Slumach’s Gold: In Search Of A Legend And A Curse With Brian Antonson

Transcript

0:26

Welcome to Haunted History Chronicles, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of the past, one ghostly tale at a time.

I'm your host, Michelle, and I'm thrilled to be your guide on this Erie journey through the pages of history.

0:42

Picture this a realm where the supernatural intertwines with the annals of time, where the echoes of the past reverberate through haunted corridors and forgotten landscapes.

That's the realm we invite you to explore with us.

Each episode will unearth stories, long buried secrets, dark folklore, tales of the macabre, and discuss parapsychology topics from ancient legends to more recent enigmas.

1:11

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1:35

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1:56

Get ready for a ride through the corridors of time where history and the supernatural converge.

Because every ghost has a story, and every story has a history.

And now, let's introduce today's podcast or guest.

2:17

Welcome to another intriguing episode of Haunted History Chronicles, where we delve into the mysteries that have fascinated generations.

Today, we're setting our sights on a legend that has gripped the imaginations of treasure hunters, historians, and adventurers for over a century.

2:36

The curse of Slew Max Gold in the heart of British Columbia, Amidst the rugged and untamed wilderness lies.

One of the most tantalising and elusive treasures in Canadian history during the frenzied days of the Fraser River gold rush.

2:54

Rumours began to circulate of a hidden gold mine protected by a sinister curse.

The tale of Slumak, a mysterious First Nations man hanged for murder in 1891, quickly became intertwined with whispers of lost riches.

3:13

Over the decades, countless have searched for the fabled gold beyond measure.

He supposedly concealed, but none have returned with their fortune and many.

Never returned at all.

To guide us through this thrilling narrative, I'm excited to welcome Brian Antonson to the podcast.

3:33

Brian is no stranger to the world of broadcasting, having spent decades shaping the future of radio and media in British Columbia.

But today he's here to share his lifelong fascination with Slimax Gold.

He is the co-author of Slimax Gold In Search of a Legend and a Curse.

3:53

Brian will take us on a journey through history, myth, and.

Peril as we explore the dark allure of this enduring mystery, Stay tuned as we uncover the truths and terrors surrounding the infamous curse of Slew Max Gold.

4:10

Will the treasure ever be found, or will the curse continue to claim those who dare seek it?

Let's find out together.

Hi, Brian, Welcome to the show.

It's nice to have you joining me today.

4:26

And I'm very glad to be joining with you.

Would you like to start by just introducing yourself to to the listeners of the podcast?

Sure, I'm a broadcaster by trade.

I worked in radio here in British Columbia for many, many years and then became an educator, a broadcast educator by trade, and have trained thousands of students over the years at a local institution called the British Columbia Institute of Technology, which is our leading operation here in Western Canada.

4:58

And so that's my professional background, retired a decade and a half ago almost.

And beyond that, I've had a fascination with legends and so on.

And the Slumak legend that we're about to talk about is something that I learned about when I was nine years old.

5:17

Now being 76 is 60 some odd years ago.

And this has been a fascination for me.

My brother and I heard the story around a campfire and we said we're going to go find that gold when we grow up.

We got smart as we grew up and decided instead of writing or instead of going to find the gold in treacherous territory, we would actually write a book about it.

5:41

We hooked up with a colleague, Mary Traynor, and the three of us have written three books on the topic.

The first one sold 10,000 and in Canada 5000 is a best seller, so to sell 10,000 was over the top.

5:58

The second one has now sold almost 15,000 and so we have great anticipation that this new one is going to sell in excess of either of those.

And obviously, we're going to have the chance to talk about this legend today, something I'm very much looking forward to.

6:17

Do you want to just take us back to that, that moment that sparked your fascination with Slew Max Gold and the curse behind it?

You know, talk about those early days of curiosity and what they felt like for you.

So we were at summer camp and I was nine years old.

6:35

My brother was eight.

He's a year younger and we're there's about half a dozen of us young lads and we're sitting around a campfire and a very elderly woman.

She must have been almost 40, I think at the time.

But when you're nine years old, 40s ancient, right?

6:52

She was telling ghost stories.

And so the usual campfire ghost stories were were passing by our our little infant ears.

And then she said, and then there's a lost gold mine up near Pitt Lake, which is just a few miles away from where we were.

7:11

And she started to tell us the legend of Slumak and the lost gold.

Well, we were drop jaw fascinated by this whole story.

And we all said, yeah, well, when we're adults, we're going to go look for that mine.

7:27

So from the earliest days, we have been fascinated by that, that tale.

Who doesn't love a lost gold mine story, especially one with a curse put on it?

And so that that's what got us going round a campfire.

Which is the perfect setting, isn't it?

7:45

It's just absolutely, absolutely perfect.

You get the the chills on the back of the neck and the hair standing on end just thinking about it.

Yeah, yeah.

So do you want to give us an overview then of the legend itself or anyone that doesn't know it?

It's very important to separate legend from actual fact, and that's what we do in our book, the legend as told to us and as told by many people over the 130 years or so since all this happened.

8:17

The legend is that a fellow named Slumak, a local Indigenous man, came into New Westminster in the late 18 80s and he threw gold Nuggets the size of walnuts around the local salons and US.

8:32

Mr. was a fairly well developed, a small city at the time, but it was still frontier in in many aspects.

So he threw gold Nuggets around the salons and people scrambled for them and said where did you get this?

And he said, well, that's a secret.

And he would drink and have a good time and then he would leave town.

8:49

This is all legend.

He would leave town.

He would take out usually an Indigenous woman with him, supposedly to help him bring back the gold.

None of them ever came back, and he always returned with more gold and, and it was all done in the middle of the night sort of thing.

9:09

So people tried to follow him.

They never could.

And then one of the young woman that he'd taken away legendarily turned up in the local Fraser River, which is British Columbia's largest river, which runs through the town of New Westminster.

She turned up in the river with his knife in her back.

9:28

And so he was arrested.

The next time he came to town, he was tried, convicted and hanged.

And there in lies the nub of the legend.

Supposedly when Slumak stood on the gallows, he said Nikka Memloose, mine Memloose, which in the Chinook Jargon of the day meant when I die, mine dies.

9:52

So supposedly that meant he put a curse on the mine.

And then within a decade people were looking for this supposed mine and, and it's gone on and on and on.

So that's where it got started.

Now, in actual fact, Slumak did murder somebody and he was hanged on January 16th, 1891 for that murder.

10:17

But there were no missing women involved.

There were no gold Nuggets the size of walnuts reported.

And you know, that local press being local press, if somebody was throwing gold Nuggets around the salons, that would have made the the papers of the day.

10:33

And none of that ever happened.

And there was no mention of it at the at the the trial, No mention of missing women, no mention of gold.

Very simply, two guys who didn't like each other had a fight and Slumak shot the other guy.

And that was the truth of the matter.

10:49

But that doesn't stop a legend from growing.

And the legend has grown and has been repeated and has lied.

People have searched for the mine for all these decades.

Many have died because the country up there, which is just a few miles away from Vancouver, the country is very dangerous and treacherous and vertical.

11:11

You can walk along a trail and slip off of a Cliff and go down several 100 feet and die.

