Gold panning in Maine and striking it rich

If you think you’re going to get rich panning for gold in Maine, think again. I panned for gold with several friends of mine for years and even though most of those friends are now deceased, I still cherish those ‘striking it rich" days.

The idea started when a friend of mines father passed away and before he died, he wanted to go gold panning at least once before he passed. Unfortunately, the cancer progressed much faster than they thought and he never got the chance, so his daughter wanted to fulfill the dream for him.

None of us knew the first thing about panning for gold so that winter we bought books on gold panning and since Google.com was basically in it’s infancy, we googled what we could, but unless you do it, all the studying in the world won’t help you much. It’s kinda like reading how to fly fish by studying illustrations then trying to cast a fly without getting a barbed hook stuck in your head. Not very productive, just saying.

That winter while reading an article about panning for gold strategies, I read the line that read something like, if you know how to read a river or stream half the battle is won. Well, I did know how to read rivers and streams since I had been brought up with a fish pole (Johnson) in my hand and I was quite adept at white water canoeing. I remember thinking, okay, if that’s half the battle, then the rest will be a piece of cake. Come to find out, I was being quite naïve because it turned out to be far from the truth. The author of the article had lied. As I continued to read, further the author also made it appear how simple it was to pan by basically saying it was as easy as finding a spot in the river, put sand in your pan, swish it and the gold will sit there nice and pretty on the bottom of your pan. Sounds rather simple doesn’t it. I thought so too. Nothing further from the truth and I’ll explain later below.

Each time the bunch of us gold prospectors would get together, we would study maps of Maine and potential mountains of gold yet to be discovered and we all agreed that with everything we each had read in different sources, we would plan our first trip for the end of April. Why so early in the spring? Well, we wanted first dibs on the gold that was waiting to be found. I laugh at that now, but it was serious business back then and we were what they would call ‘pumped‘. Lol.

Once we got to where we were going to go and it’s not a secret so I’ll just tell you, Coo’s Canyon over in Byron Maine. This is where we expected to get rich. The only local store had just opened up for the season and it would be there we would buy our gold pan for $8.00 each, some vials to put all our gold in and converse with the store owners about the history of Coo‘s Canyon. When we were done yakking, we made our way to get rich with our vehicles equipped with food, camping supplies and whatever else we needed to make our venture exciting which in this case were of course a few coolers of beer enough to sustain 8 adults for three days. We never ran out.

We could hear the canyon before it even came in site. The thunder of rushing water with chunks of ice, full sized logs and rocks banging up against each other didn’t appeal to me in the least. Not only did it look cold, it sounded evil and it was the first time instead of my stomach churning of excitement, it became anxiety-ridden and the fun was over right then and there.

As we stood there gazing down into the wild beast of a canyon, we decided to take a few photos and since we got tired of yelling to the person next to us so we could be heard, we all agreed we would go further upstream where the water was less ferocious. We went about 2 miles before we hit our campsite which was well washed out by spring floods and where we had planned to pitch tents, there were 3 foot deep washed out trenches. Being that we were young and in good physical shape, we decided we would fill in the trenches with logs and whatever else we could find and then level it out with shovel after shovel full of gravel and sand to make spots to set up tents. Did I mention there were several other people who had tents pitched there as well? It was disappointing to say the least and kinda silly of us to think we would be the only ones to want to hit the gold first. Oh, and did I also forget to mention this was a popular place to fish early?

As disappointed, as we all were to find others in the area we made due. The OTHER folks/campers come to find out were there for gold, some to fish, some were dragged along by their loved ones but made due as we were when we found we were not the only idiots out there camping that time of year. After we filled in trenches, pitched our tents, stated a fire and had something to eat we grabbed our pans and headed for the water to read it and it looked promising, cold, but promising and was glad I had brought my fishing pole. As I made my way out to a rock-by-rock-jumping, I saw two men in the river wearing dry suits and they were dredging. On the bank beside them I noticed a couple of women panning from the sluice box so we moseyed on over and talked with them for a while when an older man we didn’t see, spoke to us from his camp chair smoking a pipe. He appeared to be a true old Mainer, accent, appearance and all. When he learned we were green at panning for gold, he gave us a ‘hands on’ lesson. (It is here I have to remind you what I wrote earlier about learning how to fly fish and gold pan via textbook and illustrations.) Gold panning is NOTHING like the books tell you! As we listened and watched the old man intently, we learned that like fly-fishing, panning for gold is an art and takes much practice. He was kind enough to show each of us hands on how to work the pan. What was really nice was that he allowed us to take a pan from their sluice box. In each of our pans, we found gold flakes in amongst black sand and garnets. After the lesson was completed, we thanked him graciously and with our excitement restored, we headed back the couple hundred yards to our camp area and we were ready to find gold!

Once we got back to camp, we each grabbed our gold pans and headed to the water. The first step in was a killer and let me tell you something, that water was friggin’ ice cold and it came straight down from the mountain! Being the time of year, it was and in spots walking on ice to get to the steam, we knew we had to be extra cautious of floating ice and debris once in the water. I remember I was nailed with a 4-inch thick chunk of ice about the size of a dinner table in the leg and thought for sure my leg had been taken off at the thigh. I remember going back to shore, grabbing a beer and sitting by the fire to warm and dry off. I had had enough for the day and it was time to recoup from the injury and long drive. The others were not far behind in joining me.

Our last night camping, we all decided we had had fun but agreed that no matter how exciting it was panning for gold that it should be done in the heat of the summer. It was this night we started planning many more fishing/gold panning trips but for Swift River, well, we would not do this trip again until at least July when the water was warmer. But, even in July though, the mountain water was cold and even though it was 85-90 degrees and the sun blistering-hot, sitting in the stream/river on a rock, the part that was in the water would be numb in no time and we always joked at why our bodies didn‘t go into shock with the bottom half all but frozen and the top half cooking in the sun.

Overall, over a 7-8 year period with eight of us panning for gold we got about four vials full of gold flakes at on average $400 dollars an ounce back then. We upgraded and bought sluices and more back packing supplies, found better spots as the years went by, gained in experience and many many stories to tell.

Gold panning is a tremendous amount of work. First, you have to know how to read a river; second, there is a ton of digging and heavy lugging to do. If you are really into gold panning then you should buy a sluice or dredger. Above all, it is necessary to learn how to work the gold pan so you don’t lose any gold you may have in the pan and then how to get the gold out of the black sand without getting anything but gold into your vial. Gold panning is something I probably couldn’t do today with my knee the way it is and besides that, it is must to be in GREAT physical shape. That I am not.

I have yet to blog about the man greeting us with a pistol, which had about an 18-inch barrel (or it looked that long anyway when pointed at you) while happening on his gold camp up on the mountain in Jackman. This was a tough rough mountain climbing hike on slippery moss-covered boulders at least 2 miles from the nearest dirt road. This guy had set up camp for the summer but I will leave this story for another day.

Email me for good books to read about gold panning in Maine. Renditionsofdayspassed@gmail.org