{"id":7641,"date":"2021-02-23T09:49:14","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T14:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7641"},"modified":"2021-02-23T09:52:16","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T14:52:16","slug":"episode-257-yukon-diary-salting-a-mine-site-a-rock-fell-on-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7641","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 257 YUKON DIARY: “SALTING” A MINE SITE: (A ROCK FELL ON THE MOON)"},"content":{"rendered":"
EPISODE 257   YUKON DIARY  “SALTING \u201c A MINE SITE    (A ROCK FELL ON THE MOON)<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Feb. 3021<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
My job in Chibougamau\u2019s wilderness in Northern Quebec was to carry and<\/div>\n
protect this magnetometer.  I was  17.  While doing so, I got to know a lot<\/div>\n
about mining\u2026and lying.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

Mark Twain knew miners when he said \u201cA mine is a hole in the ground, owned by a liar.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I have only been closely involved  in one \u2018salted\u2019 mine  site  and that was on<\/div>\n
my first bush job in the wilderness south west of Chibougamau, Quebec.  I may have<\/div>\n
mentioned this in an earlier episode but the salting of the Moon claims in Keno Hill<\/div>\n
put me in mind of that salted site in Northern Quebec.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
We had just finished  a  magnetometer job and were resting in an old lumber<\/div>\n
camp on the Opemiska road.  Gravel track where huge Euclid mine trucks had<\/div>\n
the right of way.  Smashed windshields from stirred up gravel were part<\/div>\n
of daily life in that derelict camp.  Glad to be away from the flies for a spell.  <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cAlan, I want you to go with Dr. Smith to look at a mine site north of here.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cFlying job?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNo, only way in is by boat\u2026lakes are too small or too shallow\u2026there will<\/div>\n
be a lot of portages.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cCanoe?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNo canoes available.  Boom times in Chibougamau\u2026all canoes gone.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSo, we walk?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNo.  I managed to get you a rowboat.  Tough on the portages<\/div>\n
but easier on open  water with small outboard motor.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
This happened in 1958.  Was just an 17 year old high school kid.  A beast of burden, really.<\/div>\n
 A helper. A flunky.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Dr. Smith was a nice older man. Bald. White hair. Anglo. Relaxed  kind of person of which there were<\/div>\n
not many.   It was a bitch of a job.  Just imagine trying to portage a rowboat on rocky, slippery, brush<\/div>\n
covered  trails.  We tried carrying the goddamn thing but sometimes had to just push it through<\/div>\n
the portage.  Then go back and get our gear.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Very slow going.  Just to get to the site took us two  or three days.  We had an aerial photo<\/div>\n
and map as a guide.  No problem finding the spot.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cSalted,\u201d  said Dr. Smith who was a man of few  words.<\/div>\n
\u201cSalted?\u201d I had never heard of the term before.<\/div>\n
\u201cJust look around.  What do you see?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cLook like some blasting has been done.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSalted.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSeems veins of some kind of shiny stuff\u2026metallic\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cPyrite\u2026worthless.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSome chunks of Chalcopyrite though,\u201d  I was sort of proud  of my discovery of that<\/div>\n
copper looking mineral embedded in Quartz.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the salt.  Somebody spread a few chunks around\u2026brought it in. Then hired  us.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Stock  market.  Penny stocks.  Whoever did this hired us to come  in here to <\/div>\n
check out the site.  Took us a couple of days.  The information was  leaked  <\/div>\n
somehow such as “sending a  geologist to look over a new discover” promoted<\/div>\n
on the  stock exchange somewhere.  Stock goes up.  Promotors buy stock cheap\u2026<\/div>\n
value goes  up suddenly on the news we were going into the site\u2026buy cheap,<\/div>\n
sell high.<\/div>\n
stock  crashes when final report is made by a professional like<\/div>\n
Dr. Smith.  Marorie\u2019s grandfather,  a pharmacist in Lindsay papered the<\/div>\n
bottom of his sock drawer with penny stocks\u2026worthless\u2026looked pretty.<\/div>\n
 I have wondered about this short job for years.  Why could we only get<\/div>\n
a rowboat?  Think about it.  A goddamn rowboat! When we came back to the Opemiska camp I carried a big<\/div>\n
lump of pyrite with me.  Still have it somewhere out on the stone pile at the farm.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
SALTING OF THE MOON<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Did a huge 70 ton rock of near solid  galena (silver and lead mineral) roll down from the top<\/div>\n
of Keno Hill to the Moon mining claims that Priest and Bobicek now owned?<\/div>\n
Mining geologit Dr. Aho gave his opinion.  If  that really happened then the<\/div>\n
end result would be a stone the size of a pea.  Opinion.  Salted.  Dr. Aho<\/div>\n
had loaned Priest and his partner $50,000 for a share in the Moon claims.<\/div>\n
Money that may have been spent buying a bobcat to rip up the site.  <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
