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Pitt Lake's Lost Gold Mine is a legendary lost mine said to be near Pitt Lake, British Columbia, Canada, the supposed wealth of which has held the imagination of people worldwide for more than a century. Ever since the years of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush prospectors and adventurers have been looking for the mine and gold-rush rumors have evolved into legends repeated and enriched over time. The mysterious riches are known as Slumach’s Lost Mine, or Lost Creek Mine. ==Origins== The story of Pitt Lake gold begins in 1858, the year of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, when a number of maps were published in San Francisco promoting the gold fields of British Columbia.〔Derek Hayes shows the three maps on pp 151-154 of his ''Historical Atlas of BC and the Pacific Northwest'' Sasquatch Books, 1999.〕 Two of these maps show the words "gold" and "Indian diggings" in the country above Pitt Lake. Another map from that time shows the words "much gold bearing quartz rock” on the north side of Pitt Lake, where a decade later, in 1869, an Indian 〔“Indian” is used here because it was the term used at the time of the publication of the original articles. Today the term “First Nations person” is preferred.〕 brought “... a good prospect of gold…which he states he found in a little stream on the north side of Pitt Lake” to New Westminster. The report created “great excitement” in the city, and parties set out to find the diggings.〔Discovery of diggings at Pitt River," ''New Westminster Mainland Guardian'', 10 November 1869.〕 In 1903, a newspaper in New Westminster BC reported that a man called George Moody,〔George Moody was a son of Sewell Moody and a Native woman and was a witness called by the defense in the Slumach case in 1890.〕 had claimed to have found a rich placer deposit at Pitt Lake, and had returned to town with $1,200 in coarse gold to prove it.〔Pitt Lake may be the next of the great gold fields," ''British Colonist'', 8 November 1903.〕 That was all that was published about Moody's find. In 1905 it was told 〔Prospecting Lost Placers of Pitt Lake," ''Province'', 16 December 1905〕 that in 1902 "an Indian" had exchanged gold dust for $1,600 in bills in New Westminster. Several months later he came back with $1,800 in gold dust, and again now with $1,400 in gold. He did not want to tell where he got it and attempts to follow him failed. Then the Indian took sick, probably because of his exposure to inclement weather on expeditions in the mountains and a doctor told him he was going to die. The Indian told a relative the secret source of his gold — a rich placer at Pitt Lake — and described its location, giving the landmarks and tracing a crude map of the locality. After the unnamed Indian died, his relative, who had no money, sought the assistance of a white man. They were unable to trace the spot where the Indian said he had found the gold. With the secret now out “there have been expeditions every year in an attempt to locate the mysterious placer.” In 1906 another such expedition again failed to find the gold. The participants had information that an old man had found some valuable placer ground in the Pitt Lake country and that he had hidden a substantial amount of gold nuggets under a rock. Before he died, he had left directions where the treasure and the placer ground were to be found. It was “a rough trip as the weather was rainy, and sleeping out did not remind one of dreams between Dutch feather beds.” 〔”Buried treasure at Pitt Lake," ''Province'', 3 April 1906.〕 The lost goldmine is in the upper reaches of the South Alouette 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pitt Lake's lost gold mine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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