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Hey, it's Alan, and I want to introduce you to a brand new season of a podcast that I think you'll really like. It's called Dead Man's Curse, Volcanic Gold. This historical true crime podcast is hosted by Crew Williams from History Television's hit original series, Dead Man's Curse, The Legend of the Lost Gold. And it investigates the curse and legend surrounding the lost gold mine of Pit Lake.
In season one, Kru was on a quest to sort fact from fiction, and he was joined by members of the Stolo and Catesy First Nations, historians and cultural experts of diverse backgrounds, to give an indigenous prospector named Slumak a voice from the other side of the veil. This season, the team is back on the trail as they retrace the steps of unlucky fortune seekers who went looking for Slumak's legendary gold mine and vanished along the way.
It's a journey through Canada's Wild West and beyond, a gold-fevered expedition through time itself and directly into the heart of a curse. In the episode that you're about to hear, we travel to 1931 and follow the efforts of a search party fighting through a blizzard in B.C.'s glacier country, looking for a missing prospector who was well into his 80s and was as wild as the wind itself. His ability to sniff out gold made him one of the best ever to play the game.
His name was Volcanic Brown, and he was on the hunt for a motherlode, rumored to be worth billions. As days gave way to months, the search party only found his storm-ravaged tent, his notebook, an old shotgun, and a jar filled with giant gold nuggets. But Volcanic Brown was gone, and many believe he holds the key to the mystery. Did he fake his own death? Was he murdered? Or was he the latest victim of the dead man's curse?
Find out on episode one of Dead Man's Curse, Volcanic Brown. The podcast you're about to hear includes the story of a Catesy man named Slumuk. Members of the Catesy First Nation have been instrumental in us telling this story properly. We acknowledge that the story of Slumuk originates from the ancestral lands of the Catesy people. What you're about to hear, you may find graphic and violent in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
It's November 1931. Mahatma Gandhi attends a formal reception at Buckingham Palace while wearing his usual loincloth and shawl, where he meets King George V. That same month, the DuPont Chemical Company announces the invention of a new synthetic rubber, soon to be known as neoprene. In Hollywood, Boris Karloff kills the Frankenstein, while Clark Gable and Joan Crawford glam it up on the silver screen.
In Hesse, Germany, the Nazi Party wins with only 37% of the vote as Hitler continues to amass power. Back in Canada, Maple Leaf Gardens opens with a home team loss for Toronto as they're defeated by the Chicago Blackhawks 2-1. And in Victoria, British Columbia, headlines report the disappearance of a gold prospector named Volcanic Brown.
The Colonist newspaper reported on November 3, 1931, "A search party will leave New Westminster tomorrow for Pitt Lake, where they will commence a search for Volcanic Brown, a pioneer prospector who was long overdue in the mountains between Pitt and Harrison Lakes."
Volcanic Brown, 86, was last seen in the pit country August 17th when another prospector named Swanson, who was coming out, sold him some beans and rice to augment Brown's slender supply of flour and other eatables. End quote. Volcanic Brown was never seen or heard from again. I'm Crew Williams, and this is Dead Man's Curse, Season 2, Volcanic Gold.
Episode 1: A Mysterious Disappearance If you've been with me since Season 1, you know that I'm part of a team for the Adventure TV docuseries, Dead Man's Curse. Our story so far has taken place in the lower mainland of British Columbia, near Pit Lake, a vast and foreboding tidal lake, some 40 kilometers northeast of downtown Vancouver.
The lake is surrounded by some of the most striking and inhospitable mountains and glaciers in North America. Filled with wildlife, falling rocks, steep cliffs, high altitudes, blizzards in winter, blistering heats in summer, the dangers are endless. But so are the treasures.
Back in 1858, gold was discovered in the Fraser Canyon, less than 100 kilometers from Pit Lake, which triggered a massive gold rush as 30,000 prospectors poured into the region from around the world. Established First Nation communities were never the same when the colonial government officially established the province of British Columbia.
Decades later, a man named Slumuk became entangled with the colonial powers and as a result became the catalyst behind the legend and the curse of a secret gold mine said to be worth billions. His gold is said to have never been found. And while the easiest bonanzas were all carted away within a few years, pockets of harder to reach gold remain. They are farther away from civilization and deeper into the wilderness.
Finding gold is an arduous, risky process requiring a special kind of skill, grit, know-how and resolve. Volcanic Brown knew the danger. In fact, when he went missing, he was 80 years old and had decades of crossing frontier after frontier. For him, almost nothing was out of reach. He had a reputation for knowing and shrugging off any and all risks in exchange for rewards.
And he had seen a few of both prior to that fateful November in 1931. The Daily British Columbian out of New Westminster wrote, quote, "Loritz Fredrickson, rancher and prospector, came to the office of the British Columbian today and volunteered that he knows Volcanic Brown well, and in his opinion, no one needed to institute a search for the old prospector, as he was well able to look after himself."
