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Unearthing HISTORY MINING THROUGH TIME IN B.C. BY CHUCK DAVIS Artifacts recent and ancient: An archival photo of Bullion Hydraulic Pit near Likely, B.C. (main). Thomas “Dancing Bill” Lather discovered gold in Dancing Bill Gulch in 1859, earning $110 per day from his discovery. ‘Cutting-edge’ technology from 10,000 years ago – obsidian tools found by archaeologists at Tahltan Village in 2007 (inset). 32 SUMMER 2010 Photographs: AME BC Archives (Bullion), George Kaufmann
Early days of the trade People were mining in British Columbia 10,000 years ago. Away up in the northwest, towering nearly 2,800 metres in the air, is our first mining site: Mount Edziza, north of Terrace. Edziza, the highest volcano in the province, is dormant today. Dormant, geologists say, but it has “potential.” Uncounted millennia ago – science hasn’t figured out how many yet – it began to belch out hot, thick, dark lava that cooled quickly in the crisp northern air to form black sheets of obsidian glass. Today, Edziza looms above the traditional lands of the Tahltan people. The region’s first people began to mine the obsidian a hundred centuries ago, breaking off chunks to fashion tools, ornaments and, sometimes, weapons for their own use and for trading with other tribes. Archeological evidence has shown that Mount Edziza obsidian was traded in ancient times with other First Nations people from the Queen Charlottes to Alaska. According to a Tahltan website: “There were active volcanoes in our country thousands of years ago. They have also helped form the landscape. Mt. Edziza (which means cinders or volcano ash and sand mountain in Tahltan) is a volcano cone. Old lava flow can be seen in spots. It has been centuries since the last volcanic eruption, but some of our people remember stories about families who had to move camp in a hurry because of volcanic action.” Astonishingly, in the early years of the 21st century, the Tahltan are still chipping away at the mountain, these days for other reasons. Tahltan band member and PhD candidate Vera Asp, an archaeologist, is studying the use of obsidian by her ancestors. Obsidian is valued for its cutting qualities: it breaks into pieces with razor-sharp edges. Even today, scalpels made of obsidian are used in some surgical procedures where extremely fine cutting action is called for. An obsidian knife, still sharp, found in the Stikine River area, is estimated to have been fashioned 2,000 years ago. The word “obsidian” comes to us through the Latin obsidianus, a misprint, says the Oxford English Dictionary, of the word obsianus, after a Roman named Obsius, who, according to Roman author and naturalist Pliny, found this rock in Ethiopia. Today, echoing the uses of that ancient Tahltan obsidian, much of the mineral and metal material taken from the earth CORPORATE OFFICE: 111 St. George Street, Suite 200, Moncton, N.B. Canada E1C 1T7 (506) 857-8636 fax: (506) 857-9211 visit our web site: www.majordrilling.com • 27 Branches in 17 countries • Surface and Underground Deephole • Directional Drilling • Geotechnical Drilling • Environmental Drilling • Reverse Circulation & RAB SUMMER 2010 33
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