Big, beautiful North American Placer!! Freakin fantastic!!!

Lanny in AB

Lanny in AB

Gold Member
Apr 2, 2003
5,670
6,413
Alberta
Detector(s) used
Various Minelabs(5000, 2100, X-Terra 705, Equinox 800, Gold Monster), Falcon MD20, Tesoro Sand Shark, Gold Bug Pro, Makro Gold Racer.
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Big, beautiful North American Placer!! Freakin' fantastic!!!

Unbelievable video of big North American gold nuggets + new finds, pics, videos added: a live thread, so please post your gold shots.
I'll add other videos or stills of big nuggety North American gold as I find them.

This video starts slow, but it's shot underground, so give it a while and then watch out that you don't have a freakin' heart attack!!

I hope you love looking at this as much as I did--every placer miner's dream come true. If you're a rookie, you'll get the fever bad watching this one. (To avoid any confusion, this is not my video, nor is it my clean-up, nor was I involved in any way--I found it by mistake after typing in a search word incorrectly [that's why I'd never found it before], but I sure do love it!!)



Almost 3,800 ounces in the last shot--fines are in the large plastic bags. 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle!

All the best,

Lanny

P.S. I posted it with my beginner's thread as well, but it's so great it deserves it's own place too.

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http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries.html
 

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Upvote 2
drywallman said:
Ya I'm gonna have to hike in and camp this spring. I want one!
Click to expand...

I want one too. Any chance you can get one for me while you're at it? :icon_thumright:

All the best,

Lanny
 

drywallman said:
Lanny if I find two, I'll send you one! I owe you that much for the lessons learned. :-)
Click to expand...

Please, please don't send me your gold. I truly appreciate the offer, but I beg you to share it with someone that's never experienced the wonder of having any.

All the best, and thanks for your warm regards,

Lanny
 

drywallman said:
Thanks Lanny. Hope you are surviving the cold. Wish I had some, it was 75 degrees here today!
:-(
Click to expand...

We have lots of opportunities to survive the cold. I guess it's all the practice we get all winter long.

With your weather being as mild as it is, I imagine that your winter is a great time to get out and prospect, and the summer may be too hot for prospecting from time to time? Or, are you in one of those magical areas where your weather is temperate all year long, where it's never too hot or too cold.

Cold canyon gold.

I've done some crazy things over the years trying to mine or prospect when it was too cold.

I remember one year late in the fall, we (my partner and I) mounted an expedition to check out a spot deep in a canyon's gorge where the water had been much too high in the regular season to prospect such an unruly spot.

So, we packed up gear and headed to the gold field.

As it was late fall, the Tamaracks (The word tamarack is the Algonquin name for the species of tree [Larch] and means "wood used for snowshoes") were all done up in their golden majesty.



We saw many Elk--bulls and cows--among the trees on the flats as we worked our way up slope to get to the canyon.

The wild turkeys were very busy chasing each other as well, the young born early in the year now just getting their mature colors and feathers.

From time to time, we spotted Mule Deer, the bucks busily courting the females to ensure the survival of the species. The only problem was, when they are in that excited state, they often forget where they are and they'll step right out in front of the truck! And, it takes a moment or two to stop the Green Dragon, that heavily loaded Dodge diesel. Luckily, it's equipped with a heavy duty brush guard that can also double as a deer catcher, if necessary. Nonetheless, no deer were harmed in the making of our golden journey that day.



The road up the canyon is very narrow, so of course much of it hugs the alpine cliff faces as it follows the contours of the mountains on its way up. The other side of the road is not for anyone faint of heart. In places it plunges off straight down for hundreds of feet to the glacial thread of the stream far below. The river is visible in what's most like the shutter snaps of a camera, views that quickly disappear, then reappear as the road winds and twists on its upward journey.

Along the way, Mother Nature continually moves things around like a true chess master. Sometimes the pieces of the game are large rocks or outright boulders that she's deposited directly on the road to see how we'll handle their sudden appearance. At other times, it's trees that block the entire road. In that case, the Green Dragon halts, the chainsaws come out, and the road is made safe for anyone that wishes to ascend or descend on that particular day. Sometimes it’s mobile obstacles, round and chubby ones with either black or brown coats. It depends on their mood and their species whether they'll quickly bolt, either upslope or downslope, off the trail. The Grizzly variety doesn't seem in near the hurry as their Black counterparts. Moose? Well, as the kings or queens of the chess pieces, they're pretty much big enough to dictate when they decide the trail is open or closed. As for cougars, they are indeed the shy knights of the game, and I've only ever had one that wanted the trail for but a few, brief moments. Pawns consist of an ever-changing variety of squirrels and grouse.





At last, we reached the summit of the climb and the trail began a brief downward descent to a sheltered meadow. A small creek emerged from the willows then quickly dove beneath the road through a culvert.

We had arrived.



We unloaded the day’s necessities from the Dragon, then gingerly made our way down a steeply sloped and cobbled foot trail that led to where the stream and the river met.



In the 1800's the old-timers had been very busy in this spot. They'd moved mountains of material to get to the gold as the entire area was underlain with bedrock that had been trapping gold for untold eons.

