Spindle Quest: Chasing Lost Creek Gold. - Slumach

IN HIS BOOK The Fraser Bruce Hutchinson mentions
a cave near China Bar where a group of miners found
cover from Indians during the Fraser River Gold Rush. A
cave in the Fraser Canyon would be an interesting place
to hunt for treasure caches. In the book the cave is just
mentioned in one sentence and I was sure no one had ever
searched for it.
China Bar is still difficult to get to. It is reached by driving
to Boston Bar and crossing over the Fraser to North
Bend. From there logging roads reach deep into the mountains
to an area called Scuzzy Creek. A walk up an old logging
area running alongside the creek gets you to a point
where you have to scale down the side of a mountain.
Once down the mountain you follow the railroad tracks to
the mouth of Scuzzy Creek and go up into the hills. Rob
and I tried this on a hot July afternoon in 1989, hoping
that with a little luck, we would stumble upon Hutchison’s
cave.
I had managed to get my hands on some claim charts of
Scuzzy Creek, and its lower half was covered with claims.
“Where others have found gold, you can find gold,” was a
lesson preached in most prospecting circles. Therefore Rob
and I also planned to do a little prospecting, or should I
say, claim jumping in the Scuzzy Creek area.
At Scuzzy Creek we parked the truck in a clearing and
made our way up the ancient logging road. It took us a
good hour or more to reach the end of the crumbling road
to where we would make our descent down the side of the
mountain. The mountainside was extremely steep and dry.
Just before reaching the railway tracks, Rob and I stopped
at a small stream. When we finished drinking we crossed
the stream and hiked up to the top of a small ridge. I was
sweating so much that my glasses slid off my nose. When
I bent down to pick them up I noticed I was standing in
the foundation of an old cabin, perhaps from a prospector
who, with hundreds of others during the gold rush, envisioned
himself finding his dreams. I called Rob who ran
over and we looked around. I thought about something I
had read in Karl Von Mueller’s book The Treasure Hunter’s
Manual 7. Many a good cache, Von Mueller suggested, is
to be found among the ruins of a crumbling cabin. That
was an exciting thought, since I doubted that anyone had
ever searched here with a metal detector. I planned to
return to do that, but when I came back two years later I
could not even find the spot where we found the ruins of
that old prospector’s cabin.
Once we had made our way down to the railway tracks,
we decided to pan in some small creeks on the way, but all
we found were fine specks of colour that you could hardly
see with the human eye. We gave that up and followed
what looked like an ancient prospector’s trail down the
20
Scuzzy Creek Exercise
railway tracks. As we made our way into the most rugged
part of the Fraser Canyon I could see the highway off in
the distance across the Fraser River and Hell’s Gate. When
we got down to the train tracks, I noticed a train bridge
ahead of us where Scuzzy Creek flows into the Fraser. At
the mouth of the creek was China Bar.
As we walked towards the train bridge the heat became
unbearable. I looked around for a place where we could
hike down to the banks of the Fraser, but the cliffs looked
way too dangerous. Rob wanted to look for a way down to
Scuzzy Creek from the other side of the bridge and slowly
started making his way across. I decided to follow him
when suddenly I saw him turning around and yelling and
I before I figured out what he was trying to tell me I could
hear the blast of a locomotive horn.
I was standing in the middle of the bridge and could see
where the track circled around the corner, but I couldn’t
see the train. I turned around in a panic and started walking
back quickly. In the corner of my eye I could see the
train coming around the corner. I started to run but I
almost tripped and fell over because I had to jump from
tie to tie on the railway tracks. My heart was now in my
throat. I thought about jumping off the bridge down into
the gorge, because the train was coming down on me fast. I
glanced down at my feet trying not to trip.
The train was now honking at me in a series of panicky
blasts, as it slowly got closer to grinding me into a pulp of
mashed flesh and blood. All I could do was hope that I’d
make it to the other side of the bridge in time. I felt hat
the train would now be soon on the bridge but my eyes
were down at my feet. I had a vision of my mother tucking
me into bed and whispering into my ear, only five days to
Christmas, Daryl, she said in her calming voice.
I didn’t dare look back at the train as I jumped from tie to
tie. I could feel it rumbling under my feet; now breathing
down my neck. Three ties to go…two…and one. I decide
to jump for it and flung myself through the air with my
eyes closed. I could hear one last blast from the train as
my body flew through the air. I hit the ground with a thud
and opening my eyes I watched the train beside me flying
down the tracks. I lay there just listening to the sounds of
the rumbling train and staring up at the deep blue sky that
never looked so beautiful.
My sky gazing was interrupted by Rob’s face looking
down at me as I lay on the ground.
“Friesen, I thought you were gone,” he said in a calm
voice.
“So did I,” I grumbled with intense relief.
Little did we know this was just beginning of the excitements
of the day.
© Daryl Friesen 2009