Deadman's Curse: Volcanic Gold

Slumach’s lost mine isn’t the only tale of gold hidden in Western Canada with a dubious history. There is a trail of treasures in and around BC with wild stories, danger, and legendary paydirt attached to their provenances.  In this season finale episode, we dive into some of these other tales, and Jack Mould’s story comes to a close as we wrap up Deadman’s Curse: Volcanic Gold and reflect on what...

The Spanish were known for keeping records of their colonial exploits around the world, but they were also known for privateering, profiteering and piracy. What might have been aboard the legendary Spanish galleon the Santo Cristo de Burgos, that wrecked off the coast of Oregon? Was there treasure amongst the swaths of beeswax and porcelain? Cursed treasure? Meanwhile, up in Bute Inlet, Jack Mould...

Charlie Mould believed that Spanish explorers began mining and processing gold in the years before the British officially claimed what became British Columbia and that that gold was still out there…waiting to be found.  Could this be true? Not too far down the Pacific coast in Oregon, experts investigate evidence washed ashore from Spanish Galleon shipwrecks from centuries past. Beeswax, porcelain...

Passed down to a young Jack Mould by his father Charlie, were tales of Spanish explorers mining for gold in the mountains high above the icy waters of Bute Inlet. For decades father and son searched Bute Inlet and the surrounding wilderness for lost gold mines.  Over time, his search for Spanish gold entwined with a search for Slumach’s motherlode, and a fear of curses wouldn’t keep him away. One...

Claiming to have found Slumach’s legendary motherlode, WWII veteran and German POW survivor, Stu Brown, allegedly hauls ten pounds of gold nuggets out of the Upper Pitt and spends the last three decades of his life trying to convince the government of the riches to be had in its own backyard.  Host:  Kru Williams Guests: Brian Antonson Daryl Friesen Facebook - @HISTORYCanada  Instagram - @deadman...

Volcanic Brown vanished without a trace - but how? Why? Was he murdered? Did he fake his own death? Did he slip into another dimension? Articles have mentioned there have been at least 20 others who have also disappeared in search of Slumach’s lost gold mine. What could explain these mysterious disappearances? In this episode we get insight from survival experts, prospectors and our very own resea...

Volcanic Brown, known in some circles as ‘Doc Brown’, set his gold-fevered sights on finding Slumach’s legendary lost mine. Legend has it, he did it after he saved Slumach’s granddaughter’s life and was repaid with the secret location of the mine. Host:  Kru Williams Guests: Don Froese Brian Antonson Marc Ferrero Renee Coghill Facebook - @HISTORYCanada  Instagram - @deadmanscurse Instagram - @His...

Volcanic Brown makes a name for himself as a miner within Boundary Country in the early 20th century by making headlines for landing in jail for shooting a man in self defence - sound familiar? We continue our escapade through the booms and busts of mining towns in BC. Today, there are over 150 ghost towns dotting the entire province of British Columbia.  Host:  Kru Williams Guests: Christopher St...

On August 26, 1899, the name Volcanic City first appeared in the Cascade Record newspaper. It was said to be a city on a hill filled with wealth and abundance in the mineral richness of southern British Columbia. By 1928, almost thirty years later, Volcanic City was a ghost town and its founder would vanish three years later. In this episode we travel back through time to the early 20th century to...

In our mission to to uncover the truth behind the curse of Slumach’s gold mine, a major piece to the puzzle lies with Volcanic Brown. Although some things have been lost to history, one thing we know for sure he had been on the hunt for Slumach’s gold, for over a decade. Did their paths ever meet? How did Volcanic Brown become a prospecting legend? In this episode, we retrace Brown's journey from...

Legendary prospector Volcanic Brown had a talent for surviving incredibly harsh conditions and a résumé of achievements almost too unbelievable to be true. So who was this larger than life character who had a knack for sniffing out treasure? In this episode, we take a look at Volcanic Brown, and dig deeper into the mystery of his disappearance. Could items found in his final campsite hold the key...

In 1931, a larger than life prospector, in search of Slumach’s legendary lost gold mine goes missing in the wilderness of British Columbia. In this episode, we retrace the epic search and rescue efforts that went into looking for the missing prospector as well potential clues left behind at his campsite, that point to an even bigger mystery of what happened to Volcanic Brown? Host:  Kru Williams G...

