturally, this led to much “discussion,” something we are experienced at, having been married a long time. At times, in fact, I was sorry that we were no longer using tape. I’d have really enjoyed ripping some off. However, I would eventually realize, or be reminded, that I was only a surrogate dredger, and remember that I was supposed to be helping him; so I would usually move. Eventually, however, I lost all my understanding, patience, energy, and enthusiasm, and we gave up that experiment.

The next week, when we weren’t snarling and snapping at each other, Bill read and listened to the radio, and I recruited Dori to help me refurbish the “Three-Holer,” when I needed to get away. We cleaned out the nests, put a spare piece of outdoor carpet on the floor and contact paper down the seats, hung a lantern and fixed the latch on the door. Then we cleaned the path and lined it with rocks. Ned helped me fix a metal poker we heated in the campfire, and I burned “3-Holer” into a piece of picturesque wood that pointed the way. Then finally, the day arrived when Bill could go back into the water. We had four days left for dredging.

We set the dredge up in a deeper pool that he wanted to try, but we developed a problem right away. In dragging the dredge around, one of the pontoons was taking in water, and Bill was too anxious to take the time to fix it right. That was a mistake.

He hit good gold right away, but we were using every bit of hose we had. Each time he’d tug on the hose, the pontoon would settle a little bit deeper in the water. Eventually, the dredge would be in danger of sinking, and he would have to come up to pump it out.

Bill worked a very long day; and when he came out, he did no more than shower, grab a sandwich, and fall into bed. He got up early the next morning, put his suit on immediately, and we went to the creek. By this time, the heat wave was long gone, and it didn’t climb above 45 degrees until the sun came over the mountain, late in the morning. I did not argue, however. He was doing some serious dredging, now; and he was even angrier each time he had to come up to pump the pontoon.

I tried to build a dam under the dredge. But each time he pulled the hose, the rocks would fall, and I had to start over. By early afternoon, I had given up; and when I signaled him to come up about the tenth time, he came up boiling mad. He broke water like a fish on a hook, ripped the regulator from his mouth, and told us all just what he thought of his pontoon, the manufacturers of the dredge, dredging, and life in general. The whole time he was talking, he was shedding his gear; and when he reached the bank, he started pulling in the dredge, and proceeded to break it down.

Our friends quietly faded away, and I found a rock to sit on a safe distance away. When Bill finished, he told me I could pan the concentrates or not, he didn’t care. I did pan them after he went back to camp; and as I took a break before panning the last pan, I sat on my rock in the middle of the creek, and the beauty of the scene struck me, again. I listened to the creek as I watched the rays of sunlight shining through the trees to dance on the water. The black-berry bushes twined among the trees and ripe with big, luscious fruit, hung low over the water, and the air smelled so fresh and sweet I could taste it. The image is as bright today in my mind as when I sat there, and with the image comes the feeling of peace and contentment I felt at that moment.

We packed up that night and started home the next morning. Bill was very silent through the packing and the drive home. About halfway home, I was beginning to get concerned that he was really finished with mining, when out of the blue he said, “Next year.”

 

BY MARCY STUMPF/FOLEY

 

Dredging below the chute

Bill Stumpf keeps a careful eye on dredging equipment while son David dredges 24 feet beneath a fast-water chute on the Yuba, River. The chute is out of sight to the left of current which can be seen at center-left of above photo. Bubbles at lower-left are from David’s hookah air supply, as he makes his way to the bottom of their hole.

As I sat in the sun on the bank of the North Fork of the Yuba River in California’s Mother Lode country, I basked in the warmth as I watched my 19-year-old son David swiftly cross the river on top of a small dam of rocks that someone had left below where we were dredging. Followed by his dog, Kona, he urged her on as she slipped and slithered her way across the slippery rocks. I didn’t know how he did it. I cursed and fell every time I ventured more than a few feet from the bank!

David was warming himself up by playing with Kona, preparing for the first dive of the day. My husband, Bill, gassed-up the dredge and made sure all was in running order.

We were working a “chute” where the river narrowed between bedrock dikes, pushing the water with tremendous force through the narrow opening, then dropping it into a large pool. We were set up in the pool, and had every inch of hose we owned on our 5-inch dredge to reach the bottom.

Bill began working in 18 feet of water, adding as much weight as he could to his weight belt to stay down. They had even fastened a chain to a piece of bedrock on the bank so Bill could “walk” down into the hole each day. They chopped, pried and levered their way through several feet of extremely hard hard-pack; and when they reached the bottom, they found a natural channel had been cut into the bedrock, about four feet across, and they weren’t sure how deep. Bill began suffering from nosebleeds at about 22 feet down, so David was continuing the dives on his own. We were giving him a couple of days to satisfy his curiosity as to what was at the bottom.

David and Kona ran back up to where I was sitting, and David laughed as Kona shook herself, spraying me with water and rubbing against me as I protested. He began adding all his gear for diving. This was a cold river, and he already had an acrylic bodysuit made for diving under his 1/4-inch wet suit.

David was thin and had a hard time staying warm any time of year in the Yuba, but this was springtime-the water was very cold. He wore boat shoes over his dive booties, work gloves on top of wetsuit gloves, and finally a hot water line to bring warm water inside his suit.

At last, he was ready, and I opened my mouth to complain about his weight belts, but could see that he could hardly move and decided to keep quiet. I had an ongoing thing about the weight belts. Being so thin, it was very difficult for him to keep the quick- release buckles in front; and wearing two belts compounded the problem. I knew from the past, that even if he had them on straight when he went down, he worked so fast and furious below that within 15 minutes, they would be working their way around his body. We’d “discussed” it often.

David adjusted his mask and descended; Bill went out to the dredge; and I settled back. It wasn’t often I had time to relax, and this was the last day we would be working here. We’d decided to pull out tonight. David was now diving at 24 feet; and as he started dredging, the dredge hose pulled the dredge out into the river a bit more–stretching to reach the entire length. Soon, material began flowing through the sluice box.

David finished the first dive, we had lunch, and he went down again. I was about to doze off when suddenly, a loud noise startled me. As I jumped up, I saw that David’s airline had blown off the air compressor. With a huge “whooshing” noise, it rapidly snaked across the river as air from the reserve tank rushed out of the open end.

I began to panic immediately. Bill did not have his wetsuit jacket or weight belt, and the swift current would force him downriver if he attempted to cross the current to David.

We waited for long moments on the bank for David to appear but, he didn’t.

Underwater, David gasped as he drew water instead of air into his mouth and quickly began fumbling through two pair of gloves for the quick-releases on his belts. He finally found one and dropped it but lost more precious moments looking for the other. He was fast running out of time and couldn’t find it!

He finally decided to force himself to the surface wearing one belt. But as he stepped out of the first weight belt, he stumbled and his boat shoe became entangled in the metal crate which he used to carry rocks out of the dredge hole! Now he had to fight panic as he worked quickly to extricate himself. It was dark and murky down there as he struggled to remove his foot from the shoe which was still caught in the metal crate. At last, he was free, but did he have enough air left after his struggles to make it to the top?

Up on top, I was already in tears. It seemed we’d waited hours, and Bill was rapidly descending the chain to see what he could do. He had to try something, even if it was wrong!

Just then, in a roar of water, air, coughing and shouting, David burst through the surface of the water and Bill dove for him, helping him out of the current and to the bank, where he lay a long time, coughing and spitting water.

We felt very lucky, and we were a sober and wiser group when we left that day. We’d learned several good lessons, and would like to re-emphasis them because they are important ones:

1) Always make sure your weight belt is tight and you can reach your quick-release buckle (and make sure it’s in good working order).

2) Make sure that any line connected to your air compressor is a “HEAT RESISTANT” line (usually red or black). Air coming out of the compressor is hot, and regular airline will NOT stand up to that heat. Remember: your life depends on the air from that line!

3) And, finally, we learned that curiosity that leads you into danger is best left to cats.

 
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By Dave McCracken

“A Preliminary Evaluation”

Dave Mack

Note: This is the non-proprietary portion of an initial report from a preliminary evaluation of a potential suction dredging project in Northern Sumatra (Indonesia). The opportunity to do something with this prospect still exists. The evaluation was done in April of 2005. The gold values have been modified to reflect gold prices in mid 2010.


This project is located on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, directly to the west of Singapore. I arrived there by flying to Singapore, and then by taking a 1-hour boat-ride to Batam Island (Indonesia). From there, I caught a flight to Padang. Padang is the capital of Western Sumatra. At the time, this was a better connection than trying to fly directly to Padang from Singapore.

A representative from the company that hired me was waiting at the airport in Padang. We then drove 2 hours north to a place called Bukittinggi where they have a home and office. The company manager was already up at the base camp. They had arranged for a driver to bring me up there on the following day.

Bukittinggi is a lot like the towns we have in the West. In fact, as shown in the following video segment, if it were not for the different language on the signs, this city could easily be mistaken for almost any town in America.

The roads and other infrastructure in western Sumatra are pretty darn good. The people seem nice. Things are relatively inexpensive. English is not spoken very much, but the people are forgiving and do their best to help figure things out.

The location of this project was situated about a third of the way north to Medan (from Padang). Medan is the capital of northern Sumatra. It is the second-largest city in Indonesia.

There is a good road that leads to the project-area and follows alongside the river. So accessibility to the river is generally very good.The following video sequence was taken as we were driving north to the project site. You will notice that they drive on the left side of the road in Sumatra:

The river is about the same size as the Klamath River in northern California, but will reduce in size as the dry season progresses. The river is flowing with clear water. Although, visibility can be lost during the afternoons if local miners are sluicing upstream (more on this follows).

During my visit, the river was ideal to sample using a 5-inch dredge. Productiondredging or volume sampling could easily be accomplished using 8-inch dredges or larger.

There are regular access-points to the river from the road along the river. And there are small villages along the road where local miners and other laborers or helpers and various services and supplies are available at relative low cost. Power and land-line telephone appear to be present along the entire road.

As the speedometer was not working on the vehicle that we were using, I did not get an exact mileage-count on the amount of river that is available to this project. But it is safe to say that there is at least a 20-mile stretch of readily-accessible gold-bearing river where local small-scale miners are actively recovering gold.

Our client has hired a local administrator from the main town along the river. The local administrator has arranged permission to temporarily set up a base camp in a vacant house which is owned by the government. The house and property are ideal for a base until other arrangements can be made. There is a small store and restaurant on the property. There is some storage. The house has several comfortable bedrooms, electric power, bathrooms and a dining room. The local cook does a good job. It is a comfortable setting. The base camp contains all of the basic structure needed to support a gold dredging project.

  

Local communities are generally Muslim. Friendly. I did not detect a single bad feeling from anyone during the entire time that I was on the river. There was actually a lot of friendly interest, because white folks are not often seen in these parts.Here is a video sequence I captured in a nearby, larger-sized community:

  

It will be important to be mindful of possible cultural differences, though. Any westerners brought in to assist with this project will need to be careful to not disrupt local tranquility. Hiring a good, local administrator will be important so that we can facilitate communication in a positive way. Interpreters will be important in key places where local labor is being directed or managed by outsiders.

Our client has done a great job putting the basic support structure in place.

My client is a mining engineer from Europe who settled in Sumatra and has devoted the past 20+ years locating and developing mineral opportunities there. We have worked together on several projects in the past, two which were located in Borneo (Indonesia), another in Cambodia.. He has been involved with numerous different types of projects which I will not go into here. He is very experienced at working in Sumatra. He understands the culture(s) and he speaks the languages.

One interesting thing at the moment is that my client has also recently located an important iron-ore discovery in the same area. He is in the process of quantifying the deposit with a company of consulting-geologists that are based out of Jakarta. I was fortunate to meet the Director of this consulting-group during my visit. They are doing exactly what we have in mind: They are mapping and certifying reserves of proven mineral deposits in a manner that the final documentation can be placed on a bankable balance sheet.

While pursuing the iron-ore program, my client observed that the locals along the river were actively sluicing for gold. So he asked me to come over for a look. This was my first trip to this particular area of Sumatra.

Local Mining Activity

I observed three different methods of active gold mining occurring along the river:

1. Panning gravels from the gravel bars alongside the river.

2. High-banking the river gravels from the gravel bars in and alongside the river (description follows).

3. Panning river gravels that are being extracted from the bottom of the active river by divers (referred to in this report as “dive-miners”).

I could also see the telltale signs of past high-banking activity in placer diggings alongside the river not far downstream of the main town. My client’s local administrator told me that he believes the richest area along the river is upstream of the main town. That portion of the river extends away from the main road. I did not get a look at it on this first visit. He says that gold nuggets as big as several kilograms in size have been found up there. But, because local miners have no means to deal with the larger boulders, they mostly do their mining further downriver where we saw them operating.

I observed a of dozen or so active panning operations along the edges of the river where locals are panning surface gravels.

  

I also observed around a dozen active high-banking projects. Most of these projects are being accomplished with the use of two motorized pumps. One pump is used to suck ground-water out of active excavations, lowering water levels so that workers can excavate bottom gravels. The other pump is used to create suction through a 4-inch PVC (plastic) suction pipe. Material is washed down to the intake-pipe at the bottom of the excavation, sucked up and directed through a primitive (very) sluice box that rests on stilts out of the water. These pumps allow gravel-material up to (approximately) 3-inches in size to be passed through the pump.

Local miners are building wing dams, which allow them access to gravel out in the active waterway.

Local miners are actively wing-damming (building a barrier to direct the water around an open excavation) around shallow places in the active river where they want to mine. They then pump the excess water out of open excavations, while processing gravels out of them. Whole teams of local miners (as many as 20+ people) are working together in these high-banking projects.

The downside is that tailings-water from some of the high-banking projects is allowed to flow back into the active waterway. This eliminates water visibility for some distance downstream. Depending upon where you go, underwater visibility can be lost by mid-afternoon. But even in those places, there remains an opportunity to do underwater work starting early in the morning – or possibly doing night operations with the use of flood lights from the surface. Or by dredging upstream from active high-banking operations.

Dive-miners on a floating platform

I also observed some mining activity where local divers are bringing up gravel from the bottom of the river and panning it at the surface. These divers do not have access to the right kind of air compressors for underwater breathing, so they are free-diving (holding their breath while diving down under the water) to excavate bottom-gravels from the active river. Because of this, their production-capability is severely limited. All of the dive-miners I observed were bringing gravels to the surface with the use of metal cooking pots.

As the purpose of my first visit to this river was to confirm the existence of potentially-viable gold deposits within the active river, these dive-miners are the ones we decided to spend some time with.

Local dive-miners carve their diving goggles out of hardwood or bone from some kind of big animal. Lenses are made from glass that is glued onto the goggles with epoxy. The goggles are attached to a diver’s face with a strap cut out of a piece of tire-inner tube rubber. There is no face-seal, and there is no way to equalize pressures inside the goggles. This creates a natural limit to how deep dive-miners can go beneath the water’s surface.

