Took Out Gold
at a little bar right opposite the mouth of Lesser Slave river in the Athabaska. He worked it for part of two summers. He would take out enough to last him for the winter, and then quit. It is hard work. The Indians and natives have gold and diamonds on the brain. They had taken to him rocks containing very nice garnets, but they were very mysterious about them.
Mr. von Hamerstein explained he had also worked for gold on Peace river. There is very good mining there, a little below Battle river, but the gold is so very fine that for every dollar you save there, about four and a half go away, and there are some peculiar things that no one can account for. After you have got it there is trouble with the quicksilver, which does not take up the gold. The method he adopted was to run the quicksilver, and then before running it over again, to roll it in acid.
Before the Senate committee of 1888, Bishop Clut stated that in Peace river and Liard river, certainly there was gold in large quantities. On Peace river, twelve or thirteen years prior to 1888, miners made from fifteen dollars to twenty dollars a day washing, but in the winter and when the water was high they could not work, and they abandoned the mines. “If the country were settled,” the bishop remarked, “those mines might be worked to better advantage, because the miners could find other occupation in the winter and when the water was high.”
According to Mr. von Hamerstein, at Black bay, on Lake Athabaska, there is first-class galena—none better. It carries gold, silver and copper. They assayed some of the product at Chipewyan, and found that it carried roughly about six dollars or seven dollars worth of gold, and some copper. There is a big seam near Black bay, and one can follow it up right along until it comes to an island. That is a very fine country for gold, and there have been several attempts to make something out of it, but the time is not ripe.
Indications of Iron.
Indications of the presence of iron have been found on Peace, Clearwater, and Athabaska rivers. A specimen rock from near Pelican rapids on Athabaska river contained 12.4% of metallic iron. J. B. Tyrrell found indications of iron in Churchill river district, and also north of Lake Athabaska.
According to Mr. R. G. McConnell’s 1888 report:—Clay ironstone in nodules and thin beds, is of universal occurrence in the Cretaceous shales of the Peace region, but is especially abundant in some of the outcrops of the Fort St. John shales on Peace river, between Battle river and Smoky river. The ironstone, here, owing to the rapid erosion of the soft shales, has been silted out, and in many places forms thick accumulations at the foot of the cliffs lining the valley, some of which may prove to be of economic value. The Pelican sandstone on the Athabaska is usually capped with a bed of hemitiferous sandstone varying in thickness from a few inches to four or five feet. A specimen of the rock was examined in the laboratory of the Geological Survey, and found to contain 12·4 per cent. of metallic iron.
Mr. von Hamerstein, in his evidence before the Senate committee of 1907, stated that there are indications of iron along Clearwater river. He found some very nice pieces of iron, and he found limestone in the centre of Athabaska.
Once, in Peace river district, on the way from Lake Chipewyan, he found a deposit of red stone; he did not know whether it was ochre or hematite of iron. He had any amount of it, but upset with his canoe and lost it. A large amount of ochre is found on the eastern bank of the Athabaska, between Athabaska and Grand rapids. He had also observed what seemed to him a large amount of hematite of iron between Athabaska and the mouth of greater Slave river, while on Slave river itself, at a certain point, large bodies of magnetic ore are indicated by the action of the compass, which gets entirely out of order.