June 24, 2009 - We've posted a couple of new short videos online - be sure to watch PortaCam TimeLapse and Ningunsaw!, both recent additions to the Timelapse section.
June 12, 2009 - Be sure to read Spring Cleaning - our latest weblog entry...
June 8, 2009 - We've just added two more webcams at Lakelse Lake - one permanent camera looking to the North, and one temporary camera aimed at a popular resting spot for geese!
May 21, 2009 - We've just redesigned our Webcam pages and are in the process of adding archives for each camera. Make sure you check out the newly added Lakelse Lake Weather page!
May 15, 2009 - Sitemap added to make it easier to find things!
February 25, 2009 - Come with us on a visit to Cassiar Gold: Mining on Snow Creek where Scott and Al visted a couple of placer mining brothers using a different gold recovery system - a placer mining jig!
January 26, 2009 - You might have missed this past article in the "History" section - check out "In the Trenches" for an audio tour with pictures of the old diggings on Holloway Bar.
September 23, 2007 - Emma, the Holloway Bar Pump Queenwas overhauled over the summer and now has a new powerplant with three times the pumping power to feed The Wizard. Read all about Scott's fabrication adventure on the Pictures and Stories page...
August 15, 2007 - The latest web story is about "The Wizard" - Holloway Bar's gold machine. Gold isn't just laying around the property - you have to move and process tons of gravel. We use "The Wizard", a gold plant designed and built by entirely by Scott to get our gold and make your panning kits. Come for this insider's tour of the gold plant now online in the Pictures and Stories: Finding the Motherlode page...
Holloway Bar Placer Mine - Placer Gold Mining on McDame Creek in Northern British Columbia
Where are we?
Holloway Bar is located on McDame Creek in Northern BC's beautiful Cassiar Mountains. McDame Creek is where one of BC's largest solid gold nuggets (73 ounces!) was found in 1877 - just downstream from our Holloway Bar project.
What is a Placer Mine?
There are two main ways to find gold. One is to tunnel into rock for gold ore, which is then removed from the rock using a variety of methods. We use the "traditional" method of placer mining, using water - lots of water - to wash the gravel and other material away from the gold, which is caught on its journey through the gold plant.
Waste water and material is captured in a series of tailings ponds where the water filters back into the ground. Unlike some mining ventures, this is a very environmentally friendly operation.
If you have Google Earth installed, you can download this .KMZ file (Google Earth Placement File) to take you directly to the Holloway Bar Placer Mine.
June 12/09: Spring CleaningThere's a ton of work involved and repairs required before we can move into camp and go mining each year. See what Scott and Christina found after one of the toughest Northern winters in years...
It takes a lot more than just pouring the dirt through the sluicebox to go mining. Scott's been busy again this spring getting everything ready...
Webcam View:
click image for more cams
July 6, 2009
Dragon Mountain has seen a lot of different miners and their equipment working in its shadow over the years. The old days saw tough men working with whatever tools they could pack into the country or build by hand. A lot of the early mining equipment was built from local materials - you can still find remnants of old wooden sluiceboxes held together with square-headed nails forged by a blacksmith. More recent years have seen a variety of heavy equipment and mostly home-built gold plants. The Wizard has been processing gold-bearing gravels on Holloway Bar for a dozen years now, but last summer Del started mining here with his shaker plant. The shaker plant works differently than a trommel system - an out-of-balance shaft is rotated by a small motor and shakes the deck to loosen the gold from the gravel. Added water helps form concentrate that is later removed and further processed to extract the gold.