And this has happened with a number of people over the years.

And so when that sort of thing happens, people say the curse got him.

11:27

They neglect to remember that there never was a curse.

Slumak went to his death without having uttered a word.

And the reporters, the people who were witnesses and so on, said he was silent until the end.

So the curse is legend, the missing women and the gold Nuggets and so on is, is legend.

11:49

And yet people seem to have found gold in some quantities up there in that area.

So, so it continues.

And so our books, this is the third, our books have chronicled the story of the people who've gone searching for the lost gold and will continue to search for the lost gold.

12:11

So why would you say then that curse is is so important?

Why do you think it is that it's captivated people for more than a century?

Everybody loves a curse, the Tutankhamun curse, King Tut's curse on the finding of of of his wonderful grave and all of that sort of thing.

12:29

It, it put the curse on Howard Carter and other people in Lord Carnarvon, other people involved in the recovery of his material.

Every legend, Montezuma's legend, the the Oak Island curse, which is a big thing on on television these days here in Canada.

12:48

Oak Island being supposedly Blackbeard the pirate or Captain Kidd or one of those people cursed the buried gold.

And so people search for it.

Everybody loves lost gold mines and everybody loves them even more when there's a curse put on them.

13:04

So, you know, a curse is kind of standard material in in so much of the world's history.

It draws you in.

You can't help but be, you know, being be enraptured by something like that, the possibility of something like that.

13:21

Precisely so in this case, if anybody goes missing, if anybody, you know, up in the up in the Wilds of British Columbia, if anybody is lost or if they die while they're up there, if they die of a heart attack or of a broken leg or whatever, people say, aha, the curse has struck again.

13:41

Yeah.

And I think the the other kind of element to it that very much adds that appeal obviously is, is the execution itself.

You know, here we have someone convicted of murder.

And of course that that being such an event, such a public event, the history involved in that again, obviously adds some element of mystique to the story.

14:05

And of course, intertwined in that, the elements that the legend brings in, in terms of what is said, you've got this wonderful blurring of history and and storytelling that again creates this mystique, this magic, this wonder, this possibility, this curse, this eerie appeal, which of course are all the boxes of a story that's going to endure for over a century, which you have here.

14:30

Yeah, it it, it ticks all the boxes.

What's tragic about this, too, is that this was white man's justice in those days, Slumak's trial, there was lots of contradictory evidence presented, but the jury was out for 15 minutes and they returned with a guilty verdict.

14:47

Now, there's no doubt at all that in this interaction between the the the two guys that Slumak shot him.

Absolutely.

But there is evidence that was reported that the guy was threatening Slumak with his tomahawk, with his axe.

15:04

And so Slumak then raised his rifle and shot him.

And in today's world, that would be a manslaughter charge, not a murder charge.

But in 1890 when this all occurred, that was a murder charge.

15:19

And Indigenous guys, if found guilty of murder in 1890, the automatic sentence was a death sentence.

There was no, OK, this was, we understand what happened here.

You're going to go to jail for five years.

It was an automatic death sentence.

15:36

Now, we were operating in those days, being a colony of Britain, we were actually a dominion of Canada eventually, but we were still operating under the British colonial rules and regulations and laws in 1892.

15:53

So one year after Slumak was hanged, the laws changed and Indigenous people suddenly were being treated exactly as the white people were.

So this is white man's justice one year before people started to modernize things and said, OK, just because he's a native guy doesn't mean that he's automatically supposed to die.

16:16

And so but for one year, Slumak, and he was around 80 years old at the time when all this happened.

But for one year, Slumak was subject to white man's justice and he suffered as a result.

So have there been any specific stories or accounts where you know treasure hunters or explorers have met these mysterious or these tragic ends while in search for the mine and for the gold?

16:44

Many, many.

The first would have been a fellow named Jackson, who was again a legendary figure.

There's no evidence whatsoever that Jackson actually existed, but supposedly he arrived on his way home to San Francisco from the Alaskan goldfields in 19 O 1.

17:02

He heard the legend which was circulating in those days, and he said, well, I'm going to go find that mine.

I know my way around the Bush.

So he left and went into the Bush in the North Pit Lake area, and he came back three months later.

He was a broken man.

17:18

He had had terrible deprivations while he was out there in the Bush, but he kept his pack sack with him at all times and it was very heavy.

And he then took a steamer back down to San Francisco and reportedly deposited 800 or sorry, $8000 worth of raw gold in the Bank of British North America.

17:41

And in 19 O 6, of course, the San Francisco earthquake destroyed that bank and and the rest of the city.

And so there there's no way to obtain any kind of records.

They were all gone.

But Jackson, this was 19 O1.

17:57

Now Jackson by nineteen O 4 was dying.

And so he wrote a letter again, legendary to a friend who had grubstaked him, wrote a letter and said, here's where to go find the riches.

And I'm dying now.

18:13

But you should go and find this riches beyond your your wildest dreams.

And so the Jackson letter has been circulating since 19 O four.

And he then died in 19 O four.

And he was considered to be the first person to die as a result of the curse.

18:32

Other people have gone missing over the years.

Other people have had various different misadventures up in the Bush.

Every time search and rescue goes out to hear a local search and rescue people goes out searching in the pit Lake area for somebody who's lost or somebody who's had an accident or something.

18:51

And the choppers come in and the searchers go looking for them.

My mind goes to aha, that person was probably looking for slew Max mine.

And this is as current as as last year or last summer, you know, during the, the, the summer hunting season and so on when people were up there looking.

19:09

And this is where I think, you know, again, elements of, of folklore often intertwine with, with other aspects of, of storytelling and kind of history and how they're kind of represented within society and local, local legends and local, you know, local storytelling.

19:28

Because what you have are these stories that in many ways become cautionary tales that get passed on and tales that have some kind of an important message, something that you know is supposed to resonate, that is important.

That is a central motif and a theme that we're, you know, we, we get hooked into.

19:49

And here we have, I think a really good example of a cautionary tale that is there as this warning message to, to be aware, to be careful that this is dangerous terrain.

This is dangerous territory that you could come to to misadventure in.

20:06

And so here's this element of a story that perfectly enables you to get across that message in a very compelling way to to have others hopefully make the right choice and to stay away from this danger that could imminently be there if they seek out.

20:24

This gold in this manner.

I agree it's very much a cautionary tale, but what happens is you have an overabundance of, of caution involved.

And then people say, yeah, but there might be gold out there and that'll never happened to me.

20:40

I can go out there.

I, I can handle myself in the Bush.

I know how to light a campfire.

I have good boots.

I'll be fine.

And then, and we've talked to many of these people.

We, we profile many in the, in the book.

I was with a group of them last night who are doing a very popular #1 reality show here in Canada called Dead Man's Curse.

21:01

And I've been a big fan of the people involved.

I've been a big fan of the of the show over two seasons.

I've actually appeared a couple of times in the show.

So these people are very adventurous.

But when you see them in that country, when you see them going up vertical cliffs, when you see them walking across glaciers where there are deep crevasses, where if you slip into that crevasse, you're not coming out.

21:27

Still, these people, I'd call them intrepid researchers.