Brown was the object of a similar search some years ago, but turned up all right." During the 1920s, Volcanic Brown would set out into the wilderness north of Pit Lake in early summer. By mid-September, he would usually stop by the Dominion Fishing Hatchery in the town of Elven at the head of the lake on his way out. Although he never staked a claim in the region during these trips, he always left with gold. But it wasn't always without peril.
The article referenced that in the fall of 1926, Brown had been out of contact with anyone for several weeks, prompting a successful search. Yet every summer, he ventured into the upper pit, then routinely checked in at the hatchery on his way home. That was until the end of September and into October of 1931, when hatchery officials waited in vain for Volcanic Brown to appear out of the bush as usual. The weeks passed, temperatures dropped, and still no sign of Brown.
Officials knew he was in trouble, despite assurances from fellow prospectors that sturdy old Volcanic Brown would be alright. On November 2, 1931, Constable George Stevenson, a warden with the Game Conservation Board, and Provincial Constable Eugene Murphy made an 80-kilometer journey from Vancouver to Alvin.
Even today, there are no paved roads, and historically the trip required a boat to travel the entire length of Pit Lake. Upon their arrival, they were joined by two young woodsman brothers, Leroy and Bill McMartin, who worked as forest guides and fur trappers. The team then set out into the unforgiving wilderness in search for volcanic Brown. With no tents and with the lightest rations and necessities, the four men headed straight for Brown's cabin.
It was located on Seven Mile Creek, about 24 kilometers north of Alvin. The men made the two-day arduous trek over a steep mountain trail while being pelted by relentless sleet and snow. Constable Stevenson was a straight shooter and took down a mountain goat which supplemented the group's rations. But their efforts were hampered even further when Constable Murphy twisted his knee on a rock slide.
Injured, but still determined, Constable Murphy and Bill McMartin split from Stevenson and Leroy to search the trails around Seven Mile Creek and eventually return to Alvin for provisions. They would then set out again on November 16th with food for the two men who journeyed on without them.
Meanwhile, Constable Stevenson and Leroy McMartin traveled a distance of some 40 kilometers down the Stave Glacier Trail over to Harrison Lake. Constable Stevenson would later comment that their progress was incredibly slow, averaging 3 or 4 miles a day with snowpack up to their knees in blinding conditions.
To reach Stave Glacier, they had to take an indirect path over a mountain, climbing a 2,000-foot slope over the course of two days. The pair set up camp without tents, but barely slept through the night, because someone had to make sure the fires didn't burn out, or they would have likely frozen to death. As they progressed, they often fired signal gunshots in hopes that Brown, possibly snowed in nearby, would hear them and respond.
The silence was deafening. Constable Stevenson would say later that, quote, "Everything was as still as the dead." As the men reached the very edge of Stave Glacier, a foreboding 32 square kilometer expanse of solid ice, Constable Stevenson noticed a group of birds squabbling over something in a stunted, snow-covered tree. Yanking the branches loose, the men found a piece of bear meat wired to a branch.
At this sign of life, they probed around in the snow, and soon found the remains of a collapsed pup tent, a simple triangle-shaped tent usually held up with two poles with a flap at the door. The fabric was frozen solid, and underneath the icy folds was a cooking pot, an old shotgun, and a notebook with herbal remedies scribbled inside. They believed the items to be volcanic browns because he had been known, among other things, as a natural healer.
But something else caught the men's attention: a small screw-top jar which contained about 11 ounces of coarse gold. Somewhere nearby, Brown had found pay dirt. And then he just disappeared? He left behind his treasure, notebook, and shotgun in what looked like to be an abandoned campsite because the area was snowed over and likely had been for days if not weeks.
And let me just take a second to remind you, Volcanic Brown was not a novice. He was a well-respected prospector and experienced outdoorsman. I can't think of any reason he'd leave behind his gun to venture out into the wilderness. The woods are full of danger. And like his friend, Lawrence Fredrickson, told the authorities, Volcanic Brown knew how to survive. The personal items and the gold left at the campsite
made it seem like he just vanished. Could it have been foul play or something far more sinister? From their camp, Constable Stevenson and LeRoy ventured into Stave Glacier daily, testing their tenuous path ahead with long poles as they searched the main crevasses for any sign of Brown.
After a while, though, the blizzard became so intense that the pair were holed up for three days while the wind and snow whipped mercilessly around them. They continued to fire their rifles, hoping Brown would respond. Once again, their only reply was silence. With supplies and food running low, the men returned to Seven Mile.
They then set out once again, and Constable Stevenson and Leroy McMartin climbed to over 1,800 meters above Stave Glacier before blizzard conditions forced them to hole up for two days, until they began to run out of food. It had been snowing for 16 consecutive days in the mountains north of Pit Lake. The trails were buried under 3 meters of snow.
For 14 days, Volcanic Brown's would-be rescuers trudged through the upper pit and explored the serpentine Seven Mile and Kennedy Creeks. They crossed high over Homestead Glacier and they relentlessly searched the hazardous crevasses of Stave Glacier. Eighteen days after he first left Vancouver, Constable Stevenson was no closer to finding Volcanic Brown. On November 20th, the game warden went hunting for meat and got two porcupines.
