Alan Skeoch

Year: 2021

  • EPISODE 264 When we could skate down the nth line

    EPISODE 264    WHEN WE COULD SKATE DOWN THE FIFTH LINE


    alan skeoch
    Feb. 2021

    There was a time when we could skate down the 5th line, Erin Township, Wellington County.

  • EPIDOSE 263 SAWYER INVITING DISASTER.

    EPISODE 263     SAWYER INVITING DISASTER


    Alan skeoch
    Feb. 2021

    Picture was taken at the Milton Steam Era Show
    a few years ago.  Looks like the blade would
    split the sawyer about dead centre.  

    No, I do not know what happened next.  I could
    not stick around because too much blood makes
    me upset.  SEEMS to me I heard a scream…

    alan



  • EPISODE 262 THE YEAR 1956: WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND OWNED THE WORLD AROUND US

    EPISODE 262     THE YEAR 1956 WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND OWNED THE WORLD AROUND US


    alan  skeoch
    Feb. 2021


    Ah!  Wonderful!  When we were young and  anxiously awaited the March Break to go camping
    on the banks of Etobicoke Creek…a wasteland of mysteriously abandoned farms with empty barns
    and  brick farm houses .  Nobody around.  As if some mysterious disease had  wiped out all living
    things … a plague … a  pandemic.   And we arrived free of any contagion to document this empty 
    land.

    Russ Vanstone, Eric Skeoch and me.  Just three of us on this venture.  We got to the “Land  Where 
    Nobody  Lives Anymore”  by hitchhiking and public  bus from West Toronto.   Packed for three or four
    days.  Sleeping bags, food, camera and bits  and pieces of winter clothing that we hoped would
    be unnecessary.

    The dead horse had floated down near out campsite as if to confirm the mysterious plague…pandemic…imaginary
    interpretation as to why the land was empty.   Corpse still frozen.  No smell.   The only smells were those
    of the land getting ready for spring…a damp, coming alive, kind of smell.   Lots of wood on the creek
    banks  for our campfire.  Great slabs of fossilized shale…Ordovician, 500 million years old with tiny whitish
    things that once were alive.  Those slabs were beds for us.  Not sure if we had air mattresses. 
     I wonder if the future explorers on Mars  will have the same feeling we did.
    Endless adventure ahead.


    YEAR 1956: THREE ADVENTURERS ON THE EMPTY LAND CALLED ETOBICOKE…RIGHT TO LEFT…RUSS VANSTONE,
    ERIC SKEOCH, ALAN SKEOCH

    YEAR 2021: I  NEVER GO BACK TO ETOBICOKE, ESPECIALLY NOT TO ETOBICOKE CREEK.  THERE IS NO WILDERNESS
    LEFT.  THAT ENDED WHEN THE SOMMERVILLE BLACKSMITH SHOP WAS DEMOLISHED AND THE BULL DOZERS MOVED
    NORTH FROM DUNDAS TO BURNHAMTHORPE ROAD.   I NEVER GO BACK THERE.  I LIKE  TO KEEP MY IMAGINARY WORLD INTACT.

    alan skeoch
    Feb. 2021

  • EPISODE 261 HIGH GRADING…THE ART OF STEALING RAW GOLD AND SILVER (A ROCK FELL ON THE MOON)


    EPISODE 261    YUKON DIARY     HIGH GRADING…THE ART OF  STEALING RAW GOLD AND SILVER   (A ROCK FELL ON THE MOON)

    alan skeoch
    Feb. 2021




    Old shaft at Keno Hill Silver Mine, Yukon



    Abandoned mine adits were unlikely to get much attention as they could
    be dangerous.  A good place to hide stolen bags of silver ore


    There is legal ‘high grading’ and illegal ‘high grading’ in the mining industry lexicon.  Legal high grading
    occurs when miners ignore low grade ore and only select high grade ore.  i.e. Ore with high mineral content.
    Most often, however, the term is applied  to illegal ‘high grading.’

    “HIGH GRADNG” in mining parlance refers to the stealing gold and  silver.   Quite often gold  miners 
    feel the discovery of raw gold in an ancient stream bed or gold embedded in quartz is just as much 
    theirs as their employers.  So they work out ways of ‘high grading’ (choosing) some of the gold for themselves.
    This  is particularly true of gold miners.  