And with all due caution and all the equipment necessary and so on, these people are making a wonderful television series.

What about the people who go up there without the cautions?

21:42

What about the people who go up and they're traversing a glacier and all of a sudden a thunderstorm breaks out and they're trapped there for three days exposed on a glacier and they're not prepared with proper waterproofing, with a proper equipment to to keep themselves warm, etcetera.

22:00

And it's all because the bravado took over and they thought, well, I can do that.

And so the cautionary tale is meant to evoke caution, and it sadly has not done so in many cases with this one.

22:18

But I think again, there's also something appealing with the the sense of history.

If we think about the, the number of people who went in search of, of gold, you know, The Pioneers in search of gold, that's something that's so endured in terms of the appeal of that, the the wonder of that.

22:35

And, and I think you see the same kind of wonder and intrigue and desire to, to seek it out in, you know, people still doing it.

You know, it's very much this connection with the history that this is still something that appeals, that being that person that's going to find that nugget of gold is very exciting.

22:55

It's, it's worth the risk.

And so that's where caution goes out the window.

You don't necessarily see the risk.

It becomes about that, you know, pioneering adventurous spirit, like you said.

And I think sometimes it just takes over.

Very true.

And British Columbia is built on gold.

23:12

We had the famous gold Rush of 1858.

So there'd been the gold rush in California of 1848, and then all of a sudden gold was discovered in our interior.

Barkerville is a very famous international location.

23:28

It's a, it's a theme town now, but it was a ghost town for a long time.

But in the Barkerville area, millions and millions and millions of dollars of gold came out of there.

A few years later.

It was the Alaskan Gold Rush and the Yukon Gold Rush.

23:44

And then we've had many locations around our province.

So the, the whole province was founded by people who were coming in here seeking gold.

And along with gold, they found copper and, and, and iron and all sorts of other different things.

24:00

But gold kind of built British Columbia.

And so it's very much a part of our ethos, if you will, as a, as a province of, of Canada, that gold is where you find it.

Gold is here and it, it, it draws people in.

24:17

So, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of people came to British Columbia seeking gold at one time or another.

And, and so this is all part of it.

This, this mix with Slumak is all speaking to that whole concept of gold and how it draws people.

24:35

And it's drawn people to South America.

It's drawn people to the American Southwest, it's drawn people to Africa, it's drawn people to the Middle East.

Gold is where you find it, and wherever you find it, people want to be there.

So what message then would you say that you know this story has to offer those those tempted by the promise of treasure?

24:58

We try to be very honest about the dangers, about the threats, about the reality of going looking for this gold.

We consider ourselves to be the Chronicle chroniclers.

We tell the story and we don't encourage anybody to go looking for gold, certainly in treacherous country, we don't want to be responsible for sending people to their deaths or to injury or or whatever.

25:23

But the story deserves telling.

So my message to people would be enjoy the book, enjoy the television series.

But if you decide to go looking in those areas yourself for gold, you're going to have to be very, very, very cautious and very well prepared.

25:41

And you should not go up there unless you're experienced in, in mountain travel and, and things like that.

We've touched upon some of the elements that, you know, I think are particularly compelling details of the of the story.

What do you think personally is the are the aspects that keep drawing people back to the mystery for you?

26:02

Some people reportedly have found gold and the stories are are legendary or they have some element of truth to them.

So that's what keeps drawing people back.

Because if you found gold, I could go and find gold.

26:20

There's nothing different, you know, between the and me.

So I'm just going to go up there and find gold just like you did.

So that's the compelling part.

That's the thing that keeps people going after the gold, literally.

And obviously you, you heard the story for the first time as a young boy, but you know, you went from there from that very first encounter of the story to spending such a huge amount of your time researching, writing about rewriting, you know, writing again.

26:54

What inspired you to really dig deep into the story, to continue to want to research, to continue documenting, to keep searching and looking for things about this story?

I think it was success.

27:10

We did this as a bit of a lark.

The three of us, Mary and and Rick and I decided to do this in the early 1970s and we published our first book in 1972 and we had hoped it was a small 56 page unit that we had hoped might sell a few 100 copies.

27:29

It sold 10,000.

So that allowed us then to establish our own publishing company.

Ultimately we published about 28, I think it was, I forget the exact number.

Anyway, in the, the, the late 20s sort of thing, books, other people's books.

27:46

We had several best sellers on the, the list, a couple of national best sellers and so on.

So it was that early success that emboldened us, emboldened us to to do this.

And now in the late 70s, each of us was getting very, very busy with our own careers.

28:03

And so we sold off our publishing company and all our imprints, all our books and so on to another company, which is now British Columbia's largest publisher called Heritage House.

And, and away we went.

And we went and had wonderful careers, the three of us.

28:21

And so in the mid 2000s, Heritage House talked to us about the book that we had had such great success with in the 1970s and they said, would you be interested in doing an update?

28:37

And our 2007 edition came out and it was now with all the research that we did, the stories we added, the, the gold seekers that we brought into it, there were websites by then and we interviewed all sorts of more people and, and, and whatnot.

28:53

And so that then became another best seller, 3 * 14,000.

Last I heard, 14,600 and some odd copy.

So knocking on the door of 15,000.

So the success of that emboldened us to do even more.

29:10

And then we said, well, maybe there's a, another book down in the future.

We always wanted to have a book called We Found Slew Max Gold, but to date nobody's found anything for sure.

So this book then is the culmination.

29:26

We're all in our 70s now.

We talked to Heritage House again and said maybe it's time for another capstone edition that adds colour photography and colour maps and much more detail and many more gold seekers.

And so they came up with the format of a, what is it?

29:43

Essentially a coffee table book, 8 by 10 inches in size, not sure about the centimeters involved and 224 pages and all sorts of more advanced information, info on the television series and so on.

So I, I think what has kept us going all these years is the success that we have have achieved.

30:04

Each of us has hiked a little bit in the area.

We've been up there boating or canoeing or what have you.

So we've been in the rough area, but none of the three of us have gone up on the glaciers, up into the areas where there are these cliffs and and canyons and so on.

30:22

We've not really been true seekers.

We're chroniclers of the tales.

And it must be so exciting to know that you are continuing to share this story for people who are already familiar with this, with the tale.

30:41

But for all the new generations of people who might pick up the book, hear the story, see the imagery, see the artwork, see the photography, and just fall in love with the same legend in in similar ways but different mediums to the way that you did when you were a little boy.

31:00

You know, here you are presenting it for the next generation to come.

When I was nine years old, at first heard this, we we had no idea how to even spell World Wide Web or Internet or anything like that because they they simply didn't exist.

31:16

And now there's so many websites on this, this tale, so much misinformation out there as well as as information.

That's a good solid stuff.

So, yeah, it's very gratifying to see the way this has grown.

31:32

And we, I, I, I, I don't want to say because we're all in good health and, and, and we all hope for long lives and so on.

We are not considering that we're passing the tort at this point in time, but we believe that this capstone edition of our work may encourage others to continue to, to continue to tell the tales of the gold and, and, and of the possibility because there's always the possibility of finding something.

32:04

And, you know, just a, a little side note, you know, my, my career is a, is a, I'm a teacher.

