Hallo from Vancouver island Canada

[coaldust]

Greetings wise forum members. I've been reading through alot of the posts on this awesome forum over the past couple night. I'm compelled to start contributing to the forum. I'm from a old coal town on vancouver island. Been beating the bushes finding old mine sites exploring the underground tunnels. My treasures have come in the form of pictures and the odd complete brick that I plan on building a patio with one day, when I get enough. I think I have the makings of a treasure hunter the thrill of the hunt and the find. The coolest thing I found was a arrow head from a coast salish indian I found it on the beach at Locarno on Gabriola island. I spent a couple days over on Valdes island a couple weeks ago went to Codfish bay one of the hideouts for the Brother 13 colony found an interesting well, but thats it. apparently they buried gold on decourcy island but they probably buried treasures on valdes too. I guess I need a metal detector. some of the coins and stashs found around are incredible!

I was up Mount Sicker a couple days last week and I'm going back this afternoon, I really want to find the location of the three old townsites up there, I found three slopes and one shaft one slope is in really good shape, I'm bringing my flash today might post some photos later. the other two slopes one was flooded and the Lenora was plugged about 30 feet in, it was interesting at the portal to the Lenora there was a large Ore body on the surface and they mined it out in an open pit and there are alot of really incredible rocks around with noticeable metal mixed in the quartz, they got alot of copper silver and gold out of this ore and it's really cool to see I love rocks but I don't know much about them.

Been reading up a bit on some of the treasures being found on our coast in caves and such got me pretty excited. Got a boat and I'm really getting excited about the old stuff. Thinking there must be old camps all the way up the coast, Nootka, Kyuquot. Got a boat that's going to get me to the quiet places. I'll post some photos next time just wanted to write this up fast before I start pm'ing. Have a great day!

Almost forgot GO CANUCKS GO!

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Treasure of Victoria Peak - Grab it through Amazon!

[Mackaydon]

Coaldust:
Welcome to Treasure Net!!
I see you have a boat. On 11/4/1875 the 'Orpheus' collided with the passenger steamer 'Pacific', resulting in one of the worst ship disasters on the Pac. Coast. The 'Orpheus' later ran ashore (wrecked) near Cape Beale. If you read (or know) the story of this event, it may interest you enough to re-find the 'bones' of the Orpheus; it has been found before and the anchor chain removed.
Don..

 

[coaldust]

THanks Makaydon, That sounds interesting Cape Beale is somewhere I'll probably find myself combing one day good idea to try to make that on a low tide. Thanks for the story! been getting pretty interested in the old beaches on the west side of the island.

 

[Mackaydon]

Cape Beale is on the s/s of Van. Is. The Orpheus, in the fog, overshot the entrance to the Strait, then entered a dead end bay, thinking he was in the Strait of JdeF.

 

[River Rat]

coaldust

​

 

[coaldust]

Thanks Riverrat, cool photo.

So if the Orpheus thought they were entering the straight of Juan de fuca, they were way off course ha, couldn't even imagine sailing those ships around with bunky charts and no sonar or gps. Those mariners truly were brave men. I'm quite familiar with the area on one side of beale is the entrance to barclay sound the other side is pachena bay they probably ran aground somewhere in between, it's not that big of an area wandering the beaches on a low tide sounds like a great day.
Went back to mount sicker yesterday found some more rocks with what I think is gold in them I might post some photos later in a different post. Went into the one slope I found the other day, found it just went in a few hundred feet around corner to a dead end appears they abandoned the tunnel, probably didn't find the ore they thought they would.

getting nice up here good time to get out there before all the foliage starts growing, have a good one!


tried to add some photos of the tunnel but the file size is too big, so no photos sorry.

 

[Mackaydon]

Coaldust,
The Orpheus was northbound, in ballast, enroute to Nanaimo; missed the starboard turn.
Actually, after the collision with the 'SS Pacific', the Orpheus ran aground in Barkley Sound, after Sawyer, the Orpheus captain, had confused the Cape Beale lighthouse there with that of Cape Flattery.
Don....

 

[Tennessee Treasure Hunter]

 

[coaldust]

Very interesting story I actually live in nanaimo so I would assume the orpheus was coming to get some of our coal. Here are a few photos of our coal mines present state. I took these photos myself last year. have these in photobucket already

see if those work I have alot more on my computer but the file size is to large to post on here , here goes see if this works

 

[coaldust]

that worked pretty good eh! here's some more...

 

[Mackaydon]

Yes, the vessel was in ballast heading for the port of N. to load coal.

 

[DigginThePast]

Welcome to T-Net coaldust.

 

[B.C. Hunter]

Great shots of the coal mine out in Extension? have you been in the gold mine by second lake up dead horse creek?

 

[PioneerPauly]

Welcome! Im also on Vancouver Island and have also been to Kyuquot. Its a small island with all sorts of old things around either underwater and on land. I remember there was a small island off Kyuquot that literally takes 20 or so minutes to walk around. A lot if abandoned houses and small buildings there.

Im in Victoria and that is where most of my artifacts cone from when im not already exploring the gulf islands.

Glad to hear there is another island fellow hunting history as well!

Cheers.

 

[smalltowngirl13]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

 

[Urban Grund]

Welcome from Michigan!

 

[Mekong Mike]

Welcome to the club.

 

[Bquamb]

Grave digging this toping as an interested member, where on earth are these mines?! My wife and I have been trying to locate several abandoned mines here on the island and yet to properly locate one. Nowhere i research shows any sort of coordinates, which obviously makes it a lot more difficult to find :P
We do have a "Backroads" map book with basic indications, but no such luck yet!

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Welcome to the forum!

Thank you for sharing your story!

 

[Metal Detecting Stuff]

Welcome!

Wayne

www.metaldetectingstuff.com