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Gold Diggers Dream of Flashes in the Stream

July 21, 2009 - BYRON -- Clad in a tattered wetsuit, Charlie Smith was kneeling last week in the swirling East Branch of the Swift River, jamming a metal nozzle from a vacuum hose into the rocky riverbed. At the other end, water, rocks and gravel came streaming out and, hidden in the debris, a sprinkling of gold.

Stalled by heavy rains and high water, prospectors finally have begun setting up their gear on the Swift River, which tumbles 27 miles through the western Maine mountains to Rumford. People have been unearthing gold in the Swift since it was discovered here in the 1840s. Today, high gold prices and the lingering recession are boosting interest in the precious metal. Modern equipment makes the search easier, but hasn't replaced intuition, hard work and luck.

"This whole stream has gold in it," Smith said. "Some of it has some, and some of it doesn't have any. That's why they call it prospecting."

In California and other mineral-rich states, the sour economy has folks flocking to gold streams. Maybe they'll get rich, they figure, or at least pay their bills.

Maine prospectors say that's unlikely here. Hunting gold in Maine ranges from a weekend hobby for tourists who sift gravel in a pan and hope for a few flakes, to a summer-long obsession for stalwarts like Smith, who spend their days deep in the woods, digging in the cold, rushing water.

Maine has veins of gold hidden in bedrock, known as "lode" deposits. The gold sprinkled along the Swift River and its tributaries are "placer" deposits, concentrations that accumulated in cracks of bedrock or sediments eroded by glaciers. Other well-known gold streams include stretches of the Sandy River around Madrid, Nile Brook in Rangeley and Gold Brook in the Chain of Ponds area, according to the Maine Geological Survey.

But there are untouched streams in Maine, prospectors say, where gold is waiting to be discovered.

"Gold is where you find it," said Jack Duggins of Litchfield, state director of the Gold Prospectors Association of America. "It sounds stupid, but I've found gold in a lot of stupid places."

Armed with maps, satellite photos and a knowledge of geology and stream flows, Duggins looks for spots where spring floods can push along pieces of gold, and where layers of bedrock can trap the gold in cracks and crevices. Gold is nature's heaviest metal, so it falls to the river bottom.

"There are thousands of places where you can discover the right piece of bedrock," he said.

SECRETS AND STORIES

Not surprisingly, prospectors won't say exactly where those places are.

Gary Baril, a veteran gold seeker in Byron, said he was out in the woods last month for three days and came across some nice gold while panning.

"It's up towards Canada," Baril said of the location.

Here on the Swift River, folks in the prospecting community were talking last week about three fellows who reportedly were getting an ounce a week north of Cupsuptic Lake. No way to confirm it, but Smith heard it from a friend, and, like water tumbling downstream, the news flows.

But there's gold for sure to be found on the East Branch of the Swift. That's where Charlie Smith has set up, in a deep ravine two miles from Route 17.

His primary implement is a dredge, basically a floating, gasoline-powered Shop Vac that sucks up the river bottom. Using his fingers and hand tools, Smith digs through gravel and rocks. Then he vacuums the debris into the hose nozzle, which runs the water through a screen, into a metal sluice box and back into the river. Eventually, Smith will get deep enough in his quest for bedrock that he will don swim goggles and a respirator to work underwater, looking more like a scuba diver than a gold prospector.

Smith, who is 61 and lives in Jay, has been working the East Branch for 10 years. He has found some nice pieces, including a one-third ounce nugget that he can wear around his neck. Someone offered him $700 for it.

In a typical summer, Smith will accumulate an ounce of gold. That doesn't come close to paying for his gear and gasoline, but it lets him spend long days on a secluded river accompanied by the rush of water and occasional visits from trout, kingfishers and moose.

"I could be at home watching 'The Price is Right,'" Smith said, "or I could be here dubbing around."

Visiting Smith last week was Rosey Susbury, whose family owns nearby Coos Canyon Rock and Gift. They've been prospecting for gold here for nearly 60 years. Their store rents pans, sluice boxes and other equipment, demonstrates how to use them, and shows visitors where to try their luck.

Susbury grabs a gold pan and scoops up a pile of gravel and rock that Smith has screened and concentrated through his dredge. For five minutes she dips the pan in the stream, swirling the gravel, tossing out small rocks and allowing lighter, sandy material to float away. Soon all that's left in the pan is a red garnet sand – or so it seems, until the swirling reveals 10 small pieces of gold. Smith picks them up with his finger and places them in a vial.

"The whole idea of panning," Susbury said, "is to keep the gravel moving so the light stuff comes to the top and the heavy stuff settles at the bottom."

Susbury has spent much of her life on the river. It's where she met her husband, Bob. She made their wedding bands and carved a flowing groove into each – to signify the river – and embedded pieces of gold her husband found on the Swift into her ring, and vise versa.

"He has my gold, and I have his gold," she said.

GOLD'S WILD RIDE

Sentiments aside, gold began to generate renewed interest in western Maine last year, when prices hit a record $1,033 an ounce on commodities markets. It has since been on a wild ride, falling to $870 an ounce early this year and hovering above $930 last week. Some analysts predict another surge, if inflation heats up and investors see gold as a hedge.

Activity has been slow this summer, though, as rain pushed streams over their banks. But it may rebound in the weeks ahead, Susbury said, if the weather cooperates. Already, hopeful prospectors are starting to arrive.

Downstream from Smith, a trio of men – one from Ohio and two from Pennsylvania – were positioning their gear on a promising stretch of stream bed. One of them, Jerry Sisler, had done enough digging and dredging to put on his mask and snorkel to work his underwater hole. The spot was strategically located at the river's center line, he explained, at a drop where spring floods could deposit gold after water levels fall.

Nearby, Jim Armstrong and his friend were positioning their dredge midstream. They plan to work the site for a month.

"The trick is to get down to bedrock," Armstrong said. "If you can just move these boulders and get down to bedrock, you're going to find some gold."

By TUX TURKEL, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, July 19, 2009


Lakes:
Regions: Rangeley


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