I'd like to introduce you to Emma, the Holloway Bar Water Pump that powers The Wizard, our gold plant. Originally rebuilt in the spring of 1997 when Christina and Scott acquired the Holloway Bar property, she wasn't always the pump queen, but she's always been Emma and she's pumped a lot of water through the Wizard over the years.
But, after ten years of faithfully pumping the pristine McDame Creek waters through the gold plant, Emma's powerplant was in drastic need of an overhaul - but nothing a new set of rings and bearings probably wouldn't cure. So, this spring, Scott began planning a new lease on life for Emma and the start of the long journey to becoming the pump queen of Holloway Bar. After carefully weighing the options available, Scott decided that as the current three-cylinder diesel was only just barely supplying enough power, so began the search for a larger replacement motor.
Watson Lake has been home to many boom and bust cycles over the years. In the 1960's and 1970's, mining was king in the area, and Watson Lake was a hive of activity with two jet flights per day and a multitude of people milling about with the Cassiar and Cantung mines nearby to service. When the mining slowed down in the 1980's, a supply of timber in the river basins was used to put many of the area people to work and logging then ruled for a time.
This old feller buncher was one of the victims of the end of the logging era in the southern Yukon and has since become a source of spare parts. When Scott come across it, the hydraulics and much of the running gear have already been recycled into some of the local area equipment, but it still had an engine.
After a bit of detective work, Scott tracked down one of the original operators of this particular machine and discovered that she had been put away at the end of her last shift in perfect running order. Scott spent a couple of days getting it running to make sure all the hard work in store wouldn't be wasted - and only then started to take it apart.
Other than a whole pile of hard labour and more than bit of sweat, the removal was uneventful for the most part - other than a governor housing that didn't survive the disassembly process.
The end result - a 471 Jimmy supercharged diesel motor that will produce almost four times the power of Emma's previous powerplant. It'll sing sweet on Holloway Bar!