And I was only giving a lesson this week where we were looking at folk tales and these wonderful legends that we have existing around the world.

32:21

And you can bet that I shared this tale of, of, of searching for gold and the curse, some very enraptured children who had never heard about it all the way over here in, you know, the United Kingdom for the first time.

So that I think is just an incredible aspect of of storytelling and legends and these types of stories that really do, I think capture the imaginations of those that hear them time and time and time again.

32:51

There are themes, there are aspects of this story that just seem to endure that no matter the teller, no matter the the century, still capture that imagination in the same way.

We in our earlier notes before the podcast, we exchanged that we both have an interest in Arthurian things.

33:10

And again, since I was a little guy when I started school at the age of 6, so that was 1954, my parents bought a, an encyclopedia for me way, way beyond my level, of course.

33:27

And a part of that was what is called the junior Classics book.

So these were ten small books that told tales of various different things.

The one that fascinated me was had on on on the binder of the book, a knight standing there with a huge sword.

33:46

And so I went searching through the book as I grew to be able to read.

And that was the story of King Arthur.

And that was the legend of King Arthur.

And since I was again into my adulthood, I've thought I'd really like to follow up on the real person who existed behind the King Arthur legend.

34:08

And so that's been another fascination for for me.

I've been to Britain 14 times.

I have been to the supposed site of Camelot, a hill Fort called Cadbury Castle in Somerset near Glastonbury.

I've been there maybe 8 times and walked around the top.

34:25

They're always imagining that the legendary person behind that, that story 1500 years ago, who they had a huge military encampment on the top of the, of the hill Fort.

The King Arthur legend, whoever was the head of that, that military group has come down to us as the Arthur of, of legend.

34:46

So all the stories and the, you know, the sword in the stone and all these other different things don't necessarily have any truth to them.

But there was a military leader 1500 years ago who saved Britain for a while, probably a generation from the Saxon advance.

35:04

And so there's another example of a legend that is, as you say, it's captured our attention and kept us involved for, in this case, 1500 years.

Slumak at 130 years is a piker by comparison.

You know, he's, he's, he's just getting rolling.

35:20

But it's such a good one.

You know it's going to last.

It's so good.

Like I said, the children that I told this to this week, their jaws were so wide open I could have thrown things inside their mouths.

They were just hooked.

They loved it.

It was how old?

Were they?

What?

35:36

What's?

The grade level.

So they were 11.

So that's the top end of our primary age over here grade.

Five.

Yeah, yeah.

Grade 5 here in Canada, yeah.

But they were, they were hooked.

You just, I mean, you could have heard a pin drop.

They loved, they loved the story.

And, you know, again, I think it just has all of those things that we touched upon.

35:55

It's got this mystery.

It's got the eerie element of the the curse.

You've got this desire of, you know, is there gold that can we find the gold?

There's all of this stuff that just makes it so magical that, yeah, just it had them all literally there with their mouths open, just hanging on every single word, which was brilliant.

36:15

So, so at 11, they're two years older than I was when I first heard this story.

So right in the same milieu, right in the same mix, right in the same adolescent time of life.

And it captivated me then.

And so some of your, your students will have been captivated by that.

36:34

They will move to Canada and say I'm going to go looking for that gold.

You never know.

That's actually very, very likely possible in some cases.

Yeah, that may be what what happens with them, you never know.

So then over the, you know, the decades of research that we were just talking about, were there any particular surprising or unsettling pieces of information that whilst you were during those decades of research that you uncovered either you yourself or you and your co-authors?

37:08

11 There's one aspect to this legend that to me smacks of real truth.

There's a fellow who was a Forester.

So this would not be unsettling, but it would be an attention grabber.

A fellow named Stu Brown, who was a forester.

He had a master's degree.

37:25

He was in charge of a certain forest area which was partially consumed by a provincial park called Garibaldi Park or Golden Ears Park.

We're not sure just just exactly where he was.

37:42

But these are two local parks where people hike and, and they camp and they, they ski and there's, there's just a wonderful area that's covered by these provincial parks.

Stu Brown was a forester and so he was in the Bush all the time.

37:58

And one day he was walking through a a shallow pool, waterproof boots and everything, and he was attracted by the brightness of it.

And he looked down and saw gold Nuggets the size of walnuts underneath his feet.

38:15

It was about 6 inches of water.

He reached down, pulled up his hand full of very heavy gold Nuggets and he said this is the mine.

Now being the company man that he was, being the honest government employee that he was, he left it there, but he went to to our capital, British Columbia, Victoria.

38:38

And he said to government, he said, I have found something that's absolutely incredible.

I have found a pool that has literally billions of dollars worth of gold in it.

It's there for the taking.

And they laughed at him and they said, well, it's in a provincial park area and you cannot mine in a provincial park.

38:58

And he said, well, I'm not talking about mining, I'm talking about putting your hands into the water and coming up with a handful of gold Nuggets and you could just clean up the whole pool, not mining at all.

And of course, mining.

Nobody wants strip mining or whatever he says.

39:13

Let's just pick up the Nuggets.

We could pay off the provincial debt.

We can do other.

And I've read through his correspondence at length and he tried to get government's attention for about 15 years maybe.

And nobody would allow him to even bring out any gold, even to prove that it existed there.

39:33

Now, whether that was government intransigence or stupidity or whatever, his To me, Stu Brown's story reeks of the truth.

Not everybody agrees with me.

But when you have a master's degree, when you are in charge of an area, when you are a professional forester and you stumble upon something.

39:56

And then you if you if you put all his material together, there's about an inch thick file folder in in volume of material letters back and forth between him and the government trying to convince somebody to buy on to just hiking in there with him and going back to this pond and nobody would do it.

40:19

So when somebody is that ardent about what they're, they're reporting that ardent about what they're searching for that.

Strikes me as being very, very truthful.

And of course, adds to the the mystery of the the story of the what if?

40:37

What if he'd had been listened to, you know, would something have been found?

It again, it just adds to the appeal, doesn't.

It very much so.

And some of the television shows and so on have searched for that area and nobody knows exactly where it was that he found this.

And he did not tell people he was afraid that if, if he said, well, this is where it is, people would go in there.

40:59

It's very dangerous country.

He didn't want to be responsible for safety, deaths, etcetera.

And he didn't want somebody to find it and clean it out when it should be something that was public property.

And, and, and could indeed solve many of the problems that we have with the provincial budget as as as you do in in the UK, you have your own challenges financially there.

41:21

So he never actually told anybody where it was.

But when somebody with that credibility has that secret, that has a lot of credibility with me.

What are some of the the challenges that you faced and your co-authors faced in, in piercing together the history in terms of, you know, wading between the, the legend and the history, but then of course, just the terrain and everything else.

41:49

What would you say were some of the the more challenging aspects of the research?

Sorting out the conflicting stories would certainly be high up there.

Each of us has had the phone call that comes usually in the evening, sometimes late at night, and somebody answer the phone and somebody says, so are you the guy that wrote the book?

42:08

Yep.

Well, I've been in the mine.

Oh, you have?

Yes, I know exactly where it is.

I've been there.

Oh, so you're rich?

Well, no, I'm not rich.

