Finally got some GOLD!

So this past month has been very busy with life.  We had Easter Weekend and spent some time with family.  It was good but didn't make it down to the river that weekend.  The next week we had a measles outbreak declared in our province.  I am currently working as an immunization booking clerk and that has made for a very busy 3 weeks.  There was overtime to work as we scheduled thousands of appointments for people to immunize their children that hadn't been immunized or needed their MMR booster.  During all of this Ken started back to work and is working 12 and 14 hr days/6 days a week as well as catching a cold that he couldn't shake for more than a week.  Finally this weekend we made it down to the river on Victoria Day.

 We went down to William Hawrelak Park for a few hours on Victoria Day to check out the gravel deposits that we had spotted last time we were down there.  We set up the gold cube for the first time on the river.  We only set up for about 4 hrs.  Setting up the gold cube does take a little bit of time but it makes the process easier.  Ken brought with us a large tote to set it up in and a level to make sure it was level.  The hardest part was carrying all of the equipment down to the river.  The battery that runs the pump is quite heavy to carry that distance.

To process material with the gold cube we first use a 5 gallon bucket and a classifier to remove all of the larger rocks and stones.  The next step is to check the screen for any nuggets.  Although nuggets aren't likely in the North Saskatchewan River they are possible.  Usually all you will find in the screen are average looking rocks from the area mixed with a few larger garnets.

The next step once your bucket is a full as you want it to be is to turn on the pump for the gold cube and get the water flowing.  One the water is flowing you add the concentrates from the bucket a little bit at a time.  After you have run all of your concentrates through the gold cube you are left with nothing but the heavy materials to finish in your pan.

We have found that washing out the trays into a tote is effective for rinsing out the gold cube.  After about 4 hrs down at the river we had chatted with 4 different groups of people that had happened along and 1 very curious international student from China who couldn't believe we had gold in our river until he saw it.

We brought home our fine concentrates and Ken did the final pan on them.  After panning it all out and drying it and weighing it we found .3 grams.

Days total:  5 very interesting conversations and $12.00 worth of gold.  Not bad for a day off.

Happy Panning.

Angela