365 Day Challenge: Day 284: Fraser River Gold Panning Championships

My friend Troy was at the Fraser River Gold Panning Championships this past weekend. I met Troy in 2004 while working at InfoNet (http://www.infonet-tech.com/). I was a marketing assistant and he was a computer programmer. Most of the employees at InfoNet didn't speak English that well. After Troy got hired, we hung out at lunch time and during work hours. He would get in trouble because we were hanging out too much during work hours and his boss didn't like that. After a year of working there, I decided to go back to school. At around the same time I submitted my resignation, Troy had enough of the place and decided to move on to other ventures. It was Facebook that reconnected us years later. He just emailed me today about his adventure at the Fraser River Gold Panning Championships. It is very interesting and I've decided to share it with anyone who reads my blog.

Hi guys,

This past weekend I got back from the Fraser River Gold Panning Championships. A 4 day camping trip up at Yale,BC. Thursday and Friday was gold panning tutorials/demos down by the river (and yes, we all found flakes of flour gold!

http://www.yukondan.com/
http://www.yukondan.com/home.php?page=championships

Saturday and Sunday was the Championship itself. There's some serious events, but there's some really fun ones too. Here Brenda and I took turns in the blindfold event. Oh sure... find some flakes of gold in a bucket of dirt while blindfolded... goooood luck! :P

There were a lot of older fellas out there are wearing their prospectin' hats and whatnot.

Check out this guy's truck. It's from 1940. He said he tried to buy a vintage trailer too, but it never worked out so he made that trailer you see below.

This is the guy himself and his wife. There's a core group of these gold panners that are right into these competitions!

They also had great events for all the kids. Amanda was in something called the "Mini Miners" and "Mini Miner Gold Rush" events. All the kids under 7 won prizes too.

When getting ready for the trip, I figured I could use a satellite dish to get a cell phone signal at the Yale campground so I threw it into the trunk. Later, I duct taped the antenna to the dish. But no luck :( I couldn't get a signal to save my life.

Well, it turns out one of the contests is called "Anything but a gold pan".

People were coming out with frisbees and frying pans and hubcaps. One guy used a big chunk of tree bark and actually did really good.

I figured this contest would be the one where everyone would get to know Troy :D

Night before I pulled the stand off and made some other slight mods and voila...

The younger teens and kids thought it was hilarious and it got lots of laughs from people. But the "Professionals" were all quite interested in my "pan". One of them suggested I switch to the big tubs at the back of the field. and 2 others came over to give me a crash course in something called "flat panning" which is what the experts use for "speed".

I got 6 flakes of gold out of that crazy pan. Took me 6:08. Turns out everybody else only got 5. Ah, but there were only s'pposed to be 5 in there and extra flakes don't count. Is too bad, if everyone had gotten a 3 minute for a missing flake I would've won it! Still though, whatever... the satellite dish is actually pretty effective for panning although it is a bit heavy on the arms... even with the extra handle.

Although there are several fun events, the teen, adult, professional and flat-panning contests are all really serious. Some of the pics I took really show how serious people take these events.

Game-Face Robin. This guy is a serious prospector. He'll tell ya tips & tricks, but not his special places to go looking :) (He's a super nice guy, don't let the expression fool ya).

This one here was called "Grudge Match" maybe? I call him HipWader Willy on the left and Castlegar Sam in the back. getting ready. Ted Turner in foreground. Notice the pins in their hats?

HipWader Willy so calm, so cool. I had invited him and Sam to our campfire the night before and we had a great time talking about gold prospecting. I had no idea they were such high-calibre panners. At the bottom of the screen is Ted Turner who drives the red truck. Not until I started looking at the photos did I realize how competitive these guys are!

(Hip Wader Willy won the prestigious flat-panning competition!).

I had a really lucky moment on the first day in the Adults competition. After shaking the gold to the bottom of the pan, I over-sloshed the pan and lost almost all the rocks and dirt in one go. Figured the gold was gone :( Heart sunk. I kept at it and "whattyaknow? I found 4 of 4 flakes in crazy fast time! I came in second in the qualifying heat of the Adults category, one category below the "Pros".

I figured best to enjoy it that night though, cuz in the final heat on Sunday I was sure to get blown outta the water.
That night we had a salmon BBQ across the street at the Hope River Esso-General Store - native style. Was good eatin.

On Sunday the same thing sorta happened again... I'd gotten down to a much smaller amount of dirt in the pan really fast, but I was too adrenalized and sloshed too much out again! Crap!

Suspect this was the moment of disaster :( Too much sloshed out.

But then -hey! I saw 4 flakes of gold!

I was about to call "GOLD!" (Your timer stops the clock and whatever's showing in the pan is what counts). Then I remembered that there might be more in the pan!.... oh crap... little swishes now but so hard to be steady. Lost one back into the dirt again."crap" - couple more little swishes and I had 7 flakes pushed off to the side, good enough "GOLD!". Was a fast time... 2:03. Really fast.

But then while waiting in line to report to the judges I heard people saying they got 8 flakes :( Means I took a 3 minute penalty so 5:03. Too bad eh? The rest of these guys are all really good and lots of people started calling "gold" so that's it, with the 3 minute penalty I was out of the running for sure.

After lunch this girl Cheryl (who had provided critical tips about panning on Thursday and Friday) came over and gave me a hug and said "Let me be the first to congratulate you".

What? What the hell for? I walked over the office where results were posted.