Well, then you haven't been in the mine because if you've been in the mine, then you would be rich.

42:24

You know, it kind of goes, goes with it.

So that that's been one of the aspects that you sort through all these people who have they each have their their own stories.

I was making a presentation in a library once and the 100 and some odd people were there.

We had a slideshow and so on.

42:40

And some guy came up to me afterward and he said, are you going to be here for a while?

And we were signing books and so on.

And so I said, yeah, we're probably going to be here for another half hour.

He says I'm 5 minutes away.

I want to bring back something for you.

So 5-10 minutes later, he came back and he had the knife that had been found in the body of the woman in the Fraser River.

43:05

And his father had bought the knife from another guy in a bar, and it was now in his possession.

It was an old, old knife.

And this is the one that was taken out of her body.

Well, there was never any such murder.

43:22

There was never any such knife.

There was never any such trial for such a thing.

But he fervently believed it was family legend, family fact in his case.

And his belief that the knife that he showed me, that he put into my hand, was the knife for which Slumak had been hanged for her.

43:43

This woman's murder not true.

And so those conflicting stories have always been a factor and, and we each have had these, we've interviewed people extensively who have different stories and, and different parts of the legend, but some of it is just not based on any truth or anything that's provable.

44:04

Hence this is one example of, of, of the, the conflicting information that we've had.

So sorting through all of that and saying, OK, are you credible or are you not?

Do I believe what you've just told me and what I've written down here, or do I ignore it because it doesn't smack of the truth?

44:23

That's been a challenge for each of us as we put this together.

And it's hard because obviously in that instance, with that, with that story, with this artefact being presented to you as, as this is factually, you know, evidence of this, you know, for that person who is, who is presenting that to them, It's, it's something that has, like you said, been passed down generation to generation.

44:46

It becomes so ingrained in, in truth and you know, their consciousness, their, their beliefs around it.

And that's very hard to then kind of go in and begin to kind of shake that apart.

And I, and I remember something similar with looking at a similar legend that came out of Australia where there was a very, very famous outlaw who was sentenced to death and executed.

45:14

And many, yes, but like many, many prisoners, you know, they were just put into mass graves.

And of course, at some point or another, this mass grave was, was sadly robbed.

You know, people went in, took trophies because trophy hunting.

45:31

It's a great thing to have again, that thing that is something connected to this legendary character and figure.

And so of course there were all of these things of where's the skull of XY and Z who had been taken from from this site.

And of course, years later, decades later, someone presents a skull claiming it is the skull of this missing outlaw.

45:55

And you know, again, it's very similar.

You've got this story that's been told down from one family to the next family through generation after generation after generation.

Here's this skull that we've had this whole time.

It wasn't, I mean, they did DNA, DNA analysis.

46:12

And whilst it was a convicted prisoner who had had his skull removed from this this mass grave, it was not this infamous outlaw.

It's a great story, but you can see how this is where because of the impact of the the story itself, people want to have some part of it.

46:32

And so it's easy, I think, to become lost in the magic of these stories that get passed down, that become true, they become fact and they become certainties.

And when you have an an artefact, when you have something that is a trophy of that even more compelling and even more reason to to say it's truthful when history doesn't always agree with that.

46:55

We have burst a number of balloons over the the decades that we've been involved with this because we do tend to tell the truth.

You know, that's just one of the, the, the, the facts of, of our work.

Recently, an American podcaster critiqued the whole slew Mac legend.

47:15

And I got a copy of his his material and he started taking a run at some of the television work.

And there's been many books on this.

And so I thought, oh, maybe he's going to take a run at our book.

And then at the end he said, my advice to you is to ignore all this other stuff and only pay attention to the Andinson trainer Andinson book Slew Max Gold.

47:43

These historians tell the truth.

Wow.

I've never been called an historian before, but we do tell the truth and we have therefore burst many a balloon.

I, I regularly pop up things that appear on, on Facebook and whatnot where somebody purports to tell the truth.

48:07

I know about this or I know about that and they got their facts all mixed up.

And so when I see that I correct it right away because I would far rather have correct information rather than disinformation, which just feeds on itself out there.

48:22

And we live in a in a world full of misinformation, disinformation.

So I'd rather correct that right away.

But what what that does in effect is burst balloons when you have a family tradition that this knife, which probably sits on the mantle of a fireplace with in a place of honor, because this is the knife that sent Slumak to his his death.

48:45

Not true, you know, So you're bursting balloons, you're bursting family folklore and traditions and so on.

So there's AII wouldn't want to say there's a responsibility that goes with that about ruining people's images of what they have in their own family history.

49:03

I think it's right.

It's only correct, and you should do that if you have information that is correct and they don't.

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52:51

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53:16

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Has only just begun.

So 1 aspect then of the the story that I think is particularly interesting is Stuart Brown's story.

53:41

Why do you why do you think his account stands out for you?

You know, what were your thoughts on on that particular discovery?

First of all, he was so ardent and like I said a moment ago, the material, the written material is an inch, inch and 1/2 inch and a quarter or something like that, thick letter after letter after letter.

54:02

So if you're kind of with, you know, iffy on your position on something, you don't spend all that time writing lengthy letters and so on.

So that adds credibility to the whole thing.

His description matches some other descriptions of people who claim to have found the horde, the the the mine, but and also the fact that he was such a qualified man.

54:32

You know, if he was just a guy off the street sort of thing who stumbled onto this, maybe you don't take it too seriously.

But when somebody has the academic qualifications to be a forester, to have some science behind him, to understand something as simple as the scientific method and, and how you prove things and so on.

54:57

When somebody has the the educational background, the experiential background, etcetera, to me that speaks of credibility.

So his tale has always struck me as being totally credible.

It's just unfortunate that nobody wanted to pay any attention to him for whatever reason.

55:17

Yeah, that's the part that I find the really intriguing part as well.

The fact that this was a man who clearly had experience and as you said, had that that weight of authority that I think really does have some impact.

But yet to choose not to to listen and to follow that up is intriguing.

55:36

It poses the question, why not?

It's it again just raises some very interesting thoughts about why that wasn't chased, which I don't have the answer to, but it makes for against some, you know, compelling aspects to the story.

55:54

So the simple answer is that, well, it's in a provincial park and you cannot mine in a provincial park and so on.

So we're going to ignore you.

That's the very simple answer.

And that's the answer that he got to his frustration time and time and time again.

But that doesn't wash with me.

56:11

I, you know, they, he said, I tell you what and, and, and this is in the book, he said, I think it's, it's $10,000.

I need $10,000 to go in there with a group to prepare, to go properly equipped and so on to go in and to bring some of this gold out.

56:32

And I'll do it for $10,000.

But I won't charge you $10,000 until we've brought the gold out, until we have a result.

And so that was sort of a guarantee, right?

And buy this car, but I won't get you to pay any money for it until you've driven it for 50,000 miles.

56:51

That's the kind of offer he was making.

And the provincial government turned him down.

Why would you do that?

Why would you turn him down?

That remains a mystery to me and all the people who are involved in those days.

This was back in the 1970s.

57:07

All those people are now gone.

So there's no answer to that question.

But why would it?

It was a lost leader.

