EDITORIAL & OPINION — ODDS ‘N’ SODS — Mr. Sandman

While prospecting near Lake Abitibi in Ontario in 1963, I had an odd experience involving a so-called gold mine.

In order not to have any problems with thieves while I was prospecting, I would park the car about a mile north of Highway 101, at the end of a bush road near an Indian reserve. In those days, the highway between Hebecourt, Que., and Matheson, Ont., was not well-travelled. But nearby, a bush road heading south from Highway 101 had recently become popular.

One day, walking back to the car, I noticed I had a flat tire. Since it was early, I decided to drive to Matheson to get it fixed. Just as I got on the main road, I had another flat. There I was with two flat tires, 30 miles from the nearest garage and on a road with almost no traffic. After a couple of hours, a car came out of the bush road. The driver (I’ll never forget his fiery red hair) stopped and told me he was going to Matheson and coming right back. He offered me a lift both ways, and said he would wait for me if the repairs were not finished. What a break, I thought.

He told me that he was a mining engineer and was working on a project south of Highway 101. He was evasive about exactly what he was doing and I didn’t prod. However, I did agree to stake 18 claims for him. He gave me half the money in cash with the rest to be delivered when I sent him the transfers. I was a bit leery about not getting paid, but everything worked out in the end.

About a month or so later, while driving to Matheson to get supplies, my brother and I spotted an overturned car, off the road in the sand plain. It was an open, flat area without ditches, but the car had rolled over several times. The engine was lukewarm. Beer cans and two unbroken bottles of cognac (Remy Martin no less) were strewn all over the place. There was nobody around, but we saw a lot of blood. We looked all around, shouting, whistling and banging on the car. We didn’t find anyone.

“This is strange,” I told my brother. “The road is straight as hell in both directions, it’s a sunny day and there’s no sign of braking. This guy must have been pretty drunk.”

We collected the booze and, since the overturned car was of the same make and year as mine, I absconded with the windshield wipers. They were in better shape than mine.

It was a Friday afternoon. While standing on the shoulder of the road, we noticed a lot of cars bearing U.S. plates driving in from the west. Some stopped and asked us what was going on, and we told them all we knew, which was nothing. We hung around the wreck for a while, hoping that a police car would come by. None did. Even when we returned from running errands in Matheson, the scene was the same as we left it.

From our conversation with the Americans, we learned that they were on their way to what they described as “their gold mine.” Most of the men weren’t too talkative. However, one of them, whom I suspect was a little drunk, piqued my curiosity.

“Just a few miles from here, south of the road, we mine gold in the sand,” he said. I was flabbergasted. My encounter with the red-haired mining engineer flashed in my mind. I prodded some more.

“We put sand — there’s lots of it — into a large bin, wash it, and gold comes out,” he told me. “Sometimes we take out four bricks a month.”

I was dumbfounded.

“You know, with all the sand around here, this is probably going to be the biggest gold mine in the world,” he continued. “Right now we’re keeping real quiet. Hope you two aren’t miners.”

We assured him that we were tourists. After all, I had Quebec plates on the car.

Later that night, we walked to the “mine,” making sure we were not seen or heard. What a surprise we found.

About 50 cars were parked in front of a large, shabby building which seemed to have been hastily built. Next to it was some heavy equipment and a very large pile of sand. We also saw a front-end loader dropping buckets of sand into a bin, from which a conveyor carried it into the building. We dared not get too close, but we heard what sounded like a crusher. Coming from the other end of the building was a lot of whooping, shouting and yelling. It looked like a wild party was happening as the ground was strewn with beer and liquor bottles.

Then I spotted the engineer’s car.

“Let’s get out of here,” I told my brother. “It looks like this place only operates on the weekend. We’ll come back on Monday.”

Sure enough, come Monday morning the place was deserted. We filled a pail with sand from the big pile next to the building and took it with us. A few days later, the assays came back — not even a trace of gold was detected.

I didn’t have a chance to get back to the place for several months. When I did make it back, the only things left were piles of garbage, hundreds of empty bottles and the building.

After that, I never saw another car with American plates head down that bush road.

— The author, a retired prospector, resides in Pierrefonds, Que.