Searching for Pitt Lake Gold: Facts and Fantasy in the Legend of Slumach

By Fred Braches

A smart, concise analysis of the legend of Slumach’s Gold, which strives to uncover the truth behind this mythical gold deposit said to be hidden north of Pitt Lake.

British Columbia is gold country, and with gold comes legends that have been passed down through the generations. Ever since the Fraser Canyon gold rush, prospectors and adventurers have been looking for a mysterious, exceedingly rich gold deposit in the watershed of Pitt Lake, first mentioned in a small newspaper entry in November 1869. Over time, as the story spread, the man at the centre of this legendary gold start was endowed with the identity of Slum.ook, better known as Slumach, a Katzie man who was ultimately hanged in 1891 for shooting and killing another man in anger. The legend of the gold grew into that of an exceedingly rich deposit known as "Slumach's gold." This book presents, unravels, and dissects the legends of the gold of Pitt Lake, and tells the stories of some of the daredevils and venerable prospectors who searched for the mythical gold at their peril.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heritage House
• Release date: May 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781772032246

Fred Braches

Fred Braches is an avid historian and researcher. After hearing all of the lore about Slumach's Gold, he resolved to separate fact from fiction once and for all. He appeared on the History TV series Curse of the Frozen Gold (2015).

Book preview

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Searching for Pitt Lake Gold

Facts and Fantasy in the Legend of Slumach

FRED BRACHES

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To the memory of Slum.ook

The name Slum.ook was recorded in

an 1879 census of Indigenous people. 

This was perhaps the first time

his name was spelled out.

Contents

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1 Slumach

CHAPTER 2 Creative Journalism

CHAPTER 3 The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

CHAPTER 4 The Man Who Wasn’t There

CHAPTER 5 Volcanic Brown

CHAPTER 6 Death, A Ghost, A Curse

CHAPTER 7 Hunting for Pitt Lake Gold

CHAPTER 8 Stu Brown’s Gold Canyon

AFTERWORD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTES

REFERENCES

INDEX

Preface

We in British

COLUMBIA

live in gold country. All around us are magic places where the precious metal can be found, has been found, or will be found. And with gold come legends that have been passed down through the generations—stories making us dream of the unimaginable wealth that is right out there for us

to discover.

Ever since the Fraser Canyon gold rush, prospectors and adventurers have been looking for a mysterious, exceedingly rich gold deposit in the watershed of Pitt Lake in southwestern British Columbia. The story goes that only two men, both long gone, have ever actually seen it. They took out as much gold as they could carry, making just a dent in the unmeasurable treasure. Its actual location is a mystery, but many a daredevil has risked life and limb to find it, guided by the vague instructions left in a letter by one of the men rumoured to have found it.

Pitt Lake was an underexplored backwater at the time of the gold rush. The first mention in print of gold at Pitt Lake seems to be a small entry in a newspaper in November of 1869 about an Indian (as Indigenous people were commonly called at that time) who had brought in a good prospect of gold he claimed to have found to the north of Pitt Lake.1

This nameless man was later assumed, for no known reason, to have been Slum.ook, better known as Slumach, an elderly Indigenous man who was hanged in 1891 for shooting and killing another man in anger. Over time, the promising sample, that good prospect of gold mentioned in the original story, grew into an exceedingly rich deposit that became known as Slumach’s gold.

During the First World War, American prospectors added a second discoverer of the gold to the story, a white man called Jackson, who supposedly left a letter describing his find as a creek where the bedrock was yellow with gold and you could discover nuggets as big as walnuts: the Lost Creek Mine. Overall, this was a much more attractive and complete story than the one that was essentially about a man named Slumach, hanged for murder, and with little or no information about gold and where to find it.

But Slumach, the legendary first discoverer of the gold, was not forgotten. Just before the Second World War, the attention of the press was once again caught by the story of Slumach—not the original, elderly Slumach, but a younger man, a drinker and womanizer who killed his female companions that had helped him mine his gold so they could not reveal its location. This man, his story enriched over time by many creative journalists, is the Slumach most often presented in newspapers and magazines from the late 1930s onward.

I am a researcher of local history, particularly of the communities of Whonnock and Ruskin in the eastern part of Maple Ridge,

BC

.