The provincial government would not be out of Penny unless he came back with some gold.

And so that remains a mystery to me.

57:23

If I were the minister of whatever looking to approve or disprove this, I would have said, yeah, OK, go ahead.

And if you actually come back with gold Nuggets the size of walnuts, we will pay you $10,000 for having done so, which would, you know, at that size of gold and the value of gold in those days and so on, you know, a few of those Nuggets would have gone and, and covered the $10,000, but nobody jumped at it.

57:50

So that remains a mystery that and, and, and Stu Brown has gone.

So that remains a mystery that nobody can ever solve.

Yeah, conspiracy.

I think conspiracy theorists would, would love that aspect of it because it is just so perplexing.

I I was scratching my head, really baffled as to why.

58:09

Like you said, it's a win win kind of scenario.

It's the perfect scenario and yet they didn't jump at it.

Yeah, so one person said, well, you know what they did?

They ignored him.

And they went in there them themselves and they, a group of government people, they found this pond, they searched the area and so on, found this and they scooped the gold out for themselves.

58:36

Oh, so that's your conspiracy theory du jour, is it?

So that, you know, people have they come up with all those reasons why government does what they do.

I think it's much more simple than that.

I think he was elderly at the time.

He was in his 60s when he first stumbled upon the mine or the, the, the, this pond.

58:58

He had Parkinson's disease.

And so and that progressed.

I think he died it, I want to say 82 or 84 or something like that, but he got progressively more infirm.

So if you have somebody in your office who's, you know, obviously sick or ill or something, and they don't come across as really convincing, it's easy to say, yeah, well, OK, we're not interested.

59:26

Oh, and the excuse is it's in a, in a provincial park.

So I think it might be as simple as that.

No conspiracies required, just aloof government officials who said not going to do it.

It's a giggle factor.

You know, there's it's a legend.

59:42

We're not going to go follow it up.

I think it could be as simple as that.

Sad, but simple as that.

So why do you think then that this story continues to be to be relevant?

You know, what do you think it reveals about Canadian or regional history?

59:58

Why should we keep telling it?

I think it has to be told because it is a very real story.

One of my long time friends who passed away at 93 was very involved in the legend and he passed away earlier this year.

1:00:18

He said, you know, there's no truth to the Jackson story, the Jackson letter, there's no proof that Jackson ever lived.

So you should not tell when you make your presentations, when you write your material, your articles and, and, and write the book.

You should not even mention Jackson because he is a legendary figure who never existed.

1:00:37

My response to him was, well, that's what people want to know.

And yes, we tell that it's very possible that Jackson never even existed, but we have to, we can't ignore that.

We have to tell that part of the story.

So I think that's part of the aura of the whole thing.

1:00:55

People are interested in it.

We therefore have a responsibility.

Gosh, I guess that's too strong a, a term to use.

We don't have a responsibility, but we have a right to our mission to tell the story.

One person said, why don't you just let the whole thing die?

1:01:15

Well, there's a lot of interest out there and you know, it's easy for newspapers or magazines or the web, Facebook, whatever.

It's it's easy for people to just ignore something and say, well, I don't think there's any interest out there, so let's just let it die.

You just had an experience this week with 11 year olds or they're captivated by the whole thing, right?

1:01:36

So I, I think generation after generation, since 1891 or the early 1890s anyway, has been fascinated by this story.

So it would be inappropriate of us to walk away from it and not tell the story as we know it.

1:01:53

And, and that I, I'm talking nuts and bolts, I'm talking fact and fiction.

I think we have to talk about the fiction and then point out that there's no proof behind the fiction.

And so let's focus on the facts.

The man did die.

He was hanged for murder.

Those are facts.

1:02:10

Then all the rest of it, the the, the rumors of gold and so on have yet to be proven.

But it's worth chronicling.

It's worth telling that story.

So if the gold were to be to be found today, what do you think you know, the impact of that might might have on the the legacy of the story?

1:02:34

The value of gold today in Canadian dollars is something around $3500 an ounce.

If the well, the original estimations of the value of the gold decades ago, it came when gold was about 32 Canadian dollars an ounce.

1:02:54

So by a factor of I don't know how many percent, 35, $100 as as against $32, this is huge.

So, and literally billions and billions and hundreds of billions perhaps of, of dollars.

1:03:11

If such a find actually was discovered, we'll say goodbye to our provincial debt.

We'll make everybody in British Columbia wealthy and you know, because we would have so much money overflowing.

1:03:26

So that's part of the aura, part of the attraction of this.

What would be the result of a, of a find?

It would certainly be one of the most famous finds ever.

Just earlier this week I saw that they've discovered in the, I think the Guatemalan jungle or maybe in the southern Mexico jungle or something.

1:03:48

They've discovered another huge city with all these pyramidal structures and so on.

They use Lidar.

LIDAR.

It's a, it's a radar, aerial born radar.

And they they can see through the jungle cover and they can see what's down below.

1:04:05

Well, and this is just brand new, but this is going to be decades of searching and of clearing jungle and so on to remove yet another thing like Chichen Itza or any of the the very famous middle America pyramids and so on, which are on a par with the pyramids in Giza.

1:04:25

So this will be a huge thing.

The result will be tourism.

The result will be archaeological investigations, publications, science will be done.

We will discover more and more about the history of North and Central America.

1:04:41

And this is just one more.

This is the most recent find.

They're finding all sorts of other things in in South America and whatnot.

So if the gold were to be found here in the Slumak, if the Slumak legend became reality, boy there would be never ending stories, books, television series, movies, etcetera and incredible wealth as a result.

1:05:09

So it would certainly change British Columbia life a lot.

Yeah, I was, I was thinking about this, this very question actually, and had the same thought about that same discovery, that very recent discovery that you just mentioned.

And I try to also think about, you know, discoveries that have happened in the United Kingdom that you could say are comparable that have been very groundbreaking.

1:05:32

And, you know, things like the discovery of King Richard's body under the car park and then having the state funeral is a hugely momentous moment that you could say is comparable in terms of that history connection.

You know, the, the intrigue of the story and how it then kind of catapults that story into an even bigger stratosphere, if you like, with the discovery, of course, then things like the, the burial mounds with the, the discovery and the huge, huge discoveries of gold that have been made over the years, Saxon gold, etcetera.

1:06:05

You know, those are comparable, but it's an incredible concept to get your head around that.

I think you can't really grasp the seismic ramifications of a discovery like this gold mine could potentially have.

1:06:20

If it ever were discovered, it would be massive.

Massive.

Just in the last week, week and a half, I saw an announcement that some huge horde of Roman silver cone coins were found in, in, in England.

1:06:38

And I, I think I'm trying to recall the exact sum, but I, I want to say 5.6, $1,000,000 was the value million Canadian dollars.

Everything here gets converted from pounds to dollars, 5.6 Canadian dollars, million Canadian dollars in value.

1:06:56

What a huge impact that.

And this is a guy walking through a field with a metal detector and something went beep, beep, beep, beep.

And he's dug under the, the ground and he found all these millions of dollars worth of coins.

And it was announced in the last week or so.

1:07:12

That sort of thing has a momentous impact, like you just said.