Nevertheless, local dive-miners are diving down to around three meters and bringing up gravel. And the gravel contains a lot of gold in proportion to the volume of gravel that is being processed. The local gold-buyer told us that around 5 kilograms of gold are being bought every day from local miners along this river. The going price is around $44 per gram. If the gold-buyer is telling the truth, that amounts to around $220,000 in gold.

To put this in perspective, a 10-inch dredge in experienced hands, with some underwater visibility, should be able to process about as much volume as all of the mining activity combined that I observed along the river.

All of the local miners we spoke with agreed that the richest gold is located in the deeper-water areas of the river where they are not able to reach using their methods. While divers can get underwater, they do not have the technology to excavate the deeper-gravel deposits that exist down there. A person can only get so much accomplished using a cooking pot on a breath of air!

So unless they are lucky enough to find rich deposits in the shallow spots along the edge of the river, existing technology available to local miners generally does not allow them access to the higher-grade areas located along the river-bottom. For the most part, local miners are working average gravels along the edges.

Confirmation

All of the images of the mining activity that were initially sent to me by my client showed high-banking activity that was taking place outside of the active river.

Sometimes, there can be high-grade deposits being mined alongside the river; but local conditions (deep gravel, dirty water, etc.) do not allow for a viable dredging opportunity within the active river. Therefore, the main purpose of my first visit to this area was to establish if there are high-grade gold deposits inside the active waterway, and to assesswhether or not we can perform a production dredging program there.

  

Approximately 5 miles downstream from the main town, we found a company of around ten local dive-miners who were swimming down to bring up gravel from an underwater excavation. We observed that they were recovering a substantial amount of gold in proportion to the small volume of gravel being processed. As this was an excavation project inside the active waterway, my client and I made a quick plan to complete our initial confirmation while working with this group of dive-miners.

After spending a little time getting to know these dive-miners, one of their leaders offered to take us on a short tour and show us some of the richer areas where they had done some dive-mining along the river. He showed us several places where he said their team-program had recovered as much as three ounces of gold per day at times. Each place he showed us was consistent with the types of areas where we find high-grade pay-streaks on the Klamath River in northern California.

According to our guide, the combinations of water-depth and/or gravel-depth usually prevent dive-miners from pursuing the richest deposits in the river.

  

This river is very similar to the rivers that we dredge in California. There are regular directional changes, a steady drop, and fast-water areas in the river, which create the natural diversity required to form high-grade pay-streaks. There is plenty of bedrock showing and deep water pools.

Our guide told us that the river gravels pay in gold-values starting from around a foot below the surface, all the way to the bedrock. He said the richest gold is often on the bedrock, and sometimes they can see gold inside the cracks when they are able to get down that far. He said that 1 and 2-gram gold nuggets are not uncommon. He said the biggest nugget he personally found was 10-grams (32.1 grams to the troy ounce).

In anticipation of the eventual need, several years ago, I shipped a T-80 air compressor, a dive-regulator and the required air-fittings over to this client in Sumatra from California. He arranged to mount the compressor with a small Honda motor. We brought that diving gear along with us on this trip.

So after getting to know our guide on the river, we volunteered to use the compressor to help his company of dive-miners excavate gravels from the deepest part of their ongoing excavation. I offered to allow them to keep all the gold we found, as long as we could buy it from them at the going price. They readily agreed. The purpose of this was to allow me the opportunity to get a direct look at the streambed conditions from which we would recover the gold, and to allow me to measure the amount of gravel that we would process so we could place a relative value on the raw material.

It did not take long to get me into the water, where with the use of a cooking pot as a digging tool, I started filling a wash-bucket with gravel from the bottom of their ongoing excavation. Filling up buckets with material underwater is a pretty slow process. It required three gold-panners to keep up with my progress.

The existing excavation from this company of dive-miners was pretty substantial, considering that progress was being accomplished using cooking pots while free-diving down to around three meters of water. They had worked down a face of bedrock along the edge of the river to around 6 or 7 feet into a semi-hard-packed streambed material. They had not yet reached where the bedrock bottomed-out (where the highest-grade material should be located). Even so, I did see some gold flakes in the bedrock along the face that they are following.

According to the dive-miners, they have been working that specific excavation for 2 months, and had so far recovered around 2 kilograms of gold ($80,000.00). To put the size in perspective, we could open an excavation that size in about half a day using a 10-inch dredge. Opening an excavation is much slower than continuing one that is already opened up. Conservatively, the local dive-miners had recovered 2 kilograms of gold in about 25% of a day’s ongoing production using a 10-inch suction dredge.

The local gold buyer weighed the gold recovered from our 20-bucket sample and offered to buy it for approximately $25.00 (US) in local currency based on the daily price of gold on April of 2005.

Since I was able to stay deep using the compressor, I extracted gravel from the bottom of the hole. I brought up 20 buckets of material, which were carefully panned by several helpers from the local mining team. In all, we recovered 1.1 grams (around $48.00) from my sample. This amounts to approximately $2.40 (US) per bucket at current gold prices. This was a typical medium-sized wash bucket. A single 5-inch dredge would excavate the volume of material contained in a wash-bucket in several seconds. A 10-inch dredge would scarf it up in the flash of an eye!

The thing that makes this so interesting is that the gravel I brought to the surface, for the most part, was material which had been sliding down into the bottom of the hole from the upper-side of the excavation. Although I did get some material that adjoined the bedrock on one side of the hole, I was forced mainly to extract gravel that was sliding down into the hole from further up in the excavation. The nature of scooping samples with a cooking pot underwater is that you take whatever you can get. Unlike dredging, you do not have an option to move top-material out of the way to get down to more productive stream layers located deeper in the river.

At the same time that I was taking samples from the deeper part of the excavation, the other dive-miners from the local company were bringing up samples from shallower streambed material. While I did not add it up, I did observe that their pans seemed to have just as much gold as we were getting from deeper in the hole. Most of the material I brought to the surface slid in from the shallower area where the other dive-miners were working.

While it still remains to be confirmed from a more organized sampling program using a suction dredge, this preliminary indication, along with the information given to us by these miners, indicates that the average gravels in this river almost certainly do contain commercial gold value.

More often, we are accustomed to finding that average river-bottom gravels carry non-commercial gold values, and that it is necessary to locate the high-grade gold deposits which usually form in the contact-zones between flood layers or on top of the bedrock. The existence of commercial gold-value in average gravels likely means that the pay-streaks will be even higher-grade.

We have confirmed that commercial gold deposits can potentially be dredged from this river. The next step is to follow up with a preliminary dredge sampling program.

Recommendations

First: I am suggesting to my client that he follow-up to see if exclusive commercial rights can be obtained for mining gold along this river. If so, I am advising him to arrange it as soon as possible. If the client is looking for a partner to develop the prospect, as long as the cost is reasonable, we can help arrange the financial resources to help pay for concession-rights.

Whether or not acquisition of exclusive rights (not excluding local mining activity) to develop the gold deposits along the river will affect the way we should proceed:

A. Quantification and marketing the proven reserves: If we can obtain the exclusive commercial rights, we should look hard at the concept of implementing a sampling program in concert with credible consulting-geologists to confirm and certify the existence of proven reserves. The purpose here would be to market the reserves to a larger public-traded mining company. In this event, we are prepared to help provide the funding and expertise to perform the sampling program. A good start would be to consider contracting with the same firm our client is using on the iron-ore project to perform the geological functions required to map and substantiate proven reserves.

B. Mining high-grade gold deposits: In the event that exclusive commercial rights on the river are not available, or a preliminary dredge-sampling survey convinces us that average reserves are not marketable, based upon what local miners are recovering from the river using primitive methods, it is a near certainty that money can be made using dredges to target high-grade gold deposits.

A preliminary dredge sampling program will be necessary whichever way we move forward with this project.

There would be several objectives in the preliminary dredge sampling program:
1. Determine if the average gold-values in the river will support a quantification program (outlined in A above) with the purpose of marketing proven reserves to a larger mining company.

2. Establish the value of high-grade deposits to get an idea how much money can be made from going right into commercial production.

3. Work out what recovery equipment will be needed to pursue either step A or B above.

4. Work out how we will harmonize a dredging program with local miners, general populations along the river, and others (government officials) who will take an interest in what we are doing.

It would be wise to allow no less than a month for the preliminary dredge sampling. To keep costs down until we confirm a commercial opportunity,if possible, I suggest we use the client’s existing structure as much as possible — meaning vehicles, local staff and the existing base camp.

To perform the preliminary sampling, we would need to hire several local dive-miners. I would like to choose them.

If possible, I would also like to hire an assistant/interpreter person who can stay with us throughout the project to help facilitate communication and coordination with locals. This might be someone that the existing geology-firm could provide. Having someone who is sincerely dedicated to projecting our intention and goodwill during the sampling project will go a long way to facilitate steady progress in the field.

Therefore, the next step is for us to find out:

A. Can we obtain exclusive commercial mining rights on the river? If so, at what cost?

B) Can we obtain permission to proceed with a suction dredge exploration program? If so, at what cost?

PumpsPumping systems used to support local high-banking operations.

If gaining permission to use a suction dredge is going to delay the project, we also have the option of proceeding with a system like what the locals are using in their high-banking operations. Just by adding an air compressor and an extended suction hose, we can adapt a sluicing operation (like what locals are using) to an underwater dredging program. In this case, we should allow a week to fabricate an improved recovery system. If we go this way, with just a little instruction, we can hire locals to do all or most of the work. So, for the most part, this would just be another local mining operation.

Having said that, using a floating dredge would be much more efficient for moving the gear around to each place that we want to sample. A 5-inch suction dredge in experienced hands will also out-produce one of those sluicing outfits about ten times over! Still, if necessary, we could get the preliminary sampling job accomplished using (for the most part) local equipment.

Dave McCracken
Underwater Mining Specialist

 
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This story first appeared in Gold & Treasure Hunter Magazine
Sep/Oct, 1996 on Page 14. This issue is still available! Click here.

By Dave McCracken

“Having the Gold Mining Adventure of a Lifetime!”

Dave & Alley

Author’s note: This story is dedicated to Alan Norton (Alley), the lead underwater mining specialist who participated in this project. Under very difficult conditions, Alan made most of the key dives which enabled us to make this a very successful venture. Alan lost part of his ear to a hungry fish one day; and the following day, Alan was making a key sampling dive again because we needed him to. There are very few people I know, if any, with more courage, dedication and enthusiasm to successfully complete a difficult mission than Alan.First came several Toyota Land Cruisers. Then, a couple of Isuzu Troopers, followed by a number of small pickup trucks. These were just in front of two large Russian troop carriers, all filled with armed troops. They came in on us fast, carrying along a big cloud of dust from the dirt road. Even before the vehicles came to a stop, soldiers were jumping out of trucks and running out to secure perimeter positions. They were carrying AK-47 machine guns, M-79 grenade launchers and Chinese rockets. I had seen these guys before. I had fought with them, and I had fought against them. They had that unmistakable look in their eyes. They would kill with little or no provocation.

Once the perimeter was secured, three generals stepped out of their Land Cruisers and enthusiastically approached us, their personal bodyguards close behind. The generals looked friendly. Their bodyguards looked seriously unfriendly! The generals, whom we had not met until now, hurried right up to me and each of my men and gave us big hugs, hand shakes and slaps on the back, like we were long lost sons. The bodyguards stood there with machine guns pointed in our general direction, doing what they were supposed to do to ward off any potential menacing threat to their leaders–which, by the way, never crossed our minds. We did the natural thing; we acted like long lost sons!

We had not been in Cambodia even for one hour before we were packed into Land Cruisers of our own and driven to Kampong Saom on the coast–which was almost half way across Cambodia. The end of the dry season had caused the water levels in the Mekong River to drop so low that deep-water ships were no longer delivering cargo to Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. Therefore, it was necessary for us to go to Cambodia’s only other deep-water port in Kampong Saom to take delivery of five full ocean shipping containers of mining and additional equipment, supplies, boats and vehicles that had been shipped over there from America to support our project.

Since nothing happens immediately in Cambodia, we ended up spending about a week at a gorgeous beach while waiting for the shipping containers to be released by Cambodian Customs. Our hosts were taking good care of us. The hotel was comfortable, the beer was cold and the crab meat was freshly cooked on the beach–and it was all we could eat. In fact, we were just about getting bored. That’s when the generals showed up.

Isn’t it amazing how fast boredom can turn to fear? After hugs and handshakes, the generals agreed it was time for target practice. They had their bodyguards throwing beer cans out into the water so they could shoot at the cans. Pretty soon, lots of people were shooting at them. The few civilians that had been enjoying the beach scurried off quickly and respectfully. Everyone was laughing and having a good time except us. We were laughing, but not sure if we were going to be the next targets! It was all too much at once. We didn’t even know these people and they were all enthusiastically shooting their guns off. We were surrounded!

Pretty soon, one of the generals handed me some kind of machine gun I had never seen before and challenged me to shoot a fresh beer can. It was the only beer can remaining on the beach! This was a tough position for me to be in; those guys were not the best shots. I calculated whether I should try to out-shoot them, which might cause the generals a loss of face in front of their men, or to miss the can and perhaps lose their respect? On an impulse, I clicked the machine gun over to full automatic and fired a short burst to find a mark, adjusted slightly, and hit the can, knocking it up into the air on the second burst. No one had used automatic fire–probably to conserve bullets. All the generals burst out in a roar of laughter, followed by all their men. Deciding to quit while I was ahead, I handed the machine gun back to the general with the clip still half-full of bullets. That was the end of target practice and the beginning of my very warm friendship with that general. About a week later in Phnom Penh, this general and his very kind family, with great ceremony, adopted me as their number-one son.

The beach was just the beginning of 60 days of non-stop adventure which took me and three of my men from one end of Cambodia to the other in search of gold and valuable gems.

As it turned out, the generals were directly involved with this exploration project–which, by the way, was the first precious metal exploration project in Cambodia since the United Nations returned control of the country to a Cambodian coalition government in late 1991. During the course of the project, it became abundantly clear that our presence, and our successful venture, was very important to these generals and the Cambodian government. Cambodia is just getting back on its feet after decades of war and agony. The country is hungry for capital investment from the east and west. Successful ventures such as ours would help facilitate that.

Our project took place in northeastern Cambodia on one of the three main tributaries of the Mekong River. We were hired to help this operation put its suction dredging equipment into production and to help find high-grade mineral deposits.

