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Tributers
E. Percy Brown and the Brookfield Mine
Barachois
Nova Rich Mines
Shad Bay Treasure Hunt
Montague 1937 Accident
Father Lanigan’s “Prospect”
George V. Douglas
The Stewart Brothers
Goldboro
Moose River's Touquoy Mine
Camerons Mountain
Jim Campbells Barren
Stanburne's Puzzling Gold Mine
Pockwock
Beaverbank Lake
Banook Mining Company
