Spindle Quest: Chasing Lost Creek Gold. - Slumach

The next adventure after surviving the China Bar
brought me into a place deep in the heart of the Stave
Lake mountains, where we found a place that became a
sanctuary for me in the time I was growing up. This was a
place where I could go to escape from the world and get in
touch with my inner self.
Once again Rob was my partner on that great discovery.
We were looking for yet another cave, this one mentioned
in Charles A. Miller’s book The Golden Mountains.
I had brought with me topographic maps of the area, on
which I recorded the general location of where I thought
the cave would be according to the description in Miller’s
book, viz. on the west side of Norrish Creek on the spot
where the creek turns east. I left Rob the task of navigating
us up the winding logging road, while I kept my eyes on
the road and listened for the sound of approaching logging
trucks. Rob said that we were to keep going until we came
to the fourth bridge that crossed Norrish Creek. There we
could park the truck and hike up the river to the location I
had circled on the map, and if all went well, the cave would
be right there.
After about a half an hour of driving we came to the
fourth bridge, parked, and headed down to the canyon
floor to begin our search. The water of the creek was thundering
down. We tried to walk up the river by jumping
from rock to rock, but we gave up because the river was
too high. If we wanted to continue we would have to get
our feet wet—no big deal. The water in the creek was icy
cold as we slowly hiked upstream. The sunrays were dancing
through the clear water. As we walked up the creek the
sound of the water was growing louder and louder, and as
we I rounded a bend we came face to face with a beautiful
giant waterfall.
Cutting through an ancient ledge of rock, the waterfall
cascaded down into a large dark green pool. The water was
so clear you could see the bottom. With all its splendour
the waterfall was an obstacle, keeping us from reaching
the cave. We had to hike around the waterfall climbing
through the bush to get farther upstream. The branches
poked at us as we were climbing, but soon we were standing
above the mighty fall.
I slipped and fell over, and when I landed on the ground
I thought it sounded hollow. I called out for Rob who was
looking down at the waterfall. He came over to where I was
knocking on the ground.
“Listen,” I said, “does that sound hollow to you? Well?”
“Ya, I’d say so, and there’s only one way to find out.”
And with that Rob and I started digging with our hands.
Within minutes we were through he dirt and staring at
five large man-made pieces of wood.
24
Lost Creek
“Do you have a knife?”
Rob pulled out his knife and started chipping away at the
wood.
“This is going to take forever, I have a better idea, stand
up.”
Rob knew what I was thinking and we both jumped
up and down on the boards. Within seconds the wood
snapped in half and we found ourselves in a five-foot hole.
“You okay?”
“Yes, at least we know it’s hollow now.”
Rob got up and crawled out of the hole and I was about
to follow, but when I started to push myself up, I felt my
hand touching something made of metal.
“I think I found something,” I cried out.
“What is it?” Rob asked from above.
I picked up the object and scraped the dirt off it.
“It’s an axe head.”
“Damn, I was hoping it was a large piece of gold.”
“Did you bring a flashlight?”
I poked my head out of the hole to see what he was doing.
“Friesen come here!”
I climbed out of the hole and ran over to where he was
standing.
“What is it?”
“Look,” he said pointing to a pile of ancient beams, which
were sticking out of the ground.
“I would say we have found ourselves some sort of old
camp,“ Rob said with a happy smile.
We dug around a bit more and unearthed more axe
heads, some broken old bottles, and a gold pan. We decided
to return the following weekend with some digging
equipment, and as it was getting late, we decided to call it a
day and head back to the truck.
As we were driving down the logging road, Rob started
mumbling to himself as he studied the map we had used to
guide us up here.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Ah man! I don’t believe this!”
“What?”
“We were not even close to Norrish Creek. It’s way over
here! We took the wrong road off the freeway. The river we
hiked up is called Lost Creek!” said Rob with a smile.
Charles A. Miller’s cave would have to wait rediscovery,
but thanks to our mistake we had made our own discovery.
We returned to the site several times, excavating and
pulling out all kinds of artifacts from what at one time had
been probably a logging or perhaps a mining camp. The
summer of 1989 came to a close and we returned to high
school for our final year.
© Daryl Friesen 2009