A five-part story written by Rie Muñoz,
published in the Alaska Sportsman magazine in 1962.

PROSPECTING

Is Our Life

By Rie Muñoz

Part three

We didn’t stay in the Salt Chuck that whole summer. The winter before, in Juneau, when we were spending a great deal of time with our noses deep in maps of Southeastern Alaska, a dreamy look had sometimes come into Juan's eyes and he'd mutter, "Now, that's where I'd like to go..."

His finger would be hovering over an area north and east of Ketchikan, away up in the high mainland mountains at the head of Portland Canal. As that was a long way from the anomalies of Prince of Wales Island, my attention would return to the area of more immediate interest.

Then one time, looking at that same map, Juan muttered, "I wonder if it's true."

"If what's true?" I asked. "You always did seem interested in something over there."

"Well," Juan started, "I've heard rumors about this place ever since I came to Alaska." Then, lighting a smoke, he began to tell me about the Shamrock.

It was - is - an alleged gold mine high up in the mountains, buried so deep under a glacier that one had to tunnel under the ice to get to it, impossible to reach during most of the year because of heavy snows, and yet so rich that a man again allegedly had packed out more than a thousand dollars worth of high grade ore in a five-gallon can on his back. This man had, reportedly, died before he could develop the property.

Tales of lost gold mines, always fabulously rich ones, are so common that the practical prospector is always inclined to be skeptical. Juan put this one down as a combination of fact and fancy, and I, at least, dismissed it from my mind.

Then, on one of our trips to Ketchikan that summer, a reputable engineer, who knew we were prospecting, called Juan into his office and gave his version of the Shamrock's history.

He had examined the mine some years earlier, and definitely felt there was a great deal of truth to the stories of the Shamrock's value. Yes, the ore was very rich, but it came in small pockets with leaner material between. The original owner had mined out the lens of high grade ore on the surface, but had gone no farther. There was every reason to assume that, if the vein was followed underground, more ore of equally high grade would be found.

How had this deposit been found in the first place, if it was under a glacier? High-grade float, which is simply loose rock broken from the bedrock, was picked up in a little stream which flowed from beneath the glacier. As the glacier filled a small and very deep draw in the mountains, it was reasoned that the float might come from a nearby source. Furthermore, it would not be hard to follow, as one could work upstream under the ice until the float stopped, and the mother lode should be near at hand. Simple!

Juan stayed with the engineer for an hour or more, getting details about how to find the Shamrock, what equipment to take for climbing on the glaciers and snow, what time of year he could expect to reach the mine. "Don't weigh down your pack with canned meat," the engineer advised as they parted. "The trout fishing is superb!"

Juan, in a frenzy of excitement, rushed back to the hotel, and by the time he'd told me all he'd heard, we were both ready to leave the next day. There was only one catch. It was too early in the season. The engineer had definitely said it would be impossible to reach the Shamrock before the snow was gone at the five-thousand-foot level.

There was nothing for it but return to the Salt Chuck and bide our time. Once a week we'd climb up North Pole Hill behind the chuck, from which vantage point we could see the high peaks near Chomly Sound twenty-five miles to the south. When we established beyond doubt that the snow was melted from those mountain tops, we left Hiccup with the Pellets and headed for Ketchikan. There we would catch the mail boat Eureka to the little town of Hyder, takeoff point for the trek into the mountains and the Shamrock.

The Eureka pulled up alongside an
occasional fishing boat to deliver
mail. Here, Skipper Fred McKay's
son Gene acts as mailman.

In Ketchikan we heard disheartening news. Pete Cessnun, a bush pilot who had recently flown over the general area, reported that the snow was still lying deep at three and four thousand feet. The Shamrock was above five thousand!

And then another rumor caused us a near-sleepless night. Someone else had been asking around town for information about the Shamrock. No one knew whether this person had departed the area, but all seemed to agree that our unknown competitor was about to leave if he had not already done so.

While considering this new angle, Juan ran into another engineer who had been in the area a week or so before, looking at another property, and had been at the Shamrock itself a few years earlier. He offered to draw Juan a map that would enable him to find the mine even in the snow. As a final bit of encouragement he said that, according to records in the Hyder recording office only a week ago, no entries on the Shamrock had been made for two years.

"If I'd known that when I was up in the hills," he said with a grin, "I'd have staked it myself!"

With this information and the prized map, Juan and I, in a high fever of excitement, boarded the Eureka the next morning, trying desperately to look like a couple of carefree vacationers off for a week of fishing in the mountains.

