EDITORIAL & OPINION — ODDS ‘N’ SODS — The phantom golfer

I recently attended the annual meeting of an exploration firm held at the Sydney Yacht Club in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. After the meeting, as was the custom, everyone migrated to the bar and started talking about exploration and mining matters.

The bartender listened to the conversation about minerals in Cape Breton and later asked me if I had ever known a now-deceased prospector by the name of John (“Scotty”) Skotynsky. He mentioned that he had bought Scotty’s old home in Cape Breton’s Margaree Valley several years ago, and said the local folks had told him Scotty was something of a legend in the region because of his prospecting prowess, great stamina, and his digging of numerous prospective pits all over the country.

I told the bartender that Scotty had worked for me many times on mineral ventures in Cape Breton, and that we had been close friends. I confirmed that the stories about him were all true, and went on to tell him that Scotty had made many promising mineral discoveries that led to important exploration plays in the region.

I recalled to the bartender that in the summer of 1971 I went to visit Scotty at his beloved Silver Cliff property in the rugged Cheticamp area in the Cape Breton Highlands.

Early one morning, I was walking down a narrow, overgrown path on a steep incline to meet Scotty at his silver diggings, situated on the flank of a nearby high ridge. It was an eerie day filled with fog.

Looking down the hazy trail, I could see a dim form swinging away with what looked to be a golf club, shouting “fore” all the while. As he kept swinging and hollering, small bushes and trees were torn asunder and went flying every which way. I figured that whoever was swinging must have lost his marbles in trying to drive imaginary golf balls through bushes and across the foggy, deep canyon of the Cheticamp River. It was a spooky sight to behold in the bush.

As I approached the golfer, I was relieved to discover it was not a ghost but Scotty. I then noticed he had cut off the end of an old golf club and affixed it to several, razor-sharp blades from a mowing machine.

I greeted Scotty and remarked that he had constructed a really neat cutter to clear out the trail. He replied: “I didn’t build this just to cut out the trail. Someday soon, I’ll find my silver lode down the hill at Silver Cliff. I’ve always wanted to play golf on the famous course at Keltic Lodge, but I could never afford it. I’m killing two birds with one stone. By cutting out the trail this way, it will make it easier for me to lug up all that silver ore and also improve my golf swing at the same time. Then when I go to the course, I’ll be prepared.”

He went on to tell me that when the silver lode came in, he would drive to the golf course in his new Rolls-Royce to impress all those geologists and mining folk who go golfing at Keltic Lodge each year when they attend the annual meeting of the Nova Scotia Mining Society at Ingonish.

After I finished my story, the bartender left his post and returned a few moments later with a pile of papers that he had found in an old desk at Scotty’s house. “Maybe I had better give these to you,” he said, and lying on top was a page with the following poem Scotty had written just before he died.

Ode to a Lode

With snow down your neck,

you say: “What the heck,

my pick will soon hit the vein.”

And you shovel like hell, knowing full well

that your work may all be in vain.

But this time you feel: “I’ll soon make a deal

and the majors will be at my door;

Rolls-Royces will be mine, and I’ll have a mine

and bullion in bars they will pour.”

It isn’t all fun, digging in the sun

searching for a new vein of gold.

Nor can it be coy to consider it a joy,

freezing to death in the cold.

But words can’t express the raptures of success

when your pick hits gold in a vein;

With a lode to be found on

moose pasture ground,

burning and freezing brings no pain.

— Mr. Hudgins is a prospector from Nova Scotia.

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