More  factual evidence was presented by Mining engineers Bob Cathro and<\/div>\n
Bob Shank who visited the Moon in late June 1963.   They believed the place<\/div>\n
had been \u2018salted\u2019 as they found chunks of galena  here and there, some sitting<\/div>\n
on moss, others piled around the cabin on the site.  It seemed the galena was<\/div>\n
left in conspicuous places so it could be found and thereby infer that there<\/div>\n
may have been a boulder of silver on the Moon.  In other words the two<\/div>\n
engineers believed the site had been \u2018salted\u2019  \u201cUsually salting involves the<\/div>\n
scattering of enough valuable ore  in the right places to lure would-be investors<\/div>\n
into paying for miners  claims that may have little worth.\u201d  (i.e. the Chibougamau<\/div>\n
claims I saw in 1958).   \u201cOn the Moon, the intended message appeared to<\/div>\n
be the opposite: something valuable had been there. But, except for a few <\/div>\n
spilled leftovers, it was gone.\u201d   (P.136)<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Later…To make things a little more difficult, someone had driven a bobcat all over<\/div>\n
the site tearing up the ground so badly that not much else could be found.<\/div>\n
\u2026except a Doublemint gum wrapper.  The same Wrapper was found at the<\/div>\n
site where the  sacks of ore were picked up by the White Pass trucks.<\/div>\n
Does that have any meaning?  Gum wrapper?<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
In July 1963, geologist Al Archer visited the moon with his own inspectors.<\/div>\n
They fanned out across the site to make agrid survey.  Men at 10 foot intervals<\/div>\n
walking the claims as cops do on a murder site. Found nothing but<\/div>\n
a few more samples .  \u201cLooks like whoever did it had one thing in mind \u2014 to<\/div>\n
obliterate any previous workings on the property, \u201c testified Archer later when<\/div>\n
Priest was  arrested.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
No matter how many professionals testified the Moon claims were phony,<\/div>\n
Gerald Priest stuck with his story until his death.  One judge described him<\/div>\n
as a queer duck.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
So much for the science of SALTING MINING CLAIMS.   The opinion of<\/div>\n
experts was that the Moon had been salted.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Feb. 2021<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
post script  HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF BICHLORIDE OF GOLD?   Read  this postscript and<\/div>\n
you will discover a novel way of SALTING a gold mine site.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Salting A Gold Mine<\/h1>\n
January 10, 2017<\/span> Marshall Trimble<\/a><\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/a> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/header>\n
\n
\"Daguerreotype-California-Gold-Rush-mining-scene-photographed-by-Robert-Vance-circa-1850\"s22658.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Daguerreotype-California-Gold-Rush-mining-scene-photographed-by-Robert-Vance-circa-1850-300×180.jpg<\/a> 300w, s22658.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Daguerreotype-California-Gold-Rush-mining-scene-photographed-by-Robert-Vance-circa-1850-768×461.jpg<\/a> 768w, s22658.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Daguerreotype-California-Gold-Rush-mining-scene-photographed-by-Robert-Vance-circa-1850-600×360.jpg<\/a> 600w” sizes=”(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px” style=”box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%; display: block;” apple-inline=”yes” id=”7C43BEFF-1A94-4CCA-99AB-5B44B2342366″ src=”https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Daguerreotype-California-Gold-Rush-mining-scene-photographed-by-Robert-Vance-circa-1850.jpeg”>
Gold rush mining scene, photographed by Robert Vance circa 1850.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A favorite method used in unloading a useless claim or mine was called, \u201csalting.\u201d  The seller would take ore from a productive mine and carefully scatter it about his non-productive property in hopes of closing a sale on the claim.  Others might take a shotgun, load the charge with gold dust and blast the walls of the shaft, impregnating them with particles of gold.  Gold was malleable and would imbed itself into the rock, giving the worthless claim a highly mineralized fa\u00e7ade.<\/span><\/p>\n

The game of buying and selling a worthless mine could conceivably become a matter of who could outwit whom.  The seller might impregnate the walls with gold but the wise buyer might ask to have the walls blasted to see what was inside the rock.  Trying to stay one step ahead, the seller could install gold into the headsticks of his dynamite and when the charge went off, the interior would be salted.  To counter this, the buyer could insist they use the dynamite sticks he\u2019d brought along for just such an occasion.<\/p>\n

The smart buyer also brought along his own geologist.  Not surprisingly, many times an entire community would plot against the buyer since the economic stability of a region might hinge on the successful sale.<\/p>\n

Bichloride of Gold, or a chemical liquid, was used for medicinal purposes such as alcoholism and kidney ailments.  When taken internally it will pass through the body, exiting the body with high assay value.  A seller bent on cleverly salting his mine could load himself on the substance and salt any crack, crevice as nature moved him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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EPISODE 257   YUKON DIARY  “SALTING \u201c A MINE SITE    (A ROCK FELL ON THE MOON) alan skeoch Feb. 3021 My job in Chibougamau\u2019s wilderness in Northern Quebec was to carry and protect this magnetometer.  I was  17.  While doing so, I got to know a lot about mining\u2026and lying. Mark Twain knew miners […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}