We were after scraps that day. The scraps the river continues to glean from the sides of those unscaleable slopes each and every spring.

Moreover, we were there at the right time of the year. The river was so low that bedrock was now visible on the far side, whereas earlier in the season, it was submerged under a foot or two of wild water.

However, as it was so late in the year, the timing was a blessing and a curse. As we hit the bottom Lanny and his load were suddenly airborne. Tools flew in every direction. Luckily they all landed in spots made for easy recovery. The shame I bore was much more of a problem. You see, my partner laughs too easily and too often. Especially when I'm flying through the air instead of treading solidly on terra firma. He thinks things like that are always funny.

Imagine that.

(More to come. I'll post the rest of this over on my main thread so I can keep my stories somewhat centralized: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries.html)

All the best,

Lanny
 

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Don't know how I misplaced this one. It went with the set of "potato" nuggets. 176 grams of gold.

I hope you enjoy it.



Just a reminder that the potato nuggets in the picture weigh in at 965 grams!!

All the best,

Lanny
 

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With permission granted, I'm finally posting a picture of this incredible haul of genuine North American placer:



The big one in the middle (yes, it's quartz and gold, but all kinds of gold as you can easily tell) is over 1500 grams alone!

My friend Doc in Las Vegas has had this picture for years.

This is drool as you dream stuff for sure!

I detected with the man that found these nuggets in British Columbia. He then went way up north in B.C. and found these. I wish I'd have gone with him at the time.

All the best,

Lanny

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries.html
 

Lanny in AB said:
Please, please don't send me your gold. I truly appreciate the offer, but I beg you to share it with someone that's never experienced the wonder of having any.

All the best, and thanks for your warm regards,

Lanny
Click to expand...

I gots no gold send it!
 

I'm bumping this up as this is the video that started it all. If you haven't seen it, take a little time if you love looking at big placer gold nuggets!

This video starts slow, but it's shot underground, so give it a while and then watch out that you don't have a freakin' heart attack!!

I hope you love looking at this as much as I did--every placer miner's dream come true. If you're a rookie, you'll get the fever bad watching this one. (To avoid any confusion, this is not my video, nor is it my clean-up, nor was I involved in any way--I found it by mistake after typing in a search word incorrectly [that's why I'd never found it before], but I sure do love it!!)

Things get very interesting at the 3:35 mark. Just be careful that you don't have a heart attack when it gets close to the 5:00 minute mark. Look closely at the gold at the very end as well--there's a fantastic amount of it stacked there.

(I tried to find this video on Youtube when I was visiting a friend late in the fall. It's almost impossible to find by doing a youtube search. Weird, right?)



Almost 3,800 ounces in the last shot--fines are in the large plastic bags. 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle!

All the best,

Lanny
 

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No--not by a long shot. For the most part, the gold in Alberta is heavily glaciated, so the vast majority of it is flour gold.

Having said that, there's a legend very close to the area where I live where nuggets were found. Moreover, a family friend of mine, well his grandfather had a claim in the mountains very, very close to where I'm at. He found nice nuggets, and his grandson saw one of the nuggets, and it was thumb-sized!

Of course, that got my attention, but in researching for the claim, we found out that there was a fire many years back and the files on all of the gold claims before the date of the fire were destroyed. Of course, the claim we were looking for was an early enough date that it was a victim of the fire. :BangHead:

And because of that, therein lies the great mystery. You see, this area is in no way famous for gold, except for glacial gold. (There was a gold rush way up in Edmonton on the North Saskatchewan river, but it was all flour gold too, but good amounts of it.) Down here, there's the grandpa story, and then there's the legend of the old Blackfoot warrior that used to leave his home whenever he needed spending money. He'd show up again a few days later with enough coarse gold in his poke to last him for quite a while. Then when he ran out, he'd head off again into the mountains to his "bank" to make another withdrawal. Of course many people tried to follow and track him, but he was far too mountain savvy and no one ever succeeded. Then he died, and as he'd never passed on his secret to a single soul, the mystery of where that coarse gold was coming from is still a very silent tale. As a side note, I've spent time in the area of the legend and the lost claim, and all I've found is small stuff. However, once I found a nice piece of float gold, but no matter how much I tested after that, I never got another one, only fly specks of the golden metal.

So, I spend the vast majority of my time chasing the gold in British Columbia--there's nice big stuff there.

I make successful forays into Montana and Idaho every once in a while to vary things a bit, and I spent some very memorable time in Alaska as well. I've gone nugget shooting in Nevada and Arizona to boot. One of these days, I'll have to take a peek into beautiful Washington as it's not much of a trip from here.

All the best,

Lanny

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/metal-detecting-gold/69-bedrock-gold-mysteries.html
 

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Well let me know Lanny and I'll be glad to host you in North Central Washington some time. I might even take you to a good paystreak on public domain where I do most of my prospecting! I went out yesterday and got a very small amount of fine gold. Would have got more, but my insulated waders were no match for that frigid water! Only ran a couple buckets thru the sluice.
 

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