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Ghost Towns of British Columbia - Bruce Ramsey
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 118
This was, given my newly acquired original Fisher Gold Bug, essential reading and I must find a place for it on my shelf. My shelf, already stuffed and overflowing...
First published in 1963 the author had a chance to interview a lot of the original inhabitants of the ghost towns, even then in their 90's, and the book is well furnished pictures, maps, descriptions, conversations, it's a reference book, a guide to gold creeks and treasures, photos taken back in the day of ruins long since vanished - some of the towns won back, like Ferguson, others vanished, lidar will be the tool to search for their remains.
There are the Coal mining towns, Lumber & Sawmill towns (ghost towns by the 20's as even then forestry was a little overly zealous), Rail towns, vanished Forts and Trading Posts, Silver and mining towns, all these of interest, but no one laid up a cache of lumber in a sawmill town that I can metal detect my way to fortune, same with the silver, coal (I found a tin full of coal! I’m rich! I’m rich!); no, it’s the gold mining encampments that stir the imagination, the hidden unrecovered pokes and caches of gold and coins and robberies with spoils buried under trees….
Anyways, it was - as I noted before, a lyrical and poetic waxing on places long disappeared, and between the conversations and descriptions of decaying ballrooms and threaded in the writings of long dead reporters there are abundant clues to lead me on to treasure...
The Disappearance of RAAF Douglas C-47
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 182
This is interesting, not least because there were at least 3 instances of survivors contacting/radioing for help after their plane went down. Meaning that they went down on land, supposedly north of Darwin, and in the over 80 years since no trace has been found of them or their plane.
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_RAAF_Douglas_C-47_disappearance
I find it fascinating that this can still be unsolved. It has some parallels to the case of Canada's missing Douglas C-54; which disappeared enroute Anchorage to Great Falls, and there were suggestions of broadcasts from the downed plane afterwards. The Australian Plane seems definitely likely to have landed (3 broadcasts) - and the fate of the crew & passengers is curious indeed.
Link: https://rodboyle.com/index.php/archives/blog/ideas-a-questions/missing-1950-douglas-c-54d
Note: I used to be interested in tales of people who went missing - just vanished - until I realized that there was often a mundane explanation that authorities couldn't share with the public. The possibility of murder, probability even, only they didn't want to implicate the suspected boyfriend/spouse/ex or family members, or the possibility of suicide (probability) in cases where the vanished went off for a walk in the woods, or the ease with which it is to get lost in unforgiving wilderness terrain, and most peoples basic unpreparedness for wilderness survival, most missing persons cases do not bear any close scrutiny. Even MH 370 - the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, bore no scrutiny when you learned a very little of the pilots background. But these, the cases where the planes may have landed intact and where still no clue has been found - well, until they're found they're still baffling.
Boone Helm
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 120
One of the American Characters in the Cariboo, known there primarily for murdering 3 men and leaving an unrecovered cache he supposedly buried near Quesnel.
Links: http://www.cariboogoldrush.ca/murderers-gulch.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boone_Helm
Note the Wiki doesn't mention his Cariboo years.
Bill Barlee
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 146
Now if you know him you'll know he needs no recommendation.
A proper BC legend for documenting it's history and gold rushes. Going through my books I'm tempted to sell them, these are collectable, highly sought after - but - also still filled with great information, and many a stream that wasn't worthwhile at 50 cents a day is worthwhile now that gold is at $5,000 per ounce.
Anyways, flipping through them and I still find value, and checking the library find they have none of him in stock, so it appears I won't be selling him off anytime soon...
I know, not Bill Barlee, but when I lived in Calgary I made do with what I could find...
Having recently replaced my (stolen) "Bounty Hunter" metal detector with a vintage Fisher "Gold Bug" (an infinitely better machine at a fraction of the price) these have me pulling at the reins to get out and detect some forgotten and unrecovered caches of my own, or merely scope out some abandoned homesteads and ghost towns for what treasures I may find. The exciting thing about Barlee is he reports on Caches that have been found, as well as detailing any number that haven't. Now - back to my current book on the go - Bruce Ramsey's "Ghost Towns of British Columbia", of which any number are related to the gold rush and a good many have been lost and forgotten in the 62 years since it's first printing. So far it's oddly lyrical and pays a poetic homage to all the vanished places (that are waiting for me to metal detect their remains...). A quote from a newspaper at the time describing a ball put on at a (now ghost) town: "I insist that the wines are not made of burnt sugar and lightening...". Like any great book it's putting me on to a whole pile of other contemporaneous authors from the gold rush, and as I'm a sucker for fist person history...
I have the detector, I need wheels. Bad.
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