    Gerald Priest and Pancho Bobicik and the man that was never caught were the biggest high graders
    in Canadian history (that I know bout).  They high graded 70 tons of silver ore.  No small matter.  Gold
    high graders developed ways of hiding the gold on their body cavities or in the fake bottom of lunch
    pails.  Jerry Priest needed five ton trucks.  Quite a difference.

    I think it was back  in 1959 that I first heard the term used.  We were conducting a brutal nearly 3 month
    survey from our bush camp on the Groundhog River…several miles by air north west of Timmins, Ontario.
    We started the job with three of su but by late August had four when the bush plane from Austin Airways
    dropped off poor Walter Helstein, an older man.  Nice old chap but not suitable for bush work. He slipped 
    off a moss covered windfall and speared his outstretched hand on a sharp picket.  Right through the hand.
    We called Austin Airways to get Walter out and to bring in another man if one could be found.  Well we got
    the first High Grader I have ever met.

    I think he had been fired from one of the Timmins gold mines.  He never said  that but he sure filled
    us in detailing the skills of high grading.

     “All kinds of tricks to get gold out, The lunch box trick was
    the least successful.  The mine officials would  search lunch pails.  Using body caviies was another..”
    “Body cavities?”
    “Just think about it…a gold nugget in the mouth or the ass.”
    “What was best way?”
    “Hide the piece of high grade ore in the mine…get it later with help
    of a mine captain looking the other way…lots of ways.”

    A local Timmins journalist, Kevin Vincent, has written two books titled BOOTLEG GOLD, VOLUMES 1 AND 2.
    He claims high grade gold is Timmins worst kept secret.  Everybody knows a high grader.

    “I met this fellow by the name of Jack Atkinson, a detective with the Timmins Police Department, who I dedicate both of my books to, who told me these extraordinary stories about these gold thefts that were happening in Timmins,” explained Vincent in talking about how he came by his passion for documenting high-grading in Timmins.“I thought ‘Where are all the books on this and the magazine articles?’ and he said I don’t think there are any,”  recalled Vincent.“I think we can fix that,” Vincent told Atkinson. “So for two years every morning before work I came to the library from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. and researched the stories about the theft of gold in Timmins.Vincent has accumulated 17,000 pages of documentation on gold thefts from examining microfilm of the Porcupine Advance and Timmins Daily Press.“Everybody in Timmins has a story about this and it is Timmins’ biggest secret because anyone you meet on the street will tell you a story about someone they know who high-graded, usually it’s a friend who stole gold, never anybody in their family.”“It was a lot of fun, researching these stories,” noted Vincent, “but it was also very serious because of many people getting hurt.”

    “But for the most part it was considered a victimless crime,” he added.


    Old mining roads criss crossed the Keno Hill area.  Too bad the White Pass trucker got lost.  Otherwise Gerald
    Priest might have successfully stolen 70 tons of silver ore.

    HOW DID GERALD PREIST AND PANCHO MANAGE TO STEAL 671 BAGS OF SILVER ORE?

    First they needed an inside man who had  a responsible position.  The police, lawyers, mine officials concluded
    that inside man was Swizinski,the night shift boss.  This has never been confirmed. Only alleged .
    Here  is how the  system  worked….allegedly

    1)  There was a four hour gap between night shift and day shift.  That gave the thieves a 
    four hour time to do their high grading .
    2)  Bobicik and the mystery man (i.e. Swizinski)
     entered mine at 200 foot level via an disused adit.
    3) They reached the Bonanza Stope via a crosscut tunnel that ended at a ventilation door
    that closed off an inactive part of the mine…kept closed to avoid loss  of compressed air….
    needed to maintain air quality in operating part of the mine.
    4) Bobicik passed through this door to operating part of the mine
    5) Where he encountered a  “Lugger” …a machine used to move rocks
    6) forty feet from the Bonanza stope on a gentle incline
    7) Stope contained freshly blasted ore…ready for ‘high grading’ theft
    8) The two men shovelled the best ore into 5 or 6 burlap  sacks.
    9) They pulled the 100 pound  sacks to a ‘Slusher”, a giant mechanical  shovel used
    to direct rock downhill to the 400 foot portal (adit)…but the slasher could also
    move the sacks uphill to the 200 foot level when operating in reverse.
    10) Half  a  ton of ore could be moved in a few seconds  up to empty rail cars which
    were pushed 400 feet to long unused part of the mine where the sacks were hidden.
    11) They ‘high graded’ a ton of ore each night.