In 1931, on a night cold enough to freeze your bones, a larger-than-life prospector, in search of a legendary lost gold mine in the wilderness of British Columbia, disappears without a trace. Known for his solid gold teeth and team of black stallions, he was a force of nature. So, was he murdered? Did he fake his own death? Or was he the latest victim of the dead man’s curse? The adventure begins...

On this special episode of Deadman’s Curse, Kru Williams is joined by co-writer and executive producer, Ernest White II, to allow Kru to share his personal insights on what it was like contributing to the podcast, filming the TV series, and diving into the legend, and the curse, of Slumach and his lost gold. Host:  Ernest White II  Guest: Kru Williams Contact: Facebook - @HISTORYCanada  Instagram...

In the final episode of the season, we share our final findings into the investigation of Slumach’s story, the legend and the curse, and explore unanswered questions after walking the same path and sleeping under the same stars Slumach did over 150 years ago.  We’ve been entrusted to rewrite his legacy in our search for the truth, and Slumach’s story is not over. Neither is our quest for his gold....

60 years after Slumach’s death, in 1951, The Province newspaper, one of Vancouver’s major dailies that is still in existence, connected Slumach’s name to a curse. Up until that moment, the curse was nowhere to be found in newspaper articles at the time, even when they reported on the misfortunes of those seeking gold. Pulp fiction turned Slumach into an evil madman, and promoted the idea that gett...

Five years after Slumach died, on August 16, 1896, gold was discovered in the Klondike region of Yukon, bordering Alaska to the far north of British Columbia.  As it happened almost 40 years earlier with BC’s Fraser Gold Rush, some 30-to-40,000 fortune-seekers from around the world streamed into the Rocky Mountain wilderness in search of another El Dorado. Prospectors who passed through the region...

In the decades following Slumach’s execution, we see people injured–sometimes fatally–while going into the region looking for a gold mine without much proof of its existence. Gold represented wealth and power, freedom from hunger and oppression, a source of abundance.  People have killed and died for gold, crossed oceans for gold. Its lustre and scarcity easily made it the stuff of legend. In this...

According to Amanda Charnley, Slumach went up into the canyons and above the clouds around Pitt Lake, and found chunks of gold he could carve out with a pen knife. Slumach told Peter Pierre that if he needed money, the map would lead him to the gold.  They had destroyed the map, but Pierre committed it to memory. When asked if her father ever found gold, she said, ‘He did try to go many years afte...

Over the course of this podcast, we’ve discussed the ways in which Slumach and so many Indigenous peoples were at the mercy of an ongoing colonial enterprise that sought to extract wealth from a bountiful land no matter the cost, and often, the cost was justice. Slumach was vilified in the media, as part of a tradition of British colonial dominance that dehumanised Indigenous people and the legal...

We left off as we introduced you to Ms Amanda Charnley, a Katzie woman and Peter Pierre’s daughter. Pierre was a catechist for the Roman Catholic Order of Mary Immaculate. He was also a healer and leader within the Katzie First Nation, and Slumach’s nephew. Charnley described Slumach as ‘a harmless old widower who lived at the bottom end of Pitt Lake in a shack which was on the abandoned Silver Cr...

80 years after Slumach’s execution, exclusive information emerged as part of a family story passed down through history: Slumach’s story from his lips to only one person’s ears. In this episode, we hear the account of what happened from Slumach’s perspective.  He was a wanted man and seen as a menace to society, so there seemed to be little interest in pursuing Slumach’s motive. This raises the qu...

The legend of Slumach and his gold goes by many names: the Legend of the Lost Mine of Pitt Lake, the Legend of the Lost Creek Mine, the Legend of Slumach’s Gold. The story always starts with a variation on ‘a brash young man from Pitt Lake’, bragging about his wealth, spending it freely in New Westminster on booze and women. He would always disappear for a while to a creek rich with gold nuggets–a...

Slumach, accused of shooting Louis Bee and then fleeing, was tried for murder. The trial took mere days and the jury reached a guilty verdict in just 15 minutes, even though no witnesses for the defence were called or testified and, in the end, Slumach was hanged for murder. But what if we told you the official accounts don’t tell the whole story? In this episode we walk along the same reedy shore...

When we last left off, a man named Slumach shot and killed a man named Louis Bee on September 8, 1890, along the reedy shores of what was then known as Lillooet Slough, near the vast expanse of Pitt Lake in southern British Columbia. In this episode, we take you through the relentless manhunt for Slumach, and the facts of the case as reported in the press. We also share details from the trial, whi...