HISTORY: Gold rush sparked big headlines – by Karen Bachmann (Timmins Daily Press – June 13, 2014)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

Karen Bachmann is the director/curator of the Timmins Museum and a local author.

TIMMINS – About 105 years ago this month, the Great Porcupine Gold Rush took off in force. People had been looking for gold in the area as early as 1905, and a mini-rush around the Night Hawk waterway got people all riled up in 1907-08. However, it wasn’t until a few spectacular finds in the spring of 1909 in and around the Porcupine region that ears perked up and men got serious.

Today, I give you a few newspaper excerpts from the Cobalt Nugget, in celebration of those finds so many years ago. Those reporters and letter writers knew how to tell a great story. After all, I think we need to start celebrating the Porcupine Gold Rush. It is quite possibly the best kept secret in Canada. so let’s have a look at what they were saying back then that got their knickers all in a knot!

Headline: “Free Gold Over Big Area in Porcupine – Sam Wilson Describes What He Saw on Bannerman Claim – Quartz Vein a Mile Long and Four Feet Wide!!!” (Cobalt Nugget – Porcupine Lake, Nov. 1, 1909 – excerpt from the third letter of Sam Wilson, Cobalt Prospector to his partner Bob Andrews).

“Dear Bub – I’ve been looking at free gold so much I am just dazzled. They have it all through this country. They are finding it through Whitney and Tisdale, and there are great reports from the Reserve.

“Well, you want to hear about the gold. Bannermans have it, Wilsons have it, Davidsons have it and Bruce has it, and they appear to be finding it all through this country in white quartz. I tell you what I did at Bannermans. He and I went back to the camp. The vein was stripped for 250 feet or may be 300 feet, and all along there was white quartz, four to six feet wide of it. They had put a few shots in the vein at one place, and there was a good-sized speck of the yellow stuff sticking out of the vein. After looking for it with a microscope in Larder Lake, this stuff dazzled me!

“There has not been a great deal of wild cat staking up here yet, but there’s sure going to be, alright, alright. Wait ‘til the snow falls thick honey, and watch them stake swamp and sand and everything that comes along.”

Headline: “Wilson’s Dyke is Sixty Feet Wide – Claim in South Tisdale is “Golden Boulevarde” of Porcupine Camp – Davidson, Offer and Bruce’s Finds” (Cobalt Nugget – Porcupine Lake, Nov. 2 – except from the fourth letter of Sam Wilson to Bob Andrews).

“I went down to look at the Wilson property yesterday. The ice is too thick to smash through with a canoe and too thin to walk upon, so I went down the township lines between Whitney and Tisdale. Though you do not meet many people on the trails, the snow that has fallen only a couple of days ago is beaten hard, so there must be a few in the woods. That trail is going to be worn right down to the rock before the winter is out, for it sure is a swell showing. Hits you right in the eye!

“The big quartz dike rises right from the muskeg and is sure 60 feet wide. I stepped in and peaked around a bit and saw a speck or two of free gold, and then my nose was glued to the rock. For six feet the free gold showed as you had shot it out of a blunder buss, nuggets of it, and threads running for several inches and pretty regular too.

For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.timminspress.com/2014/06/13/history-gold-rush-sparked-big-headlines