The Eureka's big diesel pounded in our ears for a day and a night as she headed through the narrow passages and up Portland Canal. To avoid questions from other passengers, as well as to pass the time. Juan resorted to reading such magazines as he could find aboard, and I sketched. The scenery was worthy of anyone's complete attention, but mine wasn't available.

When at last the boat's whistle announced our arrival, I looked up to see the sun shining though lifting clouds, and mountains all around going up, up, up, until their snowy caps merged with the thinning overcast.

We swung up the rather precarious ladder to the dock and surveyed the town of Hyder while our packs were being hoisted up. Twenty-five or thirty people don't need many houses, and we saw nothing to hold us here. We found a car and driver, and in a matter of minutes were jouncing over the road that winds along the Salmon River.

Rugged mountains rise on either side, and we were so busy craning our necks upward that we almost missed seeing two black bears that went galloping across the road in front of our car.

All too soon the ten-mile ride was over, and we shouldered our packs for a ten-mile hike to the lake that was supposed to be teeming with trout. We had been told of a log chalet beside this lake, where we could stay, only five or six miles from the Shamrock.

Thick brush and dense timber along the winding road shut off much of the view, but occasionally an open stretch would unfold a panorama of mountains and glaciers that took our breath away almost as effectively as the stiff climb. By dusk we were beginning to wonder what had happened to the cabin, when a sudden turn in the trail brought us only a hundred feet from it. Great log walls gave it a rugged and venerable appearance there among the spruce trees, on the shore of the little lake. My heart beat a little faster as I watched the jumping trout pock-marking the surface of the lake.

A feeling of relief swept over us. Tomorrow we would stake our mine, then, while we waited for the mail boat to take us back to Ketchikan, we'd bask lazily in the sun, fish, and -best of all eat magnificent trout dinners. We went to sleep that night with a feeling of deep satisfaction.

The next morning Juan shook me awake before daylight. It took me a moment to realize where I was. Oh, yes! Only five miles from all that beautiful gold, and this was the day it would become ours!

But when we stepped outside to check the weather we found a pea-soup fog covering everything right down to the tops of the trees around the lake. As the morning wore on, the fog turned into a steady rain with visibility still hovering around zero. Obviously it was no day to be climbing across unfamiliar snow fields and crevasse-laced glaciers.

A two-story log cabin on tiny Texas Lake was a haven at the end of the day's hike.
(There is a Texas Glacier nearby.)

Every dark cloud has its silver lining, and ours was the opportunity to fish. As the trout were jumping everywhere, Juan started with flies. He tried what he called a Montreal, then a Parmachene, a Coachman, and so on until every fly in his book had skimmed the surface. Not a rise did he get. I stuck to the same colorful fly, with the same results.

Juan, undaunted, put on a spinner. "Fish go crazy for this," he assured me. Nothing happened. We tried salmon eggs. Still no bites. Then I, who had not been fishing quite so arduously as Juan, found some fat, juicy worms under a rock. Juan raced over to help retrieve them, then sprinted wildly back to the lake to give them a try. Still no strikes, no nibbles, no fish dinner. The next two days were a repetition of the first. Then on the fourth day the clouds lifted, and although the peaks were still shrouded, it was definitely clear to at least 4,500 feet and showed promise of clearing entirely.

We were on the trail shortly after six, and to our exasperation spent the first hour and a half struggling through rain-soaked brush. Then, suddenly, when our patience and clothes were about to give out, we came into clear timber and found ourselves on the old trail that supposedly led to the Shamrock.

For the next two hours we climbed steadily. The country opened up, with little meadows sprinkling the diminishing forests. Finally we broke out above timberline on a steep ridge, and a breathtaking panorama spread out before us.

From this point we counted seven glaciers, large and small, flowing into the Chickamin Glacier two thousand feet below us. Jagged peaks jutted through the clouds above the snow fields at the Chickamin's head, across the boundary on the British Columbia side.

We could have kicked ourselves for "traveling light," which had meant leaving the camera at the log cabin.

Soon we began to cross patches of snow. Often the trail would be entirely obscured and we would never have found it but for an occasional rock cairn sticking out of the white blanket.

The map showed a little cabin by the mine, and this, we reasoned, would be visible from a long distance. But as we climbed and climbed, we began to wonder. Had the cabin been taken out by a snow slide? We must find it, as it was our only really good landmark.

No Valley

Once Juan went to the edge of the ridge to look into the valley below, and see whether we'd climbed above the Shamrock. He stepped back swiftly. A steep slope led fifteen hundred or two thousand feet down to a small bench, then took another plunge of a thousand feet or so to the Chickamin Glacier.