The area is remote. In fact, it is the same area America bombed in the early 1970’s (with B-52’s) to prevent the Viet Cong from moving supplies on that portion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. You just would not believe the number of bomb craters; I have never seen anything like it. In fact, up until the time of our project, I don’t believe a single bulldozer had visited that section of Cambodia since we bombed it! While these conditions probably never did slow down the Viet Cong very much, they certainly did slow us Americans down a lot! It took literally weeks for us to transport our equipment to the work-site. Trucks and trailers would disappear into craters and then come back out, one after the other, like a big roller coaster ride–only in slow motion–for hundreds of miles! It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen!

All the while, our security troops were worried about being ambushed by Khmer Rouge rebels–roving bands which were still occasionally shooting up taxis, burning bridges, robbing various business establishments and causing other acts of terror around the countryside. Our generals were very concerned to make sure there were no embarrassments on this operation. Therefore, they sent along a 300-man military force to provide security. Each of us was also assigned several personal body guards. They also issued each of my men and me our own machine guns–which we gladly took. You kind of feel naked without a weapon when everyone else is walking around with some kind of heavy fire power! Here follows some video segments that I captured of our interaction with our bodyguards and some of the troops that were assigned to our project:

By the way, the people of Cambodia are the kindest-natured people I have ever associated with. Everyone is very polite and friendly. Unless it is worth dying over, you never see an argument in Cambodia! During the entire 60 days of our project, there was not a single person I smiled at that I did not receive a heartfelt and sincere smile in return. They seem to genuinely like Americans. In fact, any product or item that says Made in America is in great demand in Cambodia–especially hats and insignia which carry American flags and symbols.

One night, we had to make an emergency dash through rebel-held territory so that we could meet a production deadline. We were driving like madmen through bomb craters, up and down, with grenade launchers and machine guns hanging out windows. Our security people were very concerned we would be ambushed. Better to be safe than sorry, I suppose. But, I never saw any direct sign of danger. Even so, the eminent concern–with guns and grenades pointed out windows, with everyone on moment-to-moment alert–created a charged atmosphere which we usually only experience on television in America.

We received incredible hospitality from native villagers in every community that we passed through or stopped to visit. Many villagers had never seen white men before. You have to remember that Cambodia, for the most part, lost an entire generation of people to the Khmer Rouge regime. Locals told us the ratio of women to men in Cambodia is five to one, because the men were either killed in war or murdered. That ratio is about how it appeared to me.

The equipment we sent there to use for sampling took a very heavy beating during the trip across Cambodia. The axles we mounted on the dredge platforms were badly bent from being dragged through hundreds of craters, and there was quite a lot of other damage, too. So we found ourselves staged for about a week in the last town before we would reach the river. This was a place where various supplies and services were still available. There, my men and I supervised final repairs and preparations for our sampling program. It is very challenging to do this sort of thing in an environment where most of your helpers do not think the same as you do, and do not speak any of your language:

Between the delays at Customs, the painstaking trip across war-torn Cambodia with the equipment, and the time we had to spend repairing gear at the final staging area, we only had about 2 weeks remaining to accomplish what we went to Cambodia for in the first place. A final distance to the river of 35 kilometers does not sound like very far; but in Cambodia, where anything and everything can go wrong; this last 22 miles still seemed like a long way to go. Even so, there was a lot of excitement when we had everything ready and began our final journey to the river from the last bit of civilization that we would see. The following video segments demonstrate the excitement that we were all feeling to finally get started on our dredge sampling program:

Along the way to the river, we started seeing lots of diggings alongside the road. We thought the holes were water wells at first, because they were perfectly round and uniformly about 2 ½ feet in diameter. Then we realized they must have been something else, because there were so many, and they were positioned so closely together. We stopped to take a look as soon as we saw some locals actively working inside one of the holes. These turned out to be sapphire miners! They were digging about 10 meters down to bedrock and recovering handfuls of pretty blue stones from the bottom gravels. These miners were selling their gemstones for mere pennies (Me and my guys were buying!). We found out these miners were from the Cambodian hill tribes; jungle dwellers that pretty-much are the same as they have been for hundreds or thousands of years. A number of humanitarian groups are now present in Cambodia attempting to prevent the modern world from impacting too dramatically upon these ancient tribal people. The following video segment captured some dialog that we had with a few of the sapphire miners. It presents a good example of how simple and kind the people are from the Cambodian hill tribes:

Immediately upon our arrival at the river, we realized that we had 2 serious problems to overcome. The first was that there was about a 10-meter drop from the bank down to the active river. There was no ramp or other simple way to launch the 10-inch dredge and special recovery platform that we brought with us for this job. Not wanting to use our security force for this, we immediately set out to hire around 30 men from the local hill tribe village to dig a ramp. That exercise took about 6 days to accomplish. So we were not going to have use of the big dredge until the final week of our project.

Our second serious problem was that the (sizable) river water was running mud-brown. We did not know it at the time, but there was some active dam construction happening upstream in Vietnam. The ongoing construction was turning the river to mud-water. That meant that we were not going to have any visibility underwater. There is a way to get the work done in dirty water; but besides the serious safety problems associated with dredging blind on the bottom of deep tropical rivers, you have to do everything by feel. This slows you down to just a fraction of what you can accomplish with some underwater visibility. This was going to be a difficult mission to accomplish!

All travel on the river from our base camp had to be accomplished by boat. The boat that we arranged broke down on our first trip downriver to survey the area. As it was just before dark on our return to camp, and the mechanical problem seemed pretty serious, we actually started making plans to sleep on a sand bar that was located out in the middle of the river, maybe 5 miles away from our camp. With no dinner and no shelter from the mosquitoes, it was a pretty bleak feeling out there. I captured the following video segment just as our guide was suggesting that we spend the night there on the sand bar. Fortunately, they got the boat motor operating just as darkness was almost complete. It sure felt good to finally arrive back at camp that night where there was a hot meal and perfectly good tent waiting for each of us:

While we were doing our initial survey downriver, we came upon a local river mining operation that was using a long-handled (about 15 feet long) shovel, suspended by a floating platform made of bamboo. This dredge was being used to excavate sand off the bottom of the river. The locals called this a “Vietnam dredge,” because the river mining technology had been imported by miners across the border in Vietnam. Almost the entire dredge was made out of materials from the jungle. Even the lines being used to tie off the dredge out in the river were made from jungle vines. The only part of the dredge we could see that was from our modern world was the head of the shovel. That looked to be fashioned from the car hood of a bombed-out jeep. This river location was part of the Ho Chi Minh trail. So there were plenty of bombed-out jeeps around, and some ruined Vietnamese tanks, too. In fact, there was a lot of painful history here!

Author and several team-members trying out a “Vietnam Dredge,” made from bamboo, which local miners use to bring gold off the bottom of the river.

Upon discovery of the local river mining program, we immediately took the opportunity to make friends with the local miners and the elders of their village. This is standard procedure anytime we are performing an preliminary evaluation in a new area. While their methods might sometimes be somewhat primitive compared to ours, I have found more often than not that hundreds (or thousands) of years of local mining experience has given the miners who occupy an area a strong perception of where the richest gold areas are located. We did not have much time remaining to make a rich discovery for our clients. Any head start the locals could give us would surely be a welcome development! Ultimately, the locals told us that their dredge was positioned along the strongest line of gold that they knew of in the river. That was a big help!

To get an idea of how much gold they were talking about, we accepted their invitation to go down and operate their Vietnamese dredge for a little while. The following video segment captured my guys running the local production equipment. It worked by pushing the shovel down into the sand, and then using a make-shift windless to raise the river-bottom material to the surface. There, local wooden gold pans were used to process the material:

While the local miners were recovering a fair amount of gold from the river-bottom sand deposits, their success did not appear to help us very much. This was because we wanted to sample for the high-grade gold deposits which are almost always located at the bottom of hard-packed streambed layers. In working their Vietnamese dredge for awhile, it did not take very long for us to realize that the long-handled shovel would not penetrate the hard-packed streambed material that was under the sand. Too bad!

5″ Pro-Mack Sampling Dredge

Still, knowing where local miners were supporting their villages with gold from the river gave us a starting point. The following day, we moved two 5-inch special sampling dredges onto the river some distance downstream from where the locals were mining, but directly in line with them so that we had a better chance of sampling on the strongest path of gold in the river

My guys were initially quite challenged by going down into the pitch blackness along the bottom of a muddy, tropical river. Because there is zero visibility down there, everything must be done by feel. This is not easy to do, because your imagination cranks up into overdrive about what might be lingering around down there to bite or eat you in the dark. Remember those horrific nightmares you had when you were a kid? That stuff doesn’t ever go away. The terror is still present; it is just buried. Going by yourself down to the bottom of a tropical river in total darkness, and having to feel your way around to figure out what is down there, energizes all you nightmarish fears right back to the surface. It is difficult to do what you are supposed to do down there with all this internal fear playing out inside of you! It takes courage and a lot of discipline.

So my guys challenged themselves with acquiring some preliminary sample results using the 5-inch dredges, while I was pulling the 10-inch dredge together and installing a special shaker table in the base camp that we would be needing to process large samples. The table needed to be anchored in concrete. All of this took several days. Time was running out!

On the second day of sampling, our lead diver, Alley Norton, touched down in some hard-pack and came up with a pretty good showing of gold. The following day, I encouraged Ally to go back down and open up the hole (get a bigger sample). We had to keep dredgers separated while sampling, to avoid someone getting smacked with a cobble being tossed in the dark. There simply is no way to tell where anyone else is when you are dredging in muddy water. Alley’s hard work and enthusiasm paid off. Considering how small his sample actually was because of the dirty water, he recovered a lot of gold! We had located high-grade!

I captured these following video segments towards the end of the third day of sampling:

As we had less than a week remaining to accomplish our mission, we all focused the next several days placing the 10-inch dredge and platform into the water. The local help had completed our launch ramp according to plan. Wow, was that a lot of work! Once the big dredge and recovery system were floating in the river, we still had to dial it all in to get it working right. This was particularly important with the sophisticated recovery system that we had brought along for this job.

Before opening up Alley’s discovery with a production sample, we needed to make sure the recovery system was working right. This all took another two days, because the large volume of sand from the bottom of the river was overwhelming the gravel pump that was supposed to transfer classified material to the recovery system. This problem required us to get very creative in the middle of the jungle. Through some trial and error, we constructed several water blasters to inject water into the feed of the gravel pump. This made sure that enough water was going into the feed to keep sand from packing up in there. While all of this took up valuable time, we had to get the big dredging system fully functioning before using it to perform the final production samples in Alley’s rich discovery

We only had 2 days remaining on the project when we finally floated the big dredge over Alley’s rich discovery. Talking about racing against the clock! So while Alley went down in 6 meters of underwater darkness to suck up the sample, I stayed up on deck to fine tune the dredge’s recovery system. You can only put one diver down on a big, powerful dredge in dark water. So our other guys helped where it was needed. Alley spent several hours opening up a large hole through about 2 meters of loose sand. Our plan was to first pump most of the sand off the hard-packed streambed material where Alley had found the gold. Then we were planning to flush the sand completely out of the recovery system before dredging up the pay-dirt. This was to minimize gold losses because of too much sand overwhelming the system at once.

We were making good progress on our plan. But about half way through the day, Alley climbed back onto the dredge with a lot of blood flowing down the right side of his head and face. A pretty sizable chunk of his right ear was missing and it was bleeding profusely! Blood was actually squirting out with the pulse of his heart! He said while operating the dredge’s suction nozzle on the bottom of the river, it felt like a submerged log with rough bark brushed by his head, scraping his ear. When he reached up to touch where the pain was coming from, he could feel that a part of his ear was gone. That’s when he came to the surface. Seeing all that blood and the bite out of Alley’s ear was very dramatic for everyone that was present.

Back at camp, we bandaged Alley up as best we could. We always bring a substantial medical kit with us on these projects. We applied antibiotics just to be safe. Alley said the pain was not too bad. He was mostly worried about how ugly it was all going to look later. I would have been worried about that, too! There wasn’t anything else we were going to do about that situation out in the jungle, though. So we decided to set aside that problem for another time. We were going to depart Cambodia in a few days, anyway.

Collectively, my guys and I decided it was wise to not do any more diving in the river until we found out what bit Alley. Whatever it was, there was a chance that we could still salvage the sampling project by wearing more protective gear while underwater. We still had one more day available to perform a final production sample!

As none of our bodyguards or the other military guys in camp seemed to have any idea what bit Alley, we decided to drive the motor boat up to the hill tribe village where the Vietnamese dredge was operating. We had already made friends with the villagers and elders there. Once there, we removed the bandage from Alley’s ear to show the elders, and they immediately knew what bit him. They told us that there is a fresh water blow fish that lives on clams at the bottom of the river. Apparently, this type of fish must have come alongside Alan’s head; and in the very poor visibility, thought his ear was a clam. One bite and there it went. The villagers assured us we would have no further problem with that fish if we started wearing hoods, gloves and full face helmets in the river while it was muddy.

Afterwards, we heard the story of one of our military men bathing naked in the river and losing his vital organ. Apparently, the man had just been married several weeks before. Luckily, we had been taking our showers up on the bank!

When we arrived at their village, the local people were busy preparing for a “grand celebration” that was to take place that evening. All of us were invited to attend, and it would have been impolite for us to decline their kind hospitality. The celebration turned out to be a funeral ceremony for one of their important elders who had died 3 years before. I have seen similar traditions in Madagascar, where the big celebration of someone’s life happens by the whole village several years after the person dies. These hill tribe people were busy decorating a whole shrine that would be dedicated to the person, carving all sorts of symbols relating to the important things the person lived through. Interestingly, the biggest symbols I recognized were American military helicopters and B-52 bombers. No doubt, the later part of the Vietnam war must have been a very traumatic time for these very simple hill tribe villages, with the Viet Cong using their river for a highway, and the Americans dropping thousands of tons of bombs all around.

These people seemed nothing but pleased to have us Americans present, so we accepted their invitation to participate in their party that evening. Indeed, the party turned out to be one of the most interesting events I have ever been part of. A center covered circle had been built for the people who wanted to express their grief over the loss of a loved one. Inside that area, there were around 20 people who were crying and almost howling in deep grief. Outside the circle, the rest of the village paraded round and round in a dance in joyous celebration of the person’s life.

My guys and I jumped in with the outer group. They were beating on different-sounding chimes to make their traditional music. The sound was so interesting that I captured it on tape. The occasion was something I am sure that none of us will ever forget. We were honored that they allowed us to participate in such an important tribal event. They were honored that we joined in with them. It was a wonderful bonding experience between us and remote villagers of the deep jungles of Cambodia. The following video segment and audio segment capture some of our hill tribe friends as they were preparing for the party, and then capture some of the music and feelings that we shared together that evening:

Hill Tribe Music:

The following morning found our team back on the 10-inch dredge, preparing to perform one last production sample. This was our last day to accomplish what we went there to do. So much effort and money had been invested to transport this fantastic equipment halfway across the world, through some of the most difficult circumstances on the planet; only to finally arrive on our last day right over top of what appeared to be a very rich gold deposit.