Over a warm fire and roasted porcupine legs, the two men decided to continue their search. They planned to cross over Fire Mountain and into the Harrison Valley. An attempt to scale the face of Stave Glacier was made, but the lift towered 20 meters high and was an impenetrable wall of ice that overhung too far. The rescuers were finally forced to turn back and arrived in Alvin with a handful of rice and a small stash of dried goat meat.
After three weeks of searching across a 100-mile section of BC's toughest terrain and some of the worst winter conditions in recent memory, they sent a two-word message back to headquarters, which said, "Search unsuccessful." Volcanic Brown, one of Canada's most prolific and important prospectors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was officially lost.
A week later, on November 27, 1931, several newspapers published a short item with the headline "Hope Abandoned for Three in Blizzard." It seemed that Brown wasn't the only sole claim by the Snow. The article stated that all hope for the safety of two men and one woman lost north and east of Vancouver was abandoned by searchers.
Listed as missing were a 60-year-old nurse named Mary Warburton, who had been unreported since she set out on foot over a mountain trail. Oscar Sneave of Mission City, who left on a deer hunting expedition before snow fell. End quote. Volcanic Brown, age prospector, who was last seen in August when he started out from his camp at the head of Pit Lake, east of Vancouver, for the headwaters of the upper Stave River on a prospecting trip. End quote.
Brown was 86 years old. So why would he risk life and limb to go out into the wilderness year after year after he had already been rescued before? One answer, Slumux lost goldmine. Remember, the legend said Slumux set a curse on his hidden treasure. And as a warning, he said, Nika memlus mine memlus, which as you know, loosely translated from Chinook means, when I die,
The mine dies. Volcanic Brown found gold and then was never seen again. It seems to always come back to the gold.
And if you've ever gotten gold fever, you know what Volcanic Brown was going through, especially when you're on the gold. I've been in this land. I have walked these glaciers. I've crossed these mountains. I've walked in the same footsteps that he has before he disappeared. It was tough. It breaks you down out there. Getting from point A to point B ain't as easy as you think. And to do it in your 80s?
I don't know how he did it, but he definitely did. We came across some of the deposits that he was talking about finding. And it didn't make sense unless you've been there. And then it all adds up. So he's proven he's found gold. He comes back out there every single year. And then one time he just never comes back either, in my opinion.
He got lost, tripped, fell, hit his head, something bad happened. Or somebody found him before he was finished finding all the gold. Because I'll tell you right now, I would never leave my camp without my shotgun. I would never leave gold in a jar in a tent. I would never leave my provisions behind. So something happened to Doc Brown out there in that glacier field. Was it an accident or was it on purpose? And unless we find him...
will never know the truth. So now I can kind of see why Adam's so obsessed. Yeah, we've got to find volcanic gold. The story of Volcanic Brown's search party was, for the most part, published in the press at the time of his disappearance, except for one important detail. The discovery of Brown's campsite was not mentioned in any articles published in 1931.
This fact was withheld from the press for at least almost 30 years. Last season, my buddy Adam Palmer, the mountaineer and historian from our Dead Man's Cursed team said, "Volcanic Brown is the heart of the legend. That's what I say. People shouldn't be after Slumac School. They should be after Volcanic Brown School. You find Volcanic Brown, you change history."
Which is what we're hoping to do over the next 12 episodes, as we journey through history and rugged terrain to sleep under the same stars as Slumuk and Volcanic Brown all those decades ago. Because I'm sure you're wondering, why would the men who so doggedly searched and found Brown's camp remain quiet for 30 years? Well, we have our own theories, and we'll share our findings as the season progresses.
Adam believes the key to the mystery lies with one missing elderly prospector. So who was Volcanic Brown? He was out in the field. He was drilling the holes. He was everything that had to do with mining during that time that involved claims, prospecting, the business of mining. He was the guy. He was the celebrity of the mining world during that time. What happened to him?
Was Volcanic Brown a victim of the curse? Did he find Slumox Gold? That's next time on Dead Man's Curse, Volcanic Gold. Thank you for joining me and special thanks to Adam Palmer for his work on this episode. Dead Man's Curse is hosted by myself, Crew Williams, and written by Ernest White II and Dela Velasquez. Our producers are Dela Velasquez and Jessica Young.
Audio producers are Roslyn Kufour and Rob Johnston. Sound design by Rob Johnston. Our associate producer and indigenous cultural and heritage consultant is Gail Starr. Our executive producers are Chris Duncombe, Ernest White II, Michael Francis, Crew Williams, Tim Hardy, and David Way. Dead Man's Curse is a production of Curious Cast, podcast for curious minds and Great Pacific Media.
For more information on this episode, please check notes for additional social media and website information. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time on Dead Man's Curse Volcanic Gold. For more information on this episode, follow us on social media, check out our website, and check out our show notes for additional information. I'm Crew Williams, and we'll see you next time on Dead Man's Curse Volcanic Gold.