My curiosity about Slumach was piqued when I found out that Florence Reid, an early resident of Whonnock, had been a witness for the defence at Slumach’s trial. I started collecting newspaper articles and official records of the trial. I soon became hooked, and before I knew it, I was looking for anything that had been written or said about the Pitt Lake legends and the fabled gold from the mid-1800s until the present day. My friend Donald Waite had a website going at that time called The Lost Gold Mine of Pitt Lake, and, generous as always, he helped me take my first steps on my investigative journey. Many other people also helped me on my quest to put together the wealth of information now on my website, slumach.ca. I spent hours behind microfilm readers at the New Westminster Public Library, Vancouver Public Library, City of Vancouver Archives, and

BC

Archives. Through the Internet I discovered precious new articles that I would not otherwise have been able to find, never mind access, and could acquire issues of some rare entertainment magazines with writings about the legendary gold of Pitt Lake.

Most of the journalists who wrote about the story of the Pitt Lake gold did little or no research beyond reading the stories written by others in newspapers or magazines. With few exceptions, they simply took the old yarns and embellished them, adding yet more fiction. What they wrote was meant as entertainment, but many readers took the articles seriously and assumed they were accurate retellings of the discovery of the gold. Well-known Vancouver archivist Major J.S. Mathews lost patience with the number of inquiries he received about Slumach’s gold and called the story pure rubbish.2

Slumach’s Gold: In Search of a Legend, published in 1972,3 was the first book entirely dedicated to the mystery mine and its discoverers, but it did not deviate significantly from this usual pattern of borrowing and enhancing of the legend. In a revised edition, published in 2007,4 the authors lamented the absence of provenance in terms of the available evidence, and indeed, little or no work had been done up to that point to investigate the factual background of the legends.

I aim to change that. Supported by more than a decade of research, and drawing on information from original records, this book offers a fresh look at the stories about the search for Pitt Lake gold. It not only presents provenance but also follows the development of the stories of key individuals, real or imagined, who played a part in the creation or evolution of the legend.

The book also includes a few true stories about daring expeditions inspired by the legends.

SHERIDAN.tif

Pitt Lake and the lower Pitt River area.

Chapter

1

Slumach

Introduction

The story of Slumach takes pride of place here because rumours, presented as facts by the press starting twenty-five years after his death, have consistently declared him to be the first discoverer of a fabulously rich placer that would eventually become known as Slumach’s gold.

This chapter deals with the only recorded data known to exist about the real Slumach. It mainly describes the murder he committed, followed by the story of his pursuit, capture, trial, execution, and interment. The information is drawn from the legal records and newspaper reports of the time, mainly from the Daily Columbian. The Daily Columbian was the only newspaper that reported on all the stages of the drama, from murder to execution. Other newspapers did report occasionally on the subject, but generally followed the lead of the Daily Columbian, essentially drawing on what it had reported.

Between 1960 and 2008, the text of reports published in the Daily Columbian was available only via transcripts made by William W. Burton and published in the Native Voice of July 1959.1 The bound originals of the newspaper at the New Westminster library covering the period from June to December 1890 were considered too frail to be microfilmed or to be handled by the public. Mercifully, in 2008, Ann Lunghamer, then Head of Reference Services at the New Westminster Library gave in to my pleading and a microfilm was made of the missing second half of 1890 of the Daily Columbian.

Quotations in this chapter are from the microfilmed original newspaper and include material that was not copied by Burton in 1959.

MURDER.tif

Louie Bee and Seymour camped at Lillooet Slough, known today as the Alouette River (1). Slumach shot Bee at Addington Point (2) on the west side of Pitt River, and not at Lillooet Slough, as the newspapers reported in 1890. After the murder at Addington Point, Seymour walked along the western shore of the Pitt River to the railway bridge (3), crossing it to reach his camp at the Alouette River.

Murder

Slumach was an elderly Indigenous man who lived at Grant Narrows, the outlet to Pitt River at the south end of Pitt Lake. His name is spelled in many ways, but the spelling Slumach is generally accepted. Traditionally, Indigenous people went by a single name only. The concept of first names came only with Christian baptism and eventually replaced the traditional naming system.

On Monday, September 8, Slumach killed Louie (or Louis) Bee, who lived on the Katzie reserve on the Fraser River. The murder occurred after the sockeye run on the Fraser River ended, which was when Katzie moved from the reserve on the Fraser to the Pitt River to stock up on