    And there, hidden, the sacks of ore sat.   Moving them from the mine to 
    a food pick up point was the next task..   The Yukon has bright nights in the summer…sunshine
    until late so danger of being spotted was high.   Winter movement in the long dark
    nights was also a  problem since tire tracks would be left in the snow.
    Movement of the ore would be easier if they seemed to be legitimate owners
    of the ore.   So they bought the Moon mining claims. They became reputable mine owners.
    The Moon claims  were almost inaccessible…a long way from where the 671 sacks of ore
    were eventually stashed beside a gravel Road.

    Getting the sacks from he 200 level in the mine to the roadside was not easy
    as they were seen a couple of times but Bobicik had a cover story as did
    Priest since they formed  a legitimate mining company and developed the Rock on
    the Moon story.  

    But there was  a lot of work involved.  The Keno Hill sacks had to be opened and
    the ore piled as if waste rock in a ravine. Then all the ore had to be rescued in their
    own sacks.   Not an easy task.  Stealing 70 tons of silver rich ore was not something
    that could be done with the snap of their fingers.

    Much  more to the story.  A lot of twists  and turns.  But this  overview at least 
    explains some events between 1961 to 1963.   I find it quite amazing that
    none of this activity was noticed by my geophysical crew.  We covered so much
    of the land around Elsa on foot.  We used any road we could find to get to
    our survey properties.   Then again we saw a great many piles of rock and
    derelict  buildings.  We would  not have paid particular notice of Gerald even if we met him
    on a mine road  with a half ton truck loaded with mine sacks.


    This trench  was not dug on the Moon claims but gives some idea of how rough the land
    was and hence unlikely to be investigated.  Dead trees from forest fire long ago.  Growth rings
    on the trees were almost invisible because climate was inhospitable.

    Investigators said the Moon claims were almost inaccessible.  Took more that two
    hours to reach them by an ATV.   Lots of swamp in that part of the McQuesten 
    Valley.  I  know that.  Especially when doing that claim tagging on my last day
    in Keno Hill.  There were so many signs of abandoned work stations…cabins,
    wagons, equipment, even barrels  of gold concentrates…that it was unlikely 
    our crew would notice the stolen ore even if we walked right over it.


    alan skeoch
    Feb. 2021

    Map below gives some idea of the number of old silver mine workings around  Keno Hill.   Finding a pile of
    broken rock was not unusual.

    post script




  • EPISODE 260 YUKON DIARY ANCIENT DEAD FOREST STILL STANDING…WATCHING, WATCHING, WATCING.

    Note: Some of you did not get my Episode on Bunmahon, Ireland…covered  in sea foam mysteriouslyl
    The video and pictures were just too large for your computers. No matter. Not a big deal.  I will not 
    send videos again…


    EPISODE  260          YUKON DIARY:    ANCIENT DEAD FOREST STILL STANDING….WATCHING, WATCHING, WATCHING

    alan skeoch
    Feb. 2021

    We were working our way up the side of a Yukon “Hill”  which back east in Ontario we would call a mountain.  
    It was quite verdant until we reached the crest and looked down the other side.  There before us was a
    ghost forest.  Hundreds  of trees that had been killed in A forest fire long ago.  Then decades of wind, rain, ice pellets,
    snow had scoured the dead  trees into wonderful shapes.  Frightening really.  Like entering a graveyard at the
    end of time.  

    So I rescued two of the trees and carried them back to our Peso Silver camp much to the amusement 
    of the crew there.   With the help of a buck saw and Bill Scott I reduced the size of the pieces and later
    shipped them back to Toronto using White Pass trucking.  My expense.

    I still have those tree trunks.   One has the shape of A duck with one wing partially extended.

    The other seems like an abstract kind of thing that Henry Moore  would do.  The scouring sanded away
    most of the charcoal residue from the burn.  But not all.  The result can be quite chilling.  Just imagine 
    coming to the mountain crest and suddenly seeing hundreds of these eroded trees standing vertically
    like a ghost army…watching …watching…watching.

    alan skeoch
    Feb. 2021