Mission author Brian Antonson has poured years of research into the legend of Slumach’s Gold.
Slumach’s Gold: In Search of a Legend…and a Curse, a new book which Antonson co-authored with Mary Trainor and his brother Rick Antonson, reached number five on the B.C. Bestsellers list after its October 29 release.
The book details the legendary ‘lost gold mine’ rumoured to be located in the mountainous terrain around Pitt Lake.
It’s the third edition of the book, which has grown thicker and thicker over the years. The first copy released in 1972 was just 56 pages and the second edition from 2007 ballooned to 160 pages – both of which sold in excess of 10,000 copies.
The newest version is a “true coffee table book” with 224 pages full of up-to-date information, colour photographs and maps. Antonson says the publisher expects the current version to sell better than the previous iterations.
“We hope that this is the kind of thing that sits on somebody’s coffee table that they go back to time and time again,” he said.
Antonson will participate in a book signing at Totally Bookish in the Junction Shoping Centre on Saturday (Nov. 23) from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Over the years, each of the authors received late night phone calls from readers claiming they knew the location of the lost gold mine.
“Those stories all fall apart, but there are legitimate people who have gone seeking for years,” Antonson said.
As a child, Antonson and his brother were determined to find the mine.
“We fell in love with the whole concept when I was nine years old and my brother was eight. We were at summer camp out at Hatzic Lake and this elderly woman – I think she must have been 45, old to us – was telling us ghost stories one night around the campfire,” he said.
“She said there’s a lost gold mine up beyond Pitt Lake just over there and it’s all very mysterious and everything but you’ll never find it, because you’ll die if you do, because there’s a curse on it.”
The story had them hooked.
As time passed and they grew up, the idea of navigating rough terrain to find the location became less attractive. However, the pull towards the story remained.
They joined forces with Trainer and wrote the first edition. Over the years, the trio has made mistakes, learned and interviewed more people.
Conflicting stories and sources with the viewpoints of the time are challenges in writing the book, Antonson says.
“We all have a background in some way in journalism and ethical things and whatnot, so we’ve tried to be truthful about it all and we hope we’ve got it right with each successive book,” he said.
With each update, there is always new information and new gold seekers.
“We profile the people who have gone looking for the gold. We have not done that ourselves, but we profile that. We profile the television series … every time you turn around, there’s something new,” he said.
Antonson has been a Mission resident for five decades. He’s worked as leader of the faculty team in the Broadcast and Media Communications department at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and served in various volunteer positions in Mission.
The 76-year-old has been retired for 14 years and says he hasn’t been bored once. If another opportunity to write a new book came along, he says he’d be open to it but isn’t sure about jumping into another project.
“I’m enjoying my retirement,” he said.
Slumach’s Gold: In Search of a Legend…and a Curse is available for purchase at https://www.heritagehouse.ca/book/slumachs-gold-2/.
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