So yes, the, the, the Saxon, the Sutton who treasure you look in, in the, the bog bodies that they've found in Sweden and and Denmark and and so on.

1:07:30

All of these things have, you know, they advance human knowledge, they advance human science, They advance our understanding of who we were, where we came from as a, as a, a human race.

They contribute to the fabric of society in great ways.

1:07:49

And I'm all in support of that sort of thing.

Absolutely.

Me too.

And again, I just think it enables you to connect with history, connect with the past, with with all of these moments that have gone before us that we think are so far removed from who and what we are today.

1:08:06

But actually it's not.

We're not so far removed and these are very tangible, real things.

Even just the story, the legend of the gold is something that helps us to connect to our ancestors.

Even if it's only just 100 plus years ago, two people that have gone before us.

1:08:23

It's very connective.

It's a way to connect with history.

We're it's a there's a continuity aspect involved.

You're probably familiar with the story of Cheddarman who was found.

He's about 8000 years old, a skeleton found in the Cheddar Caves in the Cheddar area in southern England.

1:08:42

And through DNA analysis, they discovered this skeleton back in the 1800s.

But through DNA analysis, there are people and there's one specific guy, he's a teacher living in Cheddar today who is a direct descendant of Cheddar Man who is 8000 years old.

1:09:05

What does that say about society?

What does that say about continuity?

What does that say about the fact that people never moved very far away for thousands of years, they didn't live further than a mile or two away from where their parents lived, from where their grandparents lived, from their great grandparents.

1:09:25

You know, there's continuity right there.

And we learn an awful lot about the movement of society at about how we live, how we lived in those days and and what, what life is like today.

Today we have a very mobile since I know very, very many, many people, very many people here in Canada who are good friends, who are British.

1:09:47

They, my wife is originally born and raised and, and left England when she was 12 years old and moved to Canada.

So I know all sorts of people who have emigrated, moved around the world and so on today, but 200 years ago, 300 years ago, that was completely uncommon.

1:10:07

You grew up and you lived within a few miles of where you were born.

So there's a continuity there that goes back literally thousands of years.

And I think that's a wonderful statement about our society.

And, and I think one of the very powerful things that also comes out of this story for me is how it can really contribute to our understanding of of indigenous history in this region.

1:10:34

And of and of course, you know, you can then make connections with with similar histories around the world.

But just hearing you recount earlier how if this had taken place just a year later, how differently things would have have transpired, how it would have gone.

1:10:50

Now, here is a real way of understanding history on a very personal, you know, level with just one figure to understand what that meant, the impact of that.

And I think, again, it helps us to bridge that gap, to bridge that understanding, to really see how it could play out for someone living during this period of this time frame.

1:11:12

And how we then have to make sure that we don't make similar mistakes.

We, we, yes, we have much to learn from that sort of thing.

So let's not repeat those mistakes in 2024, in 2025 or going forward.

Let's understand that everybody's got to be treated equally.

1:11:34

There should be no divisions in society that are based on race or anything like that.

Absolutely completely agree with you on that one.

So, you know, for you and for your for your co-authors, what would you say you hope, you know, people reading the the latest version, What would you hope that they take away from, from the book and from this story?

1:11:59

Early readers and we've now, I don't know how many we've we've sold, it's just getting rolling was just published on Tuesday.

But a few people have seen a copy and they've read it or they've read portions of it and they're very, very complimentary about it.

1:12:15

So my hope is that they will complete the book, that they will say I have a better understanding of the whole legend.

I think you've treated the the, the people involved very responsibly and very well.

1:12:31

I have an understanding of the white man's justice that has not served Slumak very well at all.

And, and going forward, we have to make sure in, in, in, in Canada, we have a, a thing called Truth and reconciliation where we are grappling with the way the colonial white people treated the indigenous people for, for centuries.

1:12:59

It was recently Columbus Day in the US because Columbus found North America or discovered North America on that day.

And and, and people are objecting to that because people, indigenous people, but people have been living in North America for depending on your understanding, 14,000 and maybe up to 20,000 years.

1:13:26

And so the, the, the real immigrants, you know, we, we see things happening in the United States, a lot of discussion about immigrants and so on.

The real immigrants are the British and the French and the Spanish who came in here in the, say, the 15, sixteen 1700s and disrupted the lives of people who had been here for thousands of years.

1:13:48

And everybody in North America, including those people who've been here for thousands of years, are immigrants because we either came over by the ocean or over the Bering, the, the, the, the Bering land bridge that existed before the, the oceans grew in depth and so on.

1:14:06

So everybody in North America is an immigrant.

And so the more we understand about that, the more we understand that we are all one people.

We do not have any right to discriminate against anybody because of the color of our skin or the way we speak or our our different histories or anything like that.

1:14:27

So I think that all speaks to the human condition.

I think that's very important that in 2024 we have this kind of understanding.

So you mentioned that that the book came out earlier this week.

Where would you say the best places for someone who is is hearing this via the podcast?

1:14:45

Where's the best place for someone to get a a their own copy to pick up a a copy of the book?

For you guys in the UK and then that would be perhaps your your prime audience.

It would be through through Amazon. amazon.co dot UKI think is the address.

1:15:03

I I can't recall for sure.

But anyway, Amazon is is active and and it might take time to get the material from North America over to to Britain, but that would be the the best way.

I don't know that bookstores in Britain will carry this.

1:15:19

It's unlikely.

There is a great deal of interest in this legend, in this story in Germany.

For some reason the Germans have have adopted this and very, very highly rated television shows and so on over there about this legend.

1:15:39

But Amazon would be the the, the logical course or the logical source.

Now, people who are maybe podcast listeners in North America can do that or in British Columbia or Canada can go to a local bookstore.

We understand from our publisher that the books are in all local bookstores these days as of this week.

1:16:02

And so they can go and pick up a copy.

I know several people who have done so already.

And as I said that this event that we were at last night, we sold 26 books, people who wanted to pick up a copy and I signed a number of them and so on.

So a signed copy is going to be a little bit difficult to get unless you happen to be over in British Columbia and you can connect with the with Rick or myself or Mary.

1:16:25

But yeah, ordering one through Sluma or through Amazon should be easy to to do, easy to accomplish.

And I've got I've got friends who who live in British Columbia who have been on the podcast a number of times.

And again, just strange coincidence, but they happen to post pictures of themselves with you recently with a copy of the book.

1:16:49

And I'm.

So this was Gina and Victoria.

Oh yeah.

One, they're gorgeous sisters.

They are just wonderful and I saw it I saw it pop up and I and I I immediately messaged them and I said you'll never guess what and they were like what I said they're going to be talking to him soon and they were like no.

1:17:10

So we get in very, very small world, but.

They're wonderful people.

And yeah, they were doing a, a, a, a, a ghost walk up by Pitt Lake, which is easily accessible from the Lower Mainland last year.

And so I saw this advertisement.

1:17:27

I thought, well, I'm going to go up there and introduce myself and show them our book.

And so I registered and I took a book and it was a rainy day and I, I'm walking up across the parking lot toward them be a little bit of a set up with a bit of a tent there.

1:17:43

And they said, Brian, we saw your name on the list.