When he got back to me we studied a small, snow-filled gulch ahead of us. Although only fifty feet across, it dumped like a coal chute into the valley below. If we should slip while crossing it, or if our extra weight on the snow started it sliding, there would be no stopping for two thousand feet. And probably, we reasoned, when we got that far we wouldn't be worth stopping. We decided to circle above the gulch and stay on firm rock, even at the expense of another hour.

The fog became thicker. It came in patches, during which we could see nothing. Then a gust of wind would clear our view momentarily, and we could take another bearing on a nearby point. After circling the snow slide gulch we kept our elevation, so we'd have the advantage of height to spot the elusive cabin landmark.

No Cabin

But after more than an hour of difficult walking in the direction we believed to be the right one, we still saw no cabin. The fog was getting thicker, and before us stretched a seemingly endless snow field that disappeared into the fog so we had no idea where it led or what risks we might encounter if we crossed it.

We did the only thing we could do in such a situation-sat down and ate lunch. The fog swirled around us, and although we had anticipated a cold day, we found the heat oppressive. Discouraged, we munched cold beans from a can and discussed the advisability of returning to the lake.

We counted seven glaciers, large
and small, flowing into the Chickamin
two-thousand feet below us.

While we were arguing the pros and cons, Juan jumped up excitedly and pointed a shaking finger behind me. "The Cabin!" he said.

I whirled around in time to see the unmistakable lines of a manmade structure vanish in the thickening fog. We waited breathlessly for another think spot in the clouds. After five minutes the cabin appeared again, as if by magic. It was barely three hundred yards away, yet we had almost missed it entirely!

From the cabin, the map showed, you go about two hundred feet, cross a little gulch and a ridge, then into a second and larger gulch. There the remnants of a receding glacier were supposedly clinging to the rocks, and somewhere under the ice was the Shamrock vein!

No gulch, No Ridge

Again We had to wait impatiently until the fog lifted, and when it did after what seemed like hours, we saw no first gulch, no ridge no second and larger gulch with its little pocket glacier. We saw nothing but snow. Snow, snow and more snow, dipping steeply toward the edge of the cliff below and then dropping straight down into the valley.

We sat down completely disgusted. Here we were, practically on top of the vein, with no way of knowing where it was. Then Juan made his second big discovery of the day.

Just below the cabin, on a little bare patch of ground, was a rock cairn which I had assumed the original staker of the mine had put there. It was Juan’s sharp eyes that caught the gleam of a shiny tobacco can stuffed among the rocks of the cairn. Inside it was a folded piece of wet paper which read, "Staked the first day of July, 1953."

Juan's sharp eyes caught the gleam of a
shiny can among the rocks of the cairn.
A piece of paper was folded inside.

So, the claim we had come so far to stake was held by someone else! We’d been so worried about someone’s beating us to it this July, we hadn’t thought much about what people were doing last July. The new owner had changed the name of the claim, which explained why the records in Hyder showed nothing in connection with the re-staking of the Shamrock.

There was nothing to do but start back and plan on finding our riches elsewhere, but first we searched high and low around the cabin on the chance that we could find a carelessly dropped specimen of the rich Shamrock ore. After half an hour, we left defeated.

Noses to the ground like a hunting
dog following a rabbit, we backtracked
on our own dim footprints.

We came to the first snow field and followed our tracks back across it. The second snow field presented no difficulty either, but as we progressed, it became alarmingly apparent that the heat of the sun had been hard at work erasing our footsteps. With the fog still as thick as ever, we could no longer see the cairns along the trail or even the ridges around us. Our field of vision was limited to less than a hundred feet in any direction.

One of the weirdest feelings I have ever experienced came as we were crossing that last big snow field, noses to the ground like a hunting dog following a rabbit, trying to pick out the dim marks of our footprints, unable to see anything but white-white at a forty-five degree angle headed for the deep valley below.

Then, suddenly, we were out of the fog. The rest of the trip went on schedule, and in a few days we were back in the Salt Chuck telling our friends about our adventures. After we had told them about the Shamrock, Warren Pellet said, "Oh well I guess you caught. a lot of trout."

"Nary a one," Juan answered.

"Well, I guess seeing all the game helped to make up for it. Lots of goats and big grizzlies in that country."

"Didn't even see a bush wiggle."

Warren's face was all sympathy as he said, "Pretty lousy trip, eh?

"Lousy?" Juan cried. Why, we wouldn't have traded it for all the tea in China!

And that's the way I felt about it too.

click here for part four