It was so important that we get the best possible production sample, Alley insisted that he take the first dive. He had started the sample on the previous morning, so he knew the layout of the hole in the total darkness of the river bottom. Total darkness down there would have required either of my other two guys to spend valuable time figuring out what Ally had already done. As this gold deposit was really Ally’s personal discovery, we agreed that he would take the first dive of the day to open up his hole. I would spend that time dialing in the recovery system as well as I could. Then I would finish the sample during the afternoon with a second long dive. My other two guys were content to support us from the surface. I don’t think they were quite over the emotional shock of Alley’s blood and guts from the day before. Who could blame them?

As I knew this would be a memorable occasion that none of us would ever forget, I captured some video of Alley bravely overcoming his fears and going back down into the deep black hole that attacked him on the previous day, something very few people would do. You will see from the following video segments how good the production dredging equipment was that we managed to place on top of that rich gold deposit. I believe the recovery system was the most sophisticated that had ever been used with a suction dredge up until that time. It was truly a miracle that we ever got the equipment there, or that we found such a high-grade gold deposit under those difficult conditions. With all that we had been through, in my world, there was no other choice but to perform that final production sample:

After a few hours of diving, Alley came to the surface; because his ear was throbbing in so much pain, that he said he could no longer focus on what needed to be done on the bottom of the river. By then, the recovery system was dialed in as well as we were going to get it. So I suited-up and went down into Alley’s deep, black hole. This was actually my first dive on this entire project. During the week or so that we had been on the river, there were just too many other things that needed to be accomplished which only I could do to bring everything together in time for this final production sample. So there I was, taking the last and most important dive of the whole project!

I will never forget in military jump school, the first time I bailed out of an airplane. It was one of those situations where I really did not have much of a choice. But looking way down there at the ground made jumping feel totally wrong. My body did not want to do it. So it was necessary for me to flick some internal emotional switch, override my natural instincts, and just force the body to make the jump. Going down into deep muddy water is much the same; the body does not want to do it!

I have actually done quite a few dredging projects where it has been necessary to perform the underwater work in muddy water. It is never easy! Especially when the water is deep! It was around 6 meters just to the bottom of this dirty river. That is a long way to go down in the dark. I worked my way down there slowly by following the suction hose, which is where I knew that Alley had left off. When I reached the suction nozzle, I rotated my body around it in a circle, feeling around with my legs and feet to try and find Alley’s dredge hole. Letting go of the nozzle was something I was not prepared to do, because it was the only thing that gave me a reference point down there in the total darkness. Also, feeling around tentatively with steel-tipped work boots felt safer than reaching out in the dark with my hands!

I soon found that Alley’s hole was just off to one side of the nozzle. Experienced dredger that he is, Alley knew better than to leave an unattended suction nozzle down inside of a dredge hole in the sand. The walls never stop sliding in on sand-excavations or loose gravel. If you leave a suction nozzle down inside of one, within just a short time, the suction nozzle and hose will be overwhelmed and buried. That would have been the end of this project. There was not enough time remaining to dig a hose out of the sand in the dark!

Once I found Alley’s hole, I memorized where the suction nozzle was positioned several feet away, and then I followed the edge of the hole all the way around to get some idea how big it was. This was the hard part, because it meant that I had to reach out and feel everything with my hands. All that blood pouring down the side of Alley’s face the day before was vividly on my mind! There were creatures down there with serious teeth! Here is where I had to flick another fear-switch off and just do the work. These fear switches are not really turned off. They are just suspended. I speak from bad experience. Depending upon how many of your internal fear-switches are in suspension, it just takes one small event to turn them all back on into nightmarish panic and terror. I have been there. It is not fun!

Reaching out meant feeling out as far as I could outside the outer edge of Alley’s hole to make sure there were no boulders up there that would roll in on me in the dark. I did not find any. Slowly but surely, I explored all of Alley’s hole by feel. It was pretty big; maybe 30 feet in diameter at the surface, funneling down to a center point about 2 meters deep. Alley had pumped a lot of sand! Before I went down, he told me that he touched down on the hard-pack streambed at the bottom of his hole, but that the sand kept sliding in on him. So he had not been able to get a sample of the hard-pack, yet. This was for me to do!

I invested about 2 hours into taking a sizable cut off the front and one side of Alley’s hole, working the sand back step-by-step in the darkness. I wanted to uncover enough surface area of the hard-pack as possible. This was so that further sand-slides would not prevent me from getting a good sample of the hard-pack. With time, I started uncovering the hard-pack. This is where the loose sand met the cobbles, boulders and gravel that were tightly compacted together. Though I could not see it, it felt just like the hard-pack we dredge along our properties in California.

While the dredge was plenty powerful enough to pull apart the compacted streambed material, my progress was slow. This is because I could not see the oversized rocks that had to be moved out of the way, and I could not put my hands out in front of the nozzle in the dark without getting them hurtfully banged up. Mainly, I just poked around down there in the dark to suck up anything that would go up the nozzle. Each time a loose cobble would block the nozzle opening, I would wrestle it off and put it behind me. It was not long before I had more loose cobbles behind me than I could manage. It was too far to throw them out of the hole, and trying to pack them out would have caused more sand to slide in. So I just juggled everything around down there the best I could, determined to get as much of that hard-pack up the nozzle as possible. Ultimately, my progress became overwhelmed by loose cobbles in the hole and sand sliding in from the sides. I had not reached bedrock, but I did get a fair sample of the material that Alley had touched down upon with the 5-inch dredge several days before. By my measurements in the dark, I estimate that I sampled less than a cubic meter of hard-packed material. That was all we were going to get under those difficult circumstances. It was a good feeling to finish what we had traveled so far to do.

The guys turned the dredge down when I reached the surface. I had to wait at the ladder for the longest time to allow my eyes to adjust to the bright sunny day. As I was waiting, my guys were making a lot of enthusiastic noise about visible gold in the recovery system. When I finally was able to see again, I climbed up onto the dredge to see that the entire recovery system was inundated with a thick layer of small golden flakes. It was, by far, the most gold I have ever seen recovered out of such a small volume of gravel. This place was rich!

We had just enough time before dark to run our concentrates over the shaker table back at camp. Everyone there experienced an incredible feeling of pride. Under very difficult circumstances, against all odds, we stuck it out right until the last hour to make this project a success. Watching all that rich gold flow across the shaker table had all of us in awe about how rich this river is. Who would have ever guessed? Right there on the Ho Chi Minh trail! While I am sorry to have missed capturing the gold-laden recovery system on the dredge, I was able to recover myself enough to capture the following video segment of the final clean-up. To put it in perspective, our small sample caused that shaker table to flow gold like that for a full 15 minutes!

We returned to civilization the following morning, and departed Cambodia a few days later.

Follow ups:

A short time later, our clients met with some serious misfortune by aligning themselves with the losing side in a power struggle over who would control the government in Cambodia. While they survived the events, they have been banned from the country forever.

Shortly after my clients found themselves in big trouble, all of the equipment and supplies we sent over (that they paid for in advance) were taken away. The only thing remaining there today that shows we were ever even present is part of a steel frame from one of the large floatation platforms. Everything else is long gone.

The wars in Cambodia are now long over. The people there are very friendly. You do not see guns there anymore. People are focused on getting ahead in business. They want to be like America. The government is trying hard to attract foreign investment.

Nothing since our project has been done to develop the deposit that we located. Although the government of Cambodia has offered to make an exploration license available, I have yet to raise the high-risk capital necessary to go back over and do something about what we found

I made a special trip back to the site of our discovery 2 years ago. The bad roads have been replaced with a highway! Schools have been built in the village communities. The people out there were happy to see me. Most importantly, dam construction in Viet Nam was finished and the river was running clear!

While I was out there, I hired a local boat to take me downriver to see if anyone was doing anything with our deposit. Nobody was there. Even the Viet Nam dredges were gone! It appears that my guys and I were the only ones whoever really understood the significance of what we found there. Local miners cannot access the rich material using their technology. With clear water, we could process hundreds of times more hard-pack in a day than what I sampled down there in the dark.

The following video segment was taken in the very place where the earlier segment showed us operating the dredge:

Alley and his brother are now managing a successful concrete business in Phoenix, Arizona. He never did anything to fix the bite out of his ear. Now he says the tattered look gives him personality and character. Since nobody will believe he had his ear nearly bitten off by a clam-eating fish while prospecting for gold at the bottom of a muddy river in the jungles of Cambodia in the middle of a war along the ancient Ho Chi Minh trail, he now just tells people that his ear was bitten off by someone while fighting in a bar on the north side of Phoenix. That’s already more adventure than most people can handle!

Note: This story was pulled together from the non-proprietary portion of an initial report from a preliminary evaluation of a potential production dredging project in Northeastern Cambodia. The opportunity to do something with this prospect still exists.

 

 

BY HELEN PETERS

They are doing what each of them wants to do, they’re doing it together, and making a living at it!

 

When she was a girl, Joy Cole’s dad took her along on his gold prospecting trips. She shared his excitement when they found the precious stuff, and from him learned to know and love the western lands that hid its glory from the casual seeker.

Ed Cole grew up in Massachusetts, far from the lore and lure of gold. Even after serving seventeen years in the Navy, teaching telemetry at the Federal Electric Corporation, and working for Northrup, what he knew or cared about gold wouldn’t have quivered a troy weight scale.

Today, Joy and Ed have combined their interests, expertise, and abilities into a profitable connection with gold and gold mining. They’re a modern gold mining success story.

“Ten years ago,” Ed says, “I didn’t even know what a gold pan was. A friend’s wife was working in a publishing house that published treasure magazines. I started reading them and became interested in the whole idea. The more I read, the more interested I got.”

Joy, a petite, pretty gal with sparkling eyes, believes there’s more to it than that. She gets hunches. Maybe it has something to do with the close touch she’s had with the land, the love of it formed in those years she spent prowling and exploring with her father. She doesn’t apologize for respecting those feelings we can’t always explain.

“A friend of mine went to a gold show,” she recalls. “He took a picture of a truck with his camera. It was a dazzling gold affair with the word ‘Goldfinders’ painted across it. Many months later, when we first met, Ed showed me this picture. It was his truck. Guess who was walking up the path in the picture? Me!”

“And,” she continues, “as we got to know each other, we discovered that the last four digits of his store’s telephone were the same as the last four digits of my home phone.”

Joy felt it was karma, or fate, that brought them together; and the way things were going for Ed at the time, he’d probably agree.

After being bitten by the treasure bug through his reading, Ed invested in some silver. When its value started rising, he got excited about precious metals. In addition, he’d just sold his house for a tidy profit, made a windfall playing the then-popular Pyramid Game; and having little love for his 9-5 existence, decided to become a gold miner. “I didn’t know gold from mica, but I quit my job, bought a dredge, a wet suit, the whole nine yards, and went to Placerville to make my living mining gold.”

When he got there, he found it wasn’t quite that easy. “Here I am, and I don’t know how to do it, where to do it, or anyone who can show me. I ended up giving this guy $500 cash, with a promise to give him the first ounce of gold I got working his 20-acre claim.”

When he put his dredge in the river, there were four other hopefuls there before him—all working the same 20-acre claim. Ed’s weathered face breaks into a grin remembering his initiation into gold mining. “That guy never got any first ounce of my gold, because I never made an ounce that whole year!”

When winter came, Ed stopped mining. He still had plenty of money in the bank and nothing to do. He thought, “Here I am in Placerville, in the Mother Lode, and there’s not a mining supply store in town.” He decided to open one. In December, “Goldfinders” became a reality.

Then, when Spring came, Ed found himself living a familiar scenario. “I’m stuck in this damn store. I had quit my job before because I hated 9 to 5, and here I am—back to it again. I decide, the hell with this, sold everything, and went back to mining.” Ed holds up his toddy glass in salute, leaving it to you to decide which decision, quitting or starting, he’s drinking to.

Meanwhile, Joy’s love of rock-hounding and gold prospecting was keeping her out on the land she loved. After she was widowed, she became active in various gold prospecting and rockhounding clubs, was mining in the Coolgardie mining district in Barstow, and selling her own line of gold jewelry.

A fellow operating gravel pits along the Columbia River asked her to tell him how to recover the fine gold he was losing in his operation. Joy says, “A geologist had been out there and suggested he consult someone who could tell him how to save it. I turned out to be the ‘someone’.”

About this time, a friend approached her and asked her opinion of a separating device he’d invented. “The price of gold is going up,” she told him, “If it works, it’ll sell.” Joy was right. After some adjustments were made to the Gold Hawk Rocking Gold Pan, as it was called, they took it to the Coloma Gold Show where, she says, “It sold like hotcakes.”

Her reputation as a knowledgeable small-scale gold miner was growing, as well as her expertise in collectors’ items, gold bullion, silver and jewelry.

She and Ed first met at this show, and their common interest in gold mining and gold shows kept bringing them together.By now, not able to make a living at gold mining, Ed was back at a 9-5 job, locked into a lifestyle he hated. Weekends and vacation-time helped ease the tedium. Ed and Joy formed a partnership and mined together in the Coolgardie district. “It was kind of interesting,” she recalls, “what with the Mojave greens (rattlesnakes) and all.” In 1982 they added another facet to their gold mining partnership. They married.

Ed recalls how much he wanted to mine full time. “Gold mining was what I wanted to do, but I didn’t think I could make a living at it.” However, after months of discussion and indecision, they decided to go ahead. They said “good-bye,” to 9-5; “hello” to the goldfields.

During the years they’ve been mining full time, they’ve gained knowledge and experience in almost every aspect of small-scale gold mining.

Together, they’ve owned and worked heavy equipment, they’ve dry-washed, dredged and sniped. They have even drift-mined, something few small-scale gold miners have ever heard about, no less done. Today, most of their mining is the with a motorized sluice.

They are sought-after speakers for gold and treasure clubs. They give workshops and seminars for inexperienced miners. And, they willingly share their knowledge with anyone who is interested.

Joy has created beauty from the gold they work out of the earth. Her jewelry has found appreciative buyers, mainly because her work is different from most. “I don’t like doing the same as everyone else, “ she says. “I like to be an innovator, not an imitator. Once I see some of the things I’ve created being picked up by others, I create something new, different.”

Ed has invented a number of important gold and work-saving mining devices, some born of Joy’s suggestions.

Ed has very definite ideas about where small-scale gold mining is, and should be, going. He makes it clear he speaks for himself, not his wife, nor any gold mining organization. “There seems to be a feeling out there that the small-scale miner is getting something he’s really not entitled to. I don’t feel this way. I believe this is our land; it’s public land, we pay taxes on it, and small, recreational miners have as much right to mine it as big companies do.