I said, how did you know who I am?

And they said, we know who you are.

Of course we do.

And it was neat to meet them and so on.

So here, just a week ago, as a matter of fact, they were appearing and that was what the the pictures you would have seen.

1:18:01

I took them a copy of this current edition, knowing of their interest in the whole legend.

Neat people.

Very, very neat people.

And just so passionate about sharing history and folklore and ghost law and, you know, just the roots of all the things that we've been talking about and.

1:18:19

So my history.

Yeah, gorgeous books.

But you know, it was just one of those strange moments of, oh, I'm going to be talking to that same person that you're in a photograph with.

And of course, you're my two good friends who I spoken to a number of times.

1:18:35

This is just my world colliding.

But again, I think it I think it speaks to just how how much this story resonates that I can be looking through my Instagram feed and I'll find a friend who knows this story and has your book because it's so popular and it's so enduring.

1:18:52

And likewise, I can be telling it to some students this week who who immediately then want to go away and write their own stories of finding gold.

I might add, You know, there's there's just this very wonderful connective aspect to this tale that I just think makes picking up this book, if you can, something that someone would not regret.

1:19:12

I mean, it is gorgeous.

It is absolutely gorgeous as a book for so many reasons in terms of the the writing, the research, the information that it provides, which is exceptional.

But then on top of that, each page is just this treasure trove of imagery that just for someone who is not obviously there, who has not seen, it is so immersive to be able to really picture this world in this environment.

1:19:42

It is beautiful, It's gorgeous.

I I can't rave about it strongly enough to be honest.

Well, thank you so much for that endorsement.

That really makes me feel good that and, and you deal with this sort of thing all the time.

I know.

And so to have Someone Like You then provide that, that that authoritative analysis is gratifying, very gratifying.

1:20:05

And I thank you for that.

We're, we're, we're so pleased.

The publishing company that we worked with, they got it.

They understood what we were hoping and, and in fact, they came up with the, with the size, with the coffee table look of it.

1:20:20

That's their work.

And so they deserve a lot of credit for, for creating the wonderful work we did, the writing, we got involved with the photos and the maps and everything.

But these people, very well, they're British Columbia's largest, we're told, largest publisher.

1:20:40

These people were a delight to work with and they created a wonderful book out of our our concepts, our words.

Some we're thrilled.

And of course, you know, I will make sure that links to the book are available in the in the podcast description notes as as well as on the website.

1:20:58

So if anyone is interested, you know, you'll be able to click those links directly to to get a hold of a copy.

And of course, like you said, it's going to be something that's readily available across Amazon wherever you are in the world.

If you're lucky to be in Canada, you're probably going to be able to pick this up at a local bookstore if if you're in the same area.

1:21:18

And yeah, I just think what a great gift.

What a great gift to yourself, especially with Christmas coming around the corner.

Here's something that will just you won't forget.

You'll be having that same moment, I think that you had as a young boy around a campfire.

You know, here is a perfect story to tell this Christmas time, you know, to to replicate that same feeling that you had as a little boy.

1:21:42

So yeah, I I very much recommend that people pick up a copy if they if they want.

To.

Treat themselves or someone else.

Yeah, thank you very much for that, that recommendation.

I and I hope people follow through, I really do.

And, and if somebody's in the local area, I, I will be doing book signings here and my brother and our colleague Mary live in the interior of British Columbia and they are each lining up book signings and so on.

1:22:12

Unfortunately, it, it, you know, in, in, in, in this day and age for us, as we're in separate areas of the province, it's difficult to get the three of us in the same place to give triple endorsements, triple signings of the book.

But you can get one of our names on it and, and one of our signatures on it.

1:22:30

And then it, it, it, that just adds a little bit.

I know in Canada, if someone of us endorses the book, puts our signature in it, there's a little poster, little round circle that goes on the, on the cover of the book that says signed by author.

1:22:48

And that makes it more valuable to some people.

Not financially valuable, but it's more of a keepsake because this actually has the author's signature on it.

Absolutely.

And, and I, and I, I would have to say that I would be one of those people that would want that because I just think it gives it something a little bit special and magical about it as a quality to, to knowing that you've picked up something that you really love that has physically been handled by the one of the people involved in creating and putting it together.

1:23:20

Again, it's that connective aspect to everything that we've been talking about here.

You have something that connects you to the author, or one of them in this case.

Yes, yeah, very much so.

Well, if you're over ever over here visiting the the sisters, they've got my contact information you have and and we could meet for coffee and I'd endorse it for you.

1:23:40

I'd love it.

I'd love that, honestly.

Honestly, Brian, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you.

It really has been such a treat to be.

Able to?

Well, I've enjoyed this very much.

Yeah, just to be able to hear you speak so passionately and with such interest about this, this story.

1:23:58

And and This is why I think, again, the book is so magical because, you know, you very much are a representation of the book in the sense that that passion that you you convey and you talk about the book is exactly what you get with the copy of the book.

1:24:14

You know, is that magical kind of, again, that immersive experience.

So, you know, thank you for for coming along and sharing your passion for the listeners tonight.

Happy to do so.

And I must say that if you take my passion and multiply it by two other people who share exactly the same passion and who speak as passionately as I do about something that's fascinated us since our childhoods, Wow, you got AAA Triple threat, as they say in the sports world.

1:24:46

Yeah, I I applaud you all.

I think you did such a magical job.

As I said, it is beautiful.

There is, there is nothing better when you find something that you love that much because you just don't want it to end.

And I and I very much had that experience of I just wanted to keep turning the pages and, you know, experiencing the next thing and the next thing after that.

1:25:06

It was just, it was so enthralling.

I was just hooked from the very first moment until the very last moment.

And then it was the what next?

What's that?

What next?

Well, I'm so glad you feel that way and, and I really thank you for for having me on.

1:25:26

If people want more information, this fellow I mentioned earlier, Fred Bracas, who's passed on now, created a page called www.slumak.ca.

1:25:42

And as he was declining in health and, and, and with his age, he said to us, I'd like you to take over slumak.ca and keep it going.

And this is a library, a veritable library of everything written about Slumak.

1:26:01

So if anybody wants to get into the research, if anybody wants to go back to the 1800s and right through the 1900s and into the 2000s and see a mass of information on slumakthenslumak.ca is the place to go.

1:26:19

We maintain it and, and we, we don't add to it because it's a library of historical material, but we are keeping it going.

We maintain the, the, the, the whole site, the whole concept of, you know, paying for URLs and, and things like that.

1:26:35

So that's another great source for people to go to slumak.ca.

And again, I will make sure that the links for that are available.

So again, people can find it really, really easily because as you say, it's a, it sounds like a brilliant resource that if you're interested, could really have you spending hours without realizing it, looking at it.

1:26:56

So like you said, I'll make sure to include all of that for, for anyone that's listening.

So again, thank you for sharing so much.

It has been brilliant to to chat with you and to find out more about this.

Absolutely, anytime.

1:27:13

And I'll say goodbye to everybody listening.

Bye everybody.

Thank you for joining us on this journey into the unknown.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.

1:27:32

You can follow us on social media for updates and more intriguing stories.

Until next time, keep your eyes open and your mind curious.