CROSS-CUTS Huge nugget find reported

It looks like a big baked potato, it’s said to weigh 74.6 oz and it could be worth at least $60,000. “It” is a gold nugget, discovered July 9 at Squaw Creek, B.C., that could be the biggest ever in Canadian history.

Thomas Eckervogt, 23, was working by himself at the small Squaw Creek Holdings claim and dug up the monster nugget. It wasn’t until the end o f the day, howeve r, when foreman Alan Dendys joined him back at the property, that the 2,320-g lu mp of gold was discovered in the sluice box.

The nugget will belong to Eckervogt’s father, Heinz, and the other partners in the company. It’s now in a safe place.

“It’s pretty solid,” the younger Eckervogt said of the nugget.

There was no screaming and shouting when the nugget was found, but “after a li ttle while we phoned up the helicopter and came out to the Junction that night,” he said. Both Eckervogts live in Haines Junction, Y.T., about 100 km north of the placer mine

“We figured if we didn’t celebrate that nugget, we’d never celebrate anything. ”

The nugget is the largest in a series of good finds over the years at the small property, about 1 1/2 km inside the B.C. border and about 23 km from Dalton P ost. Squaw Creek is a tributary of the Tatshenini River.

If sold to a refinery as just gold, the Squaw Creek nugget would bring between $35,000 to $40,000, but nuggets often bring more than prevailin g gold prices.