“I think the only way the small-miner miner is going to keep his right to mine is to somehow get every treasure and gold prospecting club into one organization to fight for our right to use the public lands. It needs an organization with paid people—lawyers, administrators, public relations professionals—to do this. If we don’t pull it together now, we’re not going to have it later.” Ed raises his toddy, and we drink to that.

They are a complex couple, each complementing the other, each learning and doing with the other’s support. Ed is the consummate rebel. He left the Navy, on principle, three years before he would have been eligible for retirement and secure lifetime benefits. He broke from security and the established path to mine gold, a chancy occupation, at best.

Joy is a beautiful lady, like quicksilver, with a bubbling laugh and boundless enthusiasm for her lifestyle—a woman who counts a day lost if she hasn’t learned something new during the course of it.

Joy and Ed Cole represent what’s best in the small-scale mining field today. As self-employers, they bring dedication and persistence to what they’re doing, and wouldn’t think of doing anything else.

As miners, they bring independence, hard work, and respect for the environment in which they work. As entrepreneurs, they bring mining innovations and inventions to the market place. And as thinkers, they bring an awareness that, although government giveth, government can also taketh away.

 

“An interview with Jim Swinney; one of the world’s most successful electronic gold prospectors.”

Jim Swinney

 

WHAT CAUSED YOU TO TAKE UP METAL DETECTING AGAIN?

About 20 years ago, I owned a Garrett metal detector. I used to suction dredge for gold, first using the metal detector to locate “hot spots.” At that time I never used a metal detector to search for gold nuggets.

DID YOU SAY YOU USED A METAL DETECTOR FOR DREDGING?

Yes, I would find a hot spot using a Garrett, and then I’d take the dredge the following weekend and dredge out the location.

USING AN UNDERWATER GARRETT?

Yeah. That worked really well, but I got busy doing other things for a good many years and eventually sold my Garrett. Then I met Gordon Zahara here in Happy Camp. We started trading information. He wanted to know how to find jade. He taught me metal detecting and his technique. In exchange, I taught him how to mine jade!

DID YOU LEARN A LOT OF SECRETS (“TRICKS”) FROM GORDEN?

Gordon is probably one of the most skilled detectorists I have ever seen. I don’t think there is anybody around that can beat him. He is the best, and I learned a lot from him.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN METAL DETECTING IN THE HAPPY CAMP AREA?

I think it’s been about five or six years in this area.

ABOUT HOW MANY OUNCES DID YOU AVERAGE WITHIN THOSE FIVE YEARS?

I generally average about 20 ounces of gold in a season. But I only do it during my off-hours from a normal job. However, last season I topped that at 72 ounces! My biggest find was a 14-ounce nugget, and ALL 72 ounces were local, Siskiyou County Gold.

DO YOU CONSIDER THIS AREA GOOD FOR METAL DETECTING?

This area is virtually untapped when it comes to electronic prospecting for gold! The old-timers got 10 to 20 percent of the gold, but many old places around here have been completely forgotten. There are vast amounts of old mines, tailing piles and old hydraulic-mining areas that people do not realize are here. Thousands of them! Most people generally don’t know what they are looking for. They will buy a detector, take it out, work it once or twice; and that’s the end of it. They don’t find anything. Then they stick their detector in their clothes closet and forget that they own it. This is the worst thing they can do! There are thousands of places in Siskiyou County where you can metal detect for beautiful gold nuggets. There is no doubt in my mind that it is one of the best areas available today! The New 49’ers Prospecting Organization possess many, many miles of really good prospecting areas for metal detecting. Most of it has yet to be carefully looked over with modern electronic gear!

WHAT IS YOUR SPECIAL, PERSONAL TECHNIQUE FOR DETECTING IN THIS “VERY HOT,” MINERALIZED AREA?

If you can hunt here, you can probably hunt anywhere. We have hot ground that is phenomenally hot. We also have ground that is not so hot. You have to pick your areas. If one detector does not work very well in a given area, try a different detector. All detectors work a little bit differently; even the same brands. Two (Whites) GoldMasters act a little differently. I don’t just use one detector. I use a number of machines that work for gold. I stick to a couple of brands that I know work on hot ground.

WHICH TWO BRANDS DO YOU USE?

I use the White’s GoldMaster and the Fisher Gold Bug II. Those are the two that I predominately use. As I said, I haven’t used the Minelab very much. But I know others are doing very well with them.

DO YOU PREFER A PARTICULAR TIME OF THE YEAR FOR METAL DETECTING?

I detect year-around, usually on the weekends. I do it right in the middle of winter; rain, snow, sleet or hale. My normal job is with the US Forest Service.

WHEN DID YOU MOVE INTO THE HAPPY CAMP AREA?

Ten or twelve years ago, but I’ve been coming to this area for about thirty years to hunt for jade.

DO YOU HAVE ANY GOOD ADVICE FOR A NOVICE WANTING TO GET INTO METAL DETECTING? WHAT MIGHT YOU SAY TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO KEEP GOING AND NOT PUT THEIR METAL DETECTOR IN THE CLOSET?

Yes; keep your personal hopes up. It’s vital to approach gold prospecting with a positive attitude!

Also, look for the little pieces of gold. Find those little two and three-grain pieces. Those are your “bread and butter” pieces. If you can find the little pieces, you are not going to miss the big ones! Look for the “ochre-colored (bright red dirt) pockets.”

WHAT POCKETS?

The ochre pockets, which are rich, deep-red, mineralized dirt-mainly, iron pyrite pockets. In this country, the natural gold targets you are going to find with a metal detector are often mixed-in with iron pyrites. These pockets can contain 20-40% gold! Ochre pockets are superb! If you find one nugget, like the 14-ounce one we pulled out; don’t just pull that one nugget out! Carefully remove it without disturbing too much of the ground. Literally three feet around that one nugget there will be twice as much weight in smaller disseminated gold. Don’t walk off with just that one nugget! Take the ground around it with you!

Most people won’t be looking for the red (ochre) dirt. They think it is iron. They will bypass it with their detectors because it is not easy to detect in. If there is gold there, their detectors will pick it up anyway. This ochre-colored dirt is what the Indians used for war-paint.

CAN YOU THINK OF ANY OTHER METAL DETECTING TIPS?

Yes, learn to identify hot rocks in every detecting area. After a while, you will be hunting 20 feet ahead of yourself. You’ll know what rocks are hot for your detector and you can kick them aside. You won’t have to run your detector over them; because you will already know they are hot. You’ll be able to identify them. That’s one “trick” I use quite a bit to save time.

Mineralized ground is where your gold is. Most people try to find an area they can hunt comfortably. They bypass highly mineralized spots, not realizing that’s where the gold is!

When old-timers hydraulically sluiced the ground; they moved it. Look for old races, older mines and boom tailing dumps. Don’t go in tunnels. There’s too much slippage; they’re unsafe! They’re not shored up-Stay Out! Detect the dumps and tailing piles. Find out where there are hand-cobbled piles. If they hand -cobbled every piece and didn’t see any gold, they threw it down unless it was really heavy. If they couldn’t see the gold, nine times out of ten they just chucked it! Most of the ore out of the high-grade mines was hand cobbled; each piece was examined. Find these areas. Then find a comfortable spot with a little pile of rocks. That’s where they sat and looked at them. Almost every old mine will have one.

THAT’S A REALLY GOOD TIP! WHAT ABOUT LOCATING OLD ARRASTRAS, TOO?

Yep; you can do that, too. There aren’t many left here in Siskiyou County. There are a few, but not many. The older Geological Surveys, especially the circa 1945 issues, can give you an idea of where some of the older mines exist. Talk to the old-timers-the old folks. They are a wealth of information! Go to a rest home to find them if you have to. I’m serious! The more information you get regarding your areas, the better off you are. Those old folks; they really know the area. Their minds are as sharp as tacks, nine times out of ten, even though their bodies aren’t. They remember things, and are a wealth of information.

DO YOU USE ANY SPECIAL TOOLS?

Yes, I use a Tupperware plastic cup for finding the nuggets. I use a small hand rake (teeth on one side, flat on the other) and a couple of small shovels. Primarily, you just need hand tools. Once you scrape the ground to find your nuggets, you also must have a plastic cup. Your detector is so hot, it picks the salts and metals from your hands.

SO, YOU DON’T WEAR ANY JEWELRY?

No; I don’t wear any jewelry. I don’t even wear a belt buckle. I wear tennis shoes to avoid metal eyelets. Don’t carry keys in your pocket. Definitely, don’t wear steel-toed boots! Occasionally, you’ll forget and leave a ring on, and you’ll register false targets for a while, but you won’t find anything. Suddenly, you’ll look on your finger…OOPS! I’ve done that.

If you are walking up a steep hill, swinging your detector with your belt buckle on, you might pick up your belt buckle! On steeper slopes, you can even start picking up your keys –and even the gold fillings in your teeth! It’s those little things that can throw you completely off course. Can you imagine; the signals you are receiving might just be caused by the fillings in your teeth!

COULD A MOUTHPIECE BE INVENTED TO MASK “HOT TEETH?”

I don’t know about that. I do know one thing, however: One of the areas where I go to detect, we do find some good, visible gold. You can pry it out with a pocket knife, but it will not register on any detector. I have tried four different brands of detectors, but there was something in the rock that literally “nullified” the signal. It is undetectable!

HAVE YOU IDENTIFIED THE HOST ROCK OF THIS GOLD?

No. I don’t have a clue what it is. I have found two deposits like this, so far. It’s amazing! You know that your detector will pick up two small grains of gold, but you are looking at a large rock loaded with gold and your detector won’t pick it up. I suspect it might be a graphite-like substance, but I really don’t know.

So, if the rock feels heavy, I would suggest that you take it home and break it open, just like the old-timers did. Sometimes detectors won’t pick gold up when it is associated with certain types of mineral. This is true for all brands.

I LIKE THAT…”IF IT FEELS HEAVY, TAKE IT HOME!”

Yep, if it feels heavy, take it home. Gold is heavy. It’s amazing! You find a small clunker and drop it in your hand. It feels like a small fishing weight

We also have silver in this area. Sometimes you can pick up native silver on your detector. A lot of the time, you’ll have a mixture of silver and tellurium with the gold. This makes a beautiful specimen. It is gorgeous! You can literally pour a bar of silver out of it.

DOES YOUR WIFE METAL DETECT?

Yes. I took her to the beach the other day and she found her first target! She found a truck-a little toy truck. She was very excited.

If both you and your partner like to mine, go ahead and get two detectors. Sooner or later you will need them both. If you run two detectors side-by-side, use two detectors such as the GoldMaster V-SAT. The GoldMaster V-SAT has two different frequencies. You can change the frequency, and then work side-by-side. Otherwise, you have to stay about 20-feet away from each other, maybe even farther. This is one reason I use different detectors. In the past, they didn’t make detectors with changeable frequencies. Now they do.

The iron indicator on the GoldMaster 2V-SAT probably can’t be beat. If you have iron shale that is close to the surface, don’t believe any of your iron indicators. Dig every target. If that nugget is lying on iron shale, you will read iron, and you will not register the target.

DO YOU PREFER TO HUNT ALONG RIDGES OR IN STREAMBEDS?

Anywhere, there are old diggings! That’s what I look for …old diggings.

DO YOU DO HISTORICAL RESEARCH?

Yes. As I said, I talk to the old-timers wherever I can find them. Go to the libraries, historical societies and newspaper offices. Research old books! Some of your older libraries have a wealth of information, even diaries. I once found a diary of a Jesuit Priest written during the gold rush days. He came to this country from Trinidad. I had this diary for a good many years. I have almost memorized it!

You definitely have to do research. That metal detector doesn’t find the gold. You find it! So, if you are in an area that is highly mineralized, your chances are much better than if you are in an area that is not. Those old-timers were pretty smart. They found a great many of the gold areas.

The old-timers worked from the creek bottoms upward, at the time of the discovery of the Classic Hill Mine. While panning for gold in Indian Creek here in Happy Camp, miners found that deposit by a method called “loaming.” The largest nugget found at the Classic Hill Mine was 65 pounds…not troy weight…65 pounds! Makes you wonder what went through the grizzly and ended up in their tailings!

It can take quite a bit of time to do research properly. Recently, I ran into two brothers, both in their 80’s. They were trying to find a certain cabin between the Oregon and California border. The cabin was still standing. Their grandfather built the cabin. I knew of its whereabouts. I didn’t know what it was. I thought it was a camp. Their grandfather mined gold there. Somewhere around that cabin is a mine. It hasn’t been examined in a hundred years. It is in a good-producing area, an area I haven’t looked in before. This is the type of thing that really gets me going!

IS THERE ANYTHING UNUSUAL ABOUT OUR LOCAL GOLD?

A lot of our gold here is covered in manganese and consequently appears black. We also have gold which is copper-colored. This is due to a copper coating. I even know a couple of guys that worked all summer on Indian Creek above the West Branch campground. They found a quart-jar full of “green stuff.” They chucked it in the river! They just threw it away!

About 50% of our local jade also contains visible gold. It doesn’t seem to matter if it is white or green jade. The founder of Kraft Food Products (cheese) made his initial fortune by selling Happy Camp jade from the Chan Jade Mine to buyers from around the world. Some of the jade was so clear that it was used in stained-glass windows!

DO YOU HAVE ANY FINAL COMMENTS, JIM?

Learn about geology. Look for volcanic activity. In fact, distances of seven, eleven and twenty-one miles from major volcanic activity produced mineralized zones. These correspond to the classical geological ore models of hyper-thermal, meso-thermal, and hypo-thermal zones respectively. Look for dolomite. It acts like a filter. Most people think gold comes from quartz. This is true in some geological areas. But a lot of the time, particularly in our area, you will find gold in the calcite. I can honestly say that every place I have found gold, calcite is also present. Some of the highest-grade jade on earth, both nephrite and jadeite, comes from the Happy Camp area! Very few people know this.

 

BY BOB RETHWISH

Learning to Dry-wash Effectively

 

DrywashingI had just driven back to our mining claim seven miles northeast from the town of Quartz site, Arizona. As I stepped into our travel trailer, I warned my wife, Norma, “Don’t look into the back of the truck.” Of course, she immediately looked out the dining room window and said, “I don’t see anything.”

I sat down at our small kitchen table and explained, “You don’t see anything because I covered it with that old army blanket. Now promise me you won’t go out and…” She jumped up from reading her cookbook and dashed for the door. Being closer than I was, she escaped easily. By the time I got to the door, she was throwing the blanket back.

I hollered to no avail, “Tomorrow’s your birthday!” Without looking at me, Norma said, “So… ?” And then she screamed, “A drywasher! Let’s go try it out.” When I reached the truck I said, “Let’s at least wait ’til after lunch.” She was running around grabbing shovels and buckets and said, “I’m not hungry.” God knows that wasn’t true–she’s always hungry!

Our love for gold began in the early 1980’s when I got Norma an inexpensive White’s metal detector for Christmas. Traditionally we open one present on Christmas Eve; and she, by chance, unwrapped her metal detector. When I went to bed hours later, Norma still had all her unwrapped presents spread over the playroom floor and she was busy checking each one with the detector. As I drifted off, I heard the detector sound off once again and Norma mutter, “Aha!” and, “I know what that is,” and “Hmmm.”

From that seemingly innocent Christmas gift, our lives changed dramatically.

Originally, after spending a summer dredging, we traveled to Quartzsite, Arizona to sell our gold and gold jewelry at swap meets on the weekends. This normally inconspicuous little town with RV parks and BLM open desert camping, just east of the California border on Interstate 10, balloons from a few thousand permanent residents to well over half a million people during the winter! It has a real circus atmosphere, the main attraction being the rock and mineral displays at a multitude of swap meets and shows. In the midst of all this are airplane rides, balloon and buggy rides, side shows, live music, antique sales, and perhaps a little junk. And let’s not forget the food vendors, guaranteed to satisfy any craving (except Norma’s). We came to sell our gold, we saw what was going on, and we stayed.

Shortly thereafter, we claimed 20 acres in the foothills, seven miles south-west of town. That was14 years ago. This is where we still dry-camp and dry-wash for gold during the winter months. It’s R and R (rest and relaxation).

Our first dry-washer was gas-powered and larger than I cared for. It did a great job, but after dredging all summer, I needed a reprieve from hard physical work. After all, I was in my fifties.

Remember that classic Lucille Ball routine where she and Ethel Mertz worked on a conveyor belt packing chocolates, and couldn’t keep up? That’s how I felt with that large dry-washer. One day, right after dry-washing, I was sitting in our truck, exhausted. I started the truck and I remember Norma hollering, “Stop! You’re going to run right over the dry-washer!” I think I was subconsciously trying to destroy it. “Let’s sell it,” Norma said, “while we still have one to sell.” We traded it for a gold spinner the next day.

It was a few years later when I bought the inexpensive, hand-operated dry-washer, which brings me back to Norma pulling the blanket off of it.

We went out that first day and truly enjoyed ourselves. As we headed for the wash, Norma said, “Remember all those characters who came out here years ago to dry-wash? I’ve been thinking about all the things they did and said that I didn’t pay much attention to at the time. I forget his name, but there was that older guy that came out on a motorbike with his dry-washer and his bucket, shovel, and lunch box all strapped to him and his motorbike. You know who I mean. Well, he said to find an area in the wash where the caliche (a desert hardpan, almost like cement or bedrock) took a dip and formed a basin where the gold would settle. I remember him so vividly. I was always amazed when I saw him on that little motorbike with only his eyes showing.”

We arrived at the wash and Norma said, “I’ll show you what he was talking about.” She found a low spot in the overburden and continued, “Like right here.”

I agreed and said, “Well, let’s try it.” Norma, however, was still looking things over and she warned, “I remember he also said to keep in mind where the origin of the gold might be and which side of the wash could have been an old river bed, and to get close to both”

While she was looking around, I went back to our truck, which was parked nearby, and picked up the dry-washer. When I arrived back at the wash, I asked her where she thought we should start. She pointed with the shovel and said, “The mountains are there. That would be the origin, and I checked that bank and it looks like an old river bed.” She motioned to a spot and added, “I think that’s a good spot.”

So we started and took turns operating the handle and shoveling into the dry-washer. The person pumping the handle sat on an upside-down 5-gallon bucket, and took in the scenery; it was a cushy job.

After a while, I got up from the bucket and told Norma, “I know you’re not hungry, but I’m going to walk up that rise and have lunch.” “Go ahead, I’ll keep going for awhile,” Norma answered. “Aw heck, if you’re going to eat, I might as well eat, too.” We climbed up and found a comfortable rock in the warm sun. Directly behind us were the Dome Rock Mountains, but toward the east we had a panoramic view of the Kofa mountains, maybe 20 miles away. We could also see our trailer bordering a small hill that we had named ” Almost hill.”

Norma drywashingAfter a few bites of her sandwich, Norma pointed and said, “That looks like jade.” She slid down about 15 feet and knelt to dig, the best she could do with a sandwich in one hand. She stood up to talk to me and spooked a doe, which immediately bounded away, leaving a yearling frozen in its tracks. The doe turned and squealed. The baby bounded down the hill awkwardly, and they happily reunited. It was an unequaled thrill.

Norma shovels into the dry-washer–

We finished lunch and continued dry-washing. When we reached the caliche, Norma told me a guy with a red scraggly beard had told her to take a lot of time brushing the hard surface, making sure it was absolutely clean, as the gold stops there. He did find more gold than most, so we decided to give the caliche a good cleaning. We put the “brushings” thr through the dry-washer and decided to clean-up. We had dry-washed for only an hour, but were anxious to see how we were doing.

Norma carefully removed the sluice and transferred the concentrates to the bucket we had been sitting on. We returned to our trailer and she started panning into a shallow tub filled with water. As I unloaded the truck, I heard Norma casually say in a sing-song voice, “You won’t believe what I just found.”

I walked to her and there it was–a beautiful, bright gold nugget, contrasted against the green gold pan. It was jagged and rough, not river-worn like we were accustomed to.

Norma tilted the pan toward me and said to start backing up. She told me to back up until I couldn’t see the gold nugget, and then to take a step forward. When I was a good distance away, I hollered to Norma that I couldn’t see it, then I took a step forward to where I could just barely see the nugget. Norma put the pan and nugget on the ground at her feet and said “Stay right there.” She got a carpenter’s tape and measured the distance between me and the nugget. It was 49 feet, exactly. We named it our “49’er nugget.”

As we finished panning, it began to rain. We knew we couldn’t dry-wash when the ground was wet, so we grabbed a plastic tarp, drove out to the claim, and covered the area where we had found the nugget. It takes a lot of rain to really soak up an area, so a tarp usually does the job.

Reflecting back on those first years with our dry-washer, we also followed a tip from a guy called “The Professor,” and started taking a tub and water out to the claim with us so we could pan out on site. We’d dry-wash, have a picnic, and pan right there. Life doesn’t get any better than that!

Another guy, a skinny, suntanned nudist who sometimes wore a dress (really!), had a 10-foot extension to his dry-washer sluice. I personally don’t think it was worth the trouble. That guy did have one good idea, however. When he changed locations, he always cleaned his sluice, so he would know how much gold came from each location. He called it “proper sampling technique.”

What this is all leading to is that we’ve learned by watching, listening, and then doing. Just go do it. Those who have the right approach certainly do seem to recover more gold and make the exciting strikes! You’ll have fun and the gold you get will be a bonus!

Well, Norma is looking out our trailer window towards our mining area.

Excuse me, but I have to fix some sandwiches.


 

By Dave McCracken

Finding wild adventure, wonderful new friends, and riches in gold inside one of the most remote locations on the planet!

Dave Mack

 

This story is dedicated to my long-time, trusted friend, Mark Chestnut. He and I teamed up to perform a preliminary assessment of the gold dredging potential in the deepest remote jungles of Borneo, Indonesia. The ultimate success of this mission was largely the result of Mark’s professionalism and dedication to getting the work done under some very difficult conditions.

On his own, Mark led sampling expeditions with his team of Dyak helpers for days at a time into places where I am entirely certain that no outsider has ever been before, living under fly camps with the natives, eating the food they prepared from the jungle, running down through narrow gorges in long boats where the ride was so violent, that all of the boat paddles were broken along the way. I am very careful who I take along with me on these projects. Those that go must be of the highest caliber. Not only would I take Mark with me anywhere, but I would be comfortable in sending him to manage a project. There are only a few people I have worked with in our industry that I would trust with that responsibility.

Indonesia’s 13,677 islands stretch across 3,000 miles of ocean. Only around 6,000 of these islands have been named, and only 900 of those have been permanently settled. The principal islands of Indonesia are Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo).

Three-quarters of the island of Borneo is called Kalimantan, and is part of Indonesia. The northeastern part of the island is owned by Malaysia.

Throughout history, Borneo, which is the world’s third largest island, has been a mythical location of indescribable riches and unfathomable mystery. Early explorers and traders sailed the pirate-infested waters of Indonesia and Borneo for many centuries, trading for prized jungle products, diamonds and gold, but generally staying clear of the forbidden unknown interior, which was known to be prowled by savage headhunters and cannibals.

The natives of Borneo, known as Dyaks, believed that the power of any individual was contained in his head. To cut the head off, and to possess it, was therefore to possess that individual’s power. The power of a head diminished over time, making it necessary to obtain new, additional heads; the more heads, the more power. While most often, Dyak tribes battled against each other, any outsider was also fair game.

Usually, head-hunting raids were well-organized ventures led by a supreme commander, in which hundreds of men would participate. The main weapon was a mandau (machete), which was made by Dyak blacksmiths, working with native ores and primitive forges. Early explorers reported these machetes held an edge capable of slicing a musket barrel in half! Shields were made of ironwood, following the longitudinal grain, so an enemy’s mandau would become wedged deeply enough to become lodged and pulled out of his grasp.

After a war party was fully organized, a Dyak medicine man would perform a ceremony to weigh and balance the different omens. If all was in order, the war party would usually travel by native long boat to a distance which was several hours on foot from the enemy village. Sometimes, the enemy would be pre-warned by their own hunting parties; and they themselves would mount an ambush on the raiding war party. In this case, the ambush was usually begun by firing poison darts onto the unsuspecting enemy with blowguns, and then hand-to-hand combat with spears and mandaus.

Captured women and children from a village were forced into slavery, and the village was looted of its valuables, especially traded goods from China and India. A celebration always followed a successful head-hunting raid. Those who brought back heads were heroes.

Head-hunting was practiced widely throughout the interior of Borneo up until the Second World War. Now, it is a thing of the past.

Because of the impassable mountains and rivers, much of the interior of Borneo is not accessible by automobile. Access to a portion of the interior can be accomplished by riverboat, but waterfalls and severe rapids prevent deeper penetration. Access to the most remote locations generally is accomplished by the use of helicopters. There are some landing strips in the interior. Small planes can be chartered, but quickly changing weather conditions can make even this type of access unpredictable.

Our mining venture was into one of the most remote and least-explored sections of Borneo’s interior. Going in by helicopter, we crossed over hundreds of miles of impenetrable jungle. There were mountains, having sheer cliffs hundreds of feet in height, extending for miles. We crossed over hundreds of rivers, many which were raging white-water. I remember hoping, as I always do when traveling by helicopter, that we would not crash. Because if I managed to survive the crash, I was gauging the magnitude of the effort it would take to return to civilization. It would be next to impossible!

The reason we were in Borneo was to perform a preliminary evaluation to gauge the potential success of a production gold dredging operation. Some base camps had been already built in the area by the company that hired us; some dredges were already on site; and the local natives were using the dredges when we arrived. We spent 30 days in the jungle, living and working with the native miners, learning their way of life and survival in the jungle.

The natives involved on our project were from two different villages. They were all very friendly and helpful. All were in excellent physical condition and used to hard physical work. Most were already familiar with basic gold mining techniques, since they have been mining gold by primitive methods for many generations.

Generally, no matter what else they wear for clothes, the natives wear nothing on their feet. Often, all the men wear is a pair of underpants. On one occasion, I went on a nine-hour prospecting/hunting expedition, where the terrain was so slippery and steep, most of the climbing was done with our arms. We scaled sheer cliffs with narrow, slippery walkways, where the bedrock was so sharp it cut into the soles of my jungle boots. The clay-like ground was so slippery, it was like walking on ice during most of the hike. I like to think that I personally am in pretty good shape. The pace was very fast, but was only a third of their normal speed. They had to slow down to allow us to keep up. I almost wore out a good set of authentic military jungle boots, and I had blisters on my own feet long before the expedition was finished. The natives were all barefooted, and not one had a cut or a bruise at the end of the day!

You have to be careful where you stick your hands at the bottom of tropical rivers!

The native men in the jungles of Borneo have a simple, adventuresome life–the kind that every little boy dreams of in America. Their responsibilities consist of hunting, fishing, finding gold and raising their families. For lack of any exterior form of entertainment, the family unit is very close there. These people create their own entertainment, excitement and adventure.

We found that while they were all very strong and helpful, they were also always fun to be around. Operating gold dredges was a new adventure for most of them, and they were having a good time learning how to do it.

The natives also have a high level of self-preservation, probably because their lifestyle is so closely connected to the basics of survival. On one occasion, after we had shut down a production dredge, one of the divers was bumped off the dredge into fast, deep water wearing a full vest of weights and no air. He was connected to a 100-foot airline. The airline was wrapped around something under the dredge, so no one could get at it. We all stood there and watched while this native pulled himself 100 feet up-stream, underwater, against a strong current without ever coming to the surface. We felt him frantically tugging one pull at a time. It never occurred to anyone that he might drown. When he reached the dredge, the look of agony disappeared into an uproar of laughter as he took his first breath. After that, we all used the same signal of frantically thrashing for air every time we wanted to communicate the danger in dredging a particularly difficult location. We always laughed when using the signal.

On one expedition, it was necessary for our guides to cut down a large hardwood tree to replace most of the paddles we needed to continue our journey.

The natives are also very adept with the use of a chainsaw. They are able to cut down a tree and slice straight boards out, without the use of any guides whatsoever. Compared to other jungle expeditions I have been on, we lived in luxurious base camps, with showers, sleeping quarters, meeting areas, dining areas–all on stilts ten feet off the ground. The base camps were clean, dry and comfortable–put together from lumber sliced out of trees solely from the use of a chainsaw. The long boats we were using also were made from the same lumber.

Because of the steep, rough terrain in the Borneo jungle, almost all travel is done by boat on the intricate river system. Consequently, all of the native men are skilled in the handling of their keting tings (native long boats). These boats are usually around 30 feet long and about 3 1/2 feet wide. These days, they are powered by 4-stroke engines, 8 and 10 horsepower Yamahas were being used in our area of operation. A long shaft mechanism is connected to the engine with a propeller on the end. The boat operator is able to manipulate the long shaft and propeller around like a rudder, but is also able to control how deep the propeller extends into the water. In this way, the keting tings can be maneuvered through
We went down through rapids which, as we approached, I thought the natives were just playing a trick, with a plan to turn around at the very last minute. Rapids with waves nearly 4 feet higher than the gunwales of the boat on both sides. And then, afterwards, we would come right back up through these rapids. At first, I thought this was reckless and chancy. Later, I realized it was routine. In thirty days, we never saw a single boat get into trouble.water only inches deep, even when transporting 1500 pounds or more of personnel, equipment or supplies.

It did not take long for me to realize the long shaft mechanism is the most effective means developed to propel long boats on shallow rivers. These long shaft propulsion systems are used all throughout Asia.

On one particular prospecting trip into the headwaters of a river, we rode these boats down through whitewater canyons so narrow that the sides and bottoms of the long boats were scraping the sides of the canyon on both sides–and we were going faster than a roller-coaster ride. What was most amazing to us, was that somehow, the natives were able to get the long boats up through those canyons! We were personally dropped in at the top by helicopter.

The operation supplied us with bottled water to drink, rice to eat, and the other basics which we needed. The natives had gardens and supplied us with fresh vegetables. There was a hunting team which supplied us with fresh wild boar and deer meat on a daily basis, and fresh fish from the river. Native cooks prepared the food for us, and we could not have found better food in most of the restaurants in Indonesia or elsewhere.

Notice the slash across the pig’s head?

Hunters use dogs to track down wild game–usually the babi hutan (wild boars). Often, a hunter will go out alone with a single dog. The dog catches the scent of a boar and starts barking. When the dog catches up with the boar, the boar will turn on the dog and stand there to defend itself. Meanwhile, the native hunter catches up and will either attack the boar with his spear; or more often, the boar will attack the hunter. When the boar attacks, the hunter sidesteps at the last second, and slashes the backside of the boar’s head with his mandau in a single downward stroke. This is kind of a ritual, like bull fighting in Mexico. The hunters take pride in returning with wild boars having the familiar slash on the back of the head. Most boars that were brought in were killed in this manner. Some hunters brought in two and three boars on a single day to feed the whole crew.

They also brought in payau (deer)–sometimes killed with a spear, and sometimes brought in alive. The natives and their dogs have a method of running down a deer alive, so it can be preserved until the meat is needed.

The natives also hunt bears; but this is usually accomplished also with the use of their blow guns. They weaken the bear with poison darts and go in for the final kill with a spear.

My earlier experiences in remote jungles always involved animal life which was dangerous to us while dredging in the river. I expected no less in Borneo. However, while we did see some very large buaya (alligators), the natives assured us that they have never been known to attack a man. Apparently, they like their meat dead and rotten.

The main river was actually pretty large in size!

During our prospecting, the natives did show us one specific area where the water runs muddy all the time–even when the water is running clear just upriver. The natives explained that the muddy water was either being stirred up by dragons or alligators. Needless to say, we did not bother to sample in that location.

The natives did tell us to be careful of the kujut (huge catfish) at the bottom of the rivers. While we did not see any underwater, native fishermen did catch one catfish which weighed around 60 pounds. It was large enough, and had big enough teeth, to take a man’s hand away. The natives said this was a small fish! Apparently, on the larger rivers, the natives have trouble with losing their dogs to these catfish. Some villages use full-grown live ducks as bait to catch these big catfish. They told us there has never been an occasion where a full-grown man has been attacked and eaten by a catfish. This, however, didn’t make us feel all that much safer while underwater.

We set up fly camps alongside the river when we prospected distant areas from the base camp.

Actually, as far as wildlife goes, it was the pacer (ground leeches) that had most of our attention. Luckily, there were no leeches in the river! But, if you needed to go up on the river banks, or if you were going to take any kind of hike through the jungle, you were going to get leeches on you. They were everywhere! Some bushes had blood-sucking leeches on every leaf–on every branch!

The biggest problem with leeches is psychological. They are slimy, sleazy creatures. You just naturally want to get them off you as quickly as possible. When you try and brush a leech off with your hand, it then sticks to your hand like glue. When you use your other hand to get it off, it ends up on that hand. Meanwhile, there are two or three more sleazing up your legs–or maybe a dozen, depending upon where you are standing or walking. Leeches move pretty fast!

Leeches have a very strong sucker-mouth, which attaches to your skin and sucks the blood right out. It doesn’t take long. In fact, they can attach to the outside of a thin pair of pants, or on the outside of a T-shirt, or on the outside of a cotton sock, and suck the blood right through the garment. It is all pretty slimy business! The nice thing about these leeches is that they do not carry any disease.

When we started, I figured we had it together over the natives with our lightweight long-sleeve shirts, tucked into our thick Levis, which were tucked into our jungle boots. All most of the natives were wearing on the hikes was a pair of shorts or underpants! However, it soon became obvious that the natives could easily find and remove the leeches from their own bodies. Sometimes, we didn’t find a few of our leeches until we got back to camp. Generally, a leech will drop off you once it has had its fill of blood.

“Leeches do not hurt you. What’s a little blood? We found the best way to get them off was by scraping them off with the sharp blade of a knife.”

A small red mark on your skin is left where a leach has been sucking. It goes away after a few weeks. The natives told us leeches are used regularly to suck the infection from injuries in their native medicine.

Overall, the adverse animal conditions were very mild–compared to the crocodiles, piranha, electric eels, African Killer Bees, black flies, mosquitoes, and poisonous vipers we have encountered in similar jungle conditions in the Amazon and elsewhere. I was only bitten by one mosquito in 30 days! A few leeches are not a bad trade-off for not having to deal with truly dangerous critters.

Our guides and helpers were a good bunch of guys to have on the team.

We did have several very amusing experiences having to do with leeches. Where is the worst place a man can get a leech stuck onto him? One day, we were riding upriver in a keting ting. These long boats usually have one person operating the motor, and another person in the bow with a paddle to help keep the boat pointed in the right direction, and to signal the boat driver to watch out for submerged rocks and logs. We had just finished a short prospecting hike, and thought we had removed all the leeches from our bodies. It always seems, however, that no matter how thorough you are, a few more show up afterwards. We were going upstream through a boulder-ridden section of river, when the bow man jumped up and yanked his shorts down. Right there, in the worst place imaginable, was a leech hanging off the man. One of the other natives pulled out his machete to give him some help. Just at that time, the boat rammed into a submerged log, and the bow man flew overboard. We all just had to stop and laugh for the longest time before we could get going again. Needless to say, this was a subject we all laughed about right up until the time of our departure.

During our sampling operation, we spent a great deal of time traveling many, many miles around in the long boats. It was a great way to get a good look at the jungle and the wildlife. In many places, the trees grow out across the river from both sides to make a natural tunnel.

One day, we were traveling by boat along the river’s edge, when a large biawak (lizard several feet long, with sharp teeth and very fast) jumped off a tree limb directly into the boat in front of me. He would have landed on top of the native in front of me, but the native, ever alert, saw it coming. I saw it out of the comer of my eye, but thought it was just a branch falling out of the tree. The native jumped up just in time, and the lizard fell into the bottom of the boat between his bare feet. Then, yelling like a mad man, the native and lizard both danced around quickly, trying to get out of each other’s way. Finally, the lizard went over the side. All this, about three feet in front of me; and so fast, I didn’t have a chance to react! We all laughed so hard that we almost had to pull the boat over to the edge of the river.

One day, while prospecting, we came around a bend in the river, traveling by keting ting, and a million fruit bats took to the air. Known also as “flying foxes”, these are huge bats with wingspans of two to three feet. There were so many that it was like a dark cloud above us as we traveled beneath them on our way downriver.

Mark Chestnut poses for a photo with his sampling team after returning from a 5-day sampling project deep into another world where no outsider has ever gone before or since.

Some of the local natives also hunt a certain breed of monkey, not for the meat, but for a particular healing stone possessed by only one special monkey in each tribe. Apparently, these healing stones are in great demand by Chinese medicine men, and a very high price is paid for them, much more than the price of gold by weight.

According to the local natives, if a monkey becomes sick, the special monkey will pass the stone to the sick monkey until he or she is healed. The problem for the monkey hunters is in determining exactly which monkey is carrying the stone. A sumpit (blow gun) is used to fire a poisoned dart at the monkey. Blow guns are made of a single piece of ironwood at least two meters in length, with a straight hole bored through its center. The darts are made from bamboo, and are dipped in a deadly poison made from the sap of a Tajom tree mixed with the venom from a cobra.

We ran into a few monkey hunters during one of our expeditions. These men hunt for gold during the dry periods when the water is low in the rivers. They hunt for monkey stones during the rainy periods. We noticed immediately that the monkey hunters each had almost a full mouth of solid gold teeth. When I inquired about this, the natives told us the poison used on blow gun darts is so toxic, that just the vapors near the mouthpiece of a loaded blowgun will cause a person’s teeth to fall out after a period of time. Besides, solid gold teeth are fashionable in Borneo, similar to clean, white teeth in our culture.

I noticed that many of the natives had gold teeth. I never did find out exactly how gold teeth are fashioned and how dentistry is performed deep inside the Borneo jungle. Many of the older men and women have tattoos on their hands, legs and arms. We were told the tattoos are made with tiny metal needles dipped in a particular tree sap, or in charcoal, leaving permanent black marks.

The predominant religion in the area of our operation was Christianity. The natives preferred to take Sunday off to conduct their own religious services. This was added to by other, more ancient rituals and customs. For example, after we had arrived and began our dredging activities, the rains started picking up. One of the natives had a dream that the local jungle guardian spirits were angry because of the loud noise of the engines brought in by the foreigners (us). Many of the natives worried over this dream, considering it might be a bad omen. Word reached the main village many hours up river. Within a few days, a whole delegation came down to our base camp led by the village chief.

The following day, they put on a ceremony along the edge of the river, while sacrificing the heads of two chickens to appease the jungle spirits. All of the local natives showed up to participate. All work was cancelled for the day. The following day, the weather cleared up, and operation conditions were improved until the time of our departure. Coincidence? The local natives didn’t believe so. Me? I choose to go along with the local customs of the natives of any area which is providing the hospitality. Who am I to challenge the beliefs of others? The natives believe Borneo is an old land, and that old spirits still linger around to help control the weather and certain events to protect the animals and local people. We found that different villages had this same belief, but had their own rituals for making peace with the spirits.

We had fried chicken for dinner on the night of the ritual. Uhm uhm good!

The local miners are recovering gold from the rivers by panning with their Tulangs (gold pans). These are similar to the Sarukas used in South America. They also use their keting ting motors to wash the streambed material from bedrock, so the flakes and nuggets can be exposed and removed from the bedrock cracks and traps. Some of the natives were using hoes underwater to rake gravel off the bedrock. They would then dive down using a facemask to recover gold from the bedrock traps. Sometimes they hit hot spots and do quite well.

One native told us he recovered over four kilograms (around ten pounds) of gold, mostly nuggets, in several months of hard work by primitive methods. But they don’t really need to recover a lot of gold. The jungle provides for most of their needs. Their villages also produce woven baskets and other products from the jungle which are exported to the outside world. A little gold allows for extra luxury items which improve their standard of living.

Long Shaft System

Local miners are doing very well by blowing gravel off the bedrock using their long-shaft propulsion systems!

I think the thing that impressed me most during the entire expedition was the friendliness of the people. Children ran out and waved at us when we went past their villages by long boat. Adults invited us to stay with them in their homes. The Chief of one village gave me his own favorite blowgun, one which he had personally used for the past 12 years.

Dyak sampling team

The natives were excited to dredge with us, because it was explained to them that we were “professionals, gold prospectors from the outside world.” They pretty-much had taught themselves to dredge from scratch during the two months prior to our arrival. Except for when the water was muddy, they would insist on going down to help us. They wanted to participate also in the muddy water, but we insisted that it was too dangerous, because someone might get hit in the head with a rock.

Just like during any other activity, these natives dredge barefooted. Even the individuals who were wearing wetsuits wore nothing on their feet!

Instead of lead weight belts, they were wearing jacket-like vests, tied together with fishing line, with big pockets. River rocks were stuffed into the pockets to weigh down the diver. It seemed to work alright for them, but I’ll stick to my lead weight belt and steel-tipped rubber boots! Of course, we had to be very careful to avoid throwing rocks on unprotected toes.

And we found gold; lots of it. We intend to return to Borneo with a larger sampling team and do a much more involved sampling program. If this project goes well, the company is interested in our bringing over an even larger team of experienced dredgers to work on a gold- sharing venture.

  

There is a lot of gold in East Kalimantan (Borneo). In the deep jungle, because of a rather steep gradient, the gravel inside most rivers I observed was generally very shallow to bedrock. Just like in California, some rivers had lots of fine gold, and some had jewelry gold–two ounce-sized nuggets, and much larger, are not uncommon. In the areas we sampled, the smaller-sized tributaries all seemed to carry a steady line of nugget and jewelry-sized gold, usually under a foot or two of hard-packed streambed material. Huge sections of exposed rough and cracked bedrock are common all along the rivers and creeks, which have never been prospected with a metal detector. We found gold lying all over some exposed rough bedrock in one area we were sampling. And we found deposits in the main river which could potentially yield pounds of gold or more per day to a production-dredging team. Because of the complete lack of modern suction dredging equipment during the past, many river channels are completely virgin of earlier mining activity and the opportunity is extraordinary.

Because of the inaccessibility of the gold bearing areas, Borneo is probably not a good place for the casual, small-scale dredge operator. However, with the proper infrastructure set up (expensive), Borneo could be a modern gold dredger’s dream come true!

One of the consultants on this project told me he first went to East Kalimantan about nine years ago, He said he has known many people who have never been able to get it out of their system, He himself pretty-much has lived there ever since. He told me “once you drink from the waters of East Kalimantan, you will always need to return again.” There is something about the area, the natives, the lifestyle–measured against the fast-paced rat race of our own lifestyle that makes one wonder… Whether it is because of the adventure, the kindness of the natives, the gold nuggets and great mining opportunities, or the water—or maybe a little of each of these things, I know that I personally will be going back!

 

 

 

 

By Dave McCracken

“Finding gold, and a little too much adventure, in the deep jungle…”

Dave Mack

 

This story is dedicated to one of the best and most loyal friends I have ever had, Eric Bosch. Eric and I started our dredging careers at about the same time. We formed a close, working partnership early on, which we pursued for many years together, from California, Canada and Alaska to the deep jungles of Borneo. Our fantastic adventures together were many and will always be cherished. I’m glad we survived them! Eric played an important roll in helping to start The New 49’ers, and he managed our commercial underwater mining projects and training programs for a number of years. He is the best and strongest gold dredger I have ever had the honor to work with. The best and richest pay-streaks I ever helped recover were always with Eric at my side, often while he was operating the suction nozzle when the gold was first discovered. Eric and his family are the most kind-hearted and dependable people I have ever known. There is no bottom to the amount of enthusiasm they will invest into any program they get involved with. It has truly been one of he greatest honors of my lifetime to share adventures with them.

I had a premonition that something was going to go wrong on this hunting trip. I had hunted wild boar with the Dyak natives before; but they had always killed the boar before I caught up. These Dyaks are extremely fast in the jungle with their bare feet. I could keep up with them for awhile. But when they started chasing their hunting dogs at a full run, almost straight up and down the sides of steep mountains, I was worried about having an accident and hurting myself. I did not want to take the risk of suffering the embarrassment of having the natives carry me four hours out of the jungle, rather than the meat that we came for. Now I was resting at the bottom of a narrow creek bed. All of the natives had run off.

The sound of the dogs was getting louder; they were herding the pack of wild boars directly down into my location!

It all started several years ago when a mining company hired one of my teammates and I to do a preliminary dredge sampling evaluation on some mining concessions they own in East Kalimantan (Borneo). We spent 30 days on that project and everything went perfect. During our time on the concessions, we found rich gold deposits and encouraged the company to follow up with another more extensive sampling project. The company which owns the concessions was more interested in lode mine development, so the dredging potential sat idle for several years. Finally, the company decided to allow a second party to come in as a partner to fund the dredging exploration and development. This was how we got back to Borneo.

  

Eric Bosch and the leader of a Dyak sampling team working on a sampling dredge.

The sampling project was going fine. However, since the Dyak natives have a standing policy to not work on Sundays, and there was nothing else productive to do with our project, I asked if they would take me with them on today’s hunting expedition. Of course, they agreed. The problem was in keeping up with them. They grew up in this hot, humid, thick jungle, steep-terrain environment. Keeping up took all my determination. I had expended a great deal of effort to create a mutually respectful relationship with these natives. I wasn’t going to lose it now by making them slow down or turn back.

We had hiked three and a half hours up a narrow creek bed without any sign of deer, bear or wild boar. The dogs work the side hills. If they locate a deer, they run it down and hamstring it. If they find a bear, they chase it down, surround it, and hold it there until the Dyaks catch up. The natives then assault the bear and kill it with spears. If the dogs get onto the scent of wild boar, they herd the pigs down to the creek bed and drive them at the hunters. As the pigs attack the hunters, the hunters dispatch the pigs either with spears or machetes.

“Never run away,” one of the hunters told me, “When the pigs come down on you, your only chance, your only chance, is to kill the pig. It is not difficult if you maintain a focused determinism. Never throw the spear; never even let it out of your hands. Never turn and run. Wait until the last moment when the pig is in range. Aim carefully for the vital spot just behind the front shoulder. You only have one chance. Otherwise, the pig will hurt you–sometimes very badly,”

I found myself remembering the hunter’s words as the frenzied sounds of the dogs grew progressively louder. They were coming my way fast. I could hear them running down the sides of the hills just above me. I had not planned on this. I held the spear a little more firmly in my hands, pointed in the direction in which they were coming. And I kept wondering, “What do I do if there is more than one pig coming at me?

What the heck was I doing here at this very moment? Was this stupid, or what? You know that feeling? It is complete regret of the present situation! That was the way I was feeling.

The abundant kindness and hospitality of our Dyak guides made it very easy for us to form lasting friendships.

Everything on the sampling project was going as planed. The company built huge, comfortable, fully-outfitted base camps in the jungle They even had satellite TV! Most preliminary jungle dredge evaluations I had done in the past were supported from fly camps. A fly camp usually consists of little more than a tarp suspended over a few branches constructed to keep most of the rain off us during the night–sometimes with a rough platform from freshly cut branches built off the ground. The natives don’t seem to mind the irregular sleeping surface of different sized branches. I prefer an air mattress–or the floorboards from a river boat. But this trip was luxury. We had cooks who created restaurant-quality meals. We had refrigerators and air conditioners. We had beds. There was not a mosquito alive inside that base camp! That was the problem; there wasn’t enough adventure.

Base camp had all the comforts of home!

I need a certain amount of adventure in my life to keep everything in balance. I have always been this way. While my life in California as a dredge miner for gold may hold more adventure than many people would be comfortable with, I have found that it is therapeutic for me to devote some time each winter doing mining projects outside of America. There is something all-encompassing about the jungle environment. A week or two in the jungle, and I find myself wondering if the other life in California is real–or something out of my imagination. Why is this? I think it is because the jungle environment requires all of your attention. The margin for error is very small. There is always some degree of danger. And even when there is little danger, the environment is completely different from the normal life-environment in California. This requires you (me) to focus all of your attention on the present. This releases you from all of the hundreds of other things and problems which normally occupy your attention. Most of your day-to-day normal worries are quickly forgotten in the jungle environment. This puts things back into their proper perspective. Later (as long as you survive the experience), you return home appreciative of the things that you have. For me, it is like a new lease on my normal life every time I return from one of these projects.

But there is such a thing as too much adventure. This is when dangerous conditions become so extreme that you are not sure if you are going to survive–or possibly crawl away with severe and lasting disabilities. Too much adventure brings out the feeling of terror and panic. I was feeling terror as I watched an 80-pound male pig round the bend in the creek bed just up in front of me. He was running for his life, the dogs just behind him. Just as he came into view he turned around and threw himself, snorting and squealing and biting at the dogs. Some dogs backed off, while others moved in on him from behind–as a team. The boar was no match for the pack of dogs. I found myself hoping, hoping, pleading with destiny, that the pig would be brought down by the dogs right there. But just as quickly as the boar turned on the dogs, he turned away and ran down towards me. Around 30 yards away, at a full run, he spotted me–an easy target–and he aimed himself directly at me, snarling, spitting and squealing in a killer rage.

My strongest inner voice was screaming at me to turn and run. I overrode that urge, held the spear tightly, pointed directly at the boar as he came at me…

He came fast and it was difficult to target the exact kill zone behind the shoulder. I felt like I might be better off just to make sure I hit him anywhere with the point. Then, at least, maybe I could hold him off me with the spear. As he came within range at a full run, I aimed the best I could and got him in the hindquarter. This caused him to scream bloody murder. I held him off me while he was goring at me with his tusks and snapping his jaws, trying to reach me, only inches away from my hands.

The dogs descended on the boar, biting him, snarling, in a frenzied attack; and I found myself more worried about being bitten by the dogs. Naturally, I backed off from the violence. In turn, the pig shook himself off the spear and hurled himself at me again. Only this time, in the confusion of backing off from the turmoil, I was in a retreat position and not able to hold the pig off. I was going to get it bad! I had never experienced such violent determination before. The pig was almost on me again as, backing up, I fell over a log onto my back and dropped the spear. I threw my arms over my head to keep from being bitten on the face or neck, expecting to get bit on the arm or the side. But it didn’t happen. Overcoming my fear, I looked up to see the pig only inches away, with the dogs having bitten into its hindquarters, holding the pig off of me.

Enough of this! My fear turned to anger and determined action. What was this lowly animal trying to take my life? I remember thinking, “Quit being a sissy, dude!” In an instant, I jumped to my feet, grabbed the spear, took aim to make sure I did not hurt any of the dogs; and with all my might, slammed the point of the spear down into the target kill zone of the pig. One last convulsive bite at the spear and the pig died. I remember thinking how easy it was to kill the pig when I finally just decided to do it.

Eric was back at camp separating the gold from our final sample results from the little remaining iron particles, so we could weigh and log accurate results and relate those back to the volume of streambed processed in each sample.

I stood there for awhile in a shocked daze, looking at the dead pig, a few of the dogs still biting at it. I had not noticed at first that the rest of the dogs had run off barking at something else. I found myself thinking how it would be to tell this story to my mining partner. Eric was at the base camp overseeing the final gold clean-ups for the previous week’s sampling results. Eric would appreciate the adventure and be sorry he didn’t take part. He likes to hunt even more than I do!

Eric and I had sampled several different concessions during this trip. The first area was a very remote location, requiring helicopter support of our operation. We decided that while the high-grade gold deposits were present, the cost of providing logistical support made it difficult to mount expanded sampling and production dredging operations.

Our Dyak helpers were always ready to jump in and try to do all the work.

  

Consequently, we found ourselves sampling a new group of concessions which were more easily and economically accessible by river boat. This new area was huge and showed excellent long-term potential. Fine gold seemed to be evenly dispersed throughout the gravels, hard-packed streambed strata and loose gravel alike. The fine-sized flakes of gold were present in every sample we took, from bank to bank in the river. We were looking hard at what kind of recovery system we would need to devise to recover this gold on a production-scale using suction dredges.

The company had six diesel-powered 8-inch production dredges located on this concession, along with all of the necessary support gear. They also had two unused 10-yard per hour placer test plants which utilized mechanical classification and jigs for fine gold recovery. Eric and I were feeling quite good about the promising results we were getting. The company could utilize the production dredges and placer plants for an expanded sampling venture and preliminary small-scale production operation. They could do exceptionally well in the areas we had already tested. Eric was doing the finishing work while I was helping our jungle guides put meat on the dinner table.

As I came out of my stupor in the creek bed, I realized that I was just standing there in a daze while the dogs were already herding another wild animal down at me. Could I do this again? Barks, squeals and the stampeding sounds of animals racing down the hillside were getting louder by the moment. It was another wild boar, a small one this time. But he came at me just the same as the first, in a mad rage, wanting the taste of my blood. This time, at a distance from any emotion, I stood my ground, took aim at the kill zone and nailed the pig on the first try. It was really just a baby compared to the first one; no great kill. But he was after me, just the same. And I got him. What a relief!

Returning to base camp in a long boat with the meat from my kill and the hunting dogs

Just that fast, the dogs were gone again, and I could hear the natives yelling and whistling just up the hillside. Then the familiar barking again. Was this ever going to end? Another crazed pig rounded the bend. This one was a female (no tusks). The dogs and the Dyaks were right behind it, yelling and whistling. But the pig never turned. It ran right down on me. I could see the fear and apprehension on the faces of my Dyak friends. They figured that pig was going to eat me alive! But, I had already been through the gauntlet twice. My emotions returned. I stood my ground. In my own killer rage, at the exact right moment, I raged back at the pig, driving the spear into its heart. The pig died quickly. The Dyaks stopped, seeing the look in my eye, the other two dead pigs, the blood on my hands; and that immediately changed their assessment of who I was. Almost immediately, they were laughing and shouting and dancing all around me and the pigs. This was a momentous occasion for all of us.

Ah, California–what a great place. I might not even need to go anywhere this winter, even though I am presently writing proposals for a preliminary evaluation in West Sumatra.

Since returning home with stories of this hunting adventure, my friends and family keep asking if I plan to hunt with the natives during my next trip. My answer is that I may help them hunt for pigs, but definitely not for bears!

 

BY ROBERT MILES

Two brothers, Roger and Richard Bogan, share the dream of striking it rich…together

Theirs is a partnership that is unique, a friendship of two brothers, the kind you would generally expect to exist in a storybook or television script. And on the Klamath River in Northern California they are known as the team who know how to get it….get the gold, that is. Not an easy reputation to obtain, and even a more difficult one to maintain. Gold is elusive, and keeping a partnership viable and working for more than one season means not only putting in long hours under water moving the overburden of rocks, sand, and gravel, it means having the ability to find the pay-streaks.

Their long time dream of putting an 8-inch underwater dredge to work became reality, and in a matter of approximately 31 hours of diving, the Bogan brothers netted $4,000 in placer gold from their very first clean-up. Sound easy? Well let’s take a closer look at all the hard work, preparation and planning that went into making this very demanding and difficult task actually work.

“I had the dream way back in 1982 to start gold mining,” Roger reflected. “Even then, before I ever found a single nugget, I felt a kind of intense excitement. Of course at first it was only a hobby. Then, I got my brother Richard interested in 1983 when he flew to Arizona to visit from Illinois. We took this little prospecting trip with a 3-inch dredge up to Bumble Bee, about 45 miles north of Phoenix. I remember Richard caught the fever right away. In fact he literally beat the water to a froth the minute he saw the first couple of colors. Since that time we’ve found quite a bit of gold, seen a lot of country and had some fantastic adventures.”

In 1984 the Bogan brothers journeyed to Alaska for the summer, staying three months in the back country, 200 miles, from the nearest telephone in an area near Jack Wade Creek on the south fork of the 40 Mile.

“The country was spinetinglingly beautiful,” remembered Roger, “but Mother Nature didn’t cooperate very well. In all the time we were there, we probably had only 18 days when we were actually able to dredge for gold. When it would rain, which it seemed to most of the time, the rivers would rise 5 to 6 feet overnight and it would become a real tempestuous situation. Even though we had a 5-inch dredge that was really outfitted, we just couldn’t dive in those conditions.”

Throughout that summer Roger and Richard recovered enough gold to pay expenses they saw some magnificent country, and were mining only 1 1/2 miles from another hardworking miner who struck it rich with a 54-ounce gold nugget.

After Alaska they decided to try California. “We’d heard rumors about rich rivers and they were true, but you have to really go for it. Even small dredges have the capability to actually bring up the gold, but it al1 depends on how hard a person wants to work. You just can’t sit on the bank and make that gold jump into your sluice box; you’ve got to work! The bigger the dredge the harder the work, but you get more production of course.

“One thing about California, it’s a lot cheaper to mine there than Alaska, so we took a 4-inch, a 5-inch, and an 8-inch dredge with us all at the same time. We figured we could sample with the 5-inch, use the 4-inch in the creeks, and do the real production work with the 8-inch. We spent about a month working the creeks, and that’s where we pulled our biggest nuggets — one was a really nice quarter-ouncer which Richard immediately laid claim to. We also found a lot of nice coarse gold.” In that first month the Bogans recovered 6 ounces, and then decided to move the “big guy” into the river.

“We had picked what we believed would be a really productive spot,” recalled Roger. “We had spent a lot of time talking to the old-timers. They really know the lay of the land and where the gold is likely to be carried in the river during the high flood waters. Those people are great; they have so much knowledge if you just listen to them. We had also taken some mining seminars from Dave McCracken, and we felt we’d hit a pay-streak if we could just keep in mind the old miners’ rule: “If you were the heaviest thing in that river where would you be?”

In the spot they chose, the 5-inch sampling dredge hit pay-dirt, bringing up 3/4 of an ounce of gold in the first set of sample holes. “We knew right then we were on to something, so we turned on the 8-inch and spent the summer doing what we’d been dreaming of doing for years. The dredge we continued to use throughout the rest of the season was that same 8-inch. We had built it ourselves, using a 1600cc Volkswagon engine and Precision machine components. So far we’ve built five different dredges, and we’ve been very happy with our ability to recover both fine and coarse gold.”

The energy I felt when spending time with these dynamic and dedicated miners was nothing short of spellbinding, and it’s definitely contagious. “Our goal for the next six months,” Roger reports, “is to actually recover 500 to 600 ounces. That way we’ll not only cover expenses, we’ll be making a very comfortable living doing what our entire team loves the most.”

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