Up the lake there are two abandoned mines.
Both were carved out in search of gold.
One, at the top of a hill is entirely underwater. It hasn’t been explored.
The other goes into the side of a hill.
It’s labeled a ‘bat sanctuary’ and there is a gate in front of it.
There aren’t many bats there. There aren’t many left in the province these days.
And the gate?
It’s easy to take apart. The opening is easy to get in.
There you’ll find evidence of years of work and struggle. in the form of hundreds of feet of space carved into the bedrock.
They found lots of materials there, but despite the right kind of land forms and rocks, there wasn’t much gold found.
Fast forward a hundred years and travel thirty miles up the province and you’ll find Mooseland.
Mooseland was always known for its gold mining. In the last twenty years, the mine has re opened. It’s no longer a shaft, but an open pit. Apparently an Aussie gold company has found a way to make blowing open the earth ‘worth it’ when it comes to finding gold.
It’s funny. Career wise, I’ve never been content to merely grow something. Instead, I’ve opted to go on an endless search for that right, precious, vein of rarity.
And much like the prospectors of long ago, the going is rough and I’m eating a lot of dirt.
The gold’s there, I’m just not sure I have the machinery to find it.
And the only people getting rich?
They’re selling shovels.
How do you survive the gold rush?
Are you digging holes or selling shovels?
People keep giving me shovels. I'm in some kind of shovel community. we have dirt collections. We don't know what gold looks like.
I've been mining for a while. Now I'm trying to diversify by also selling shovels and teaching people how to dig. It definitely takes time away from my own mining, but feels like it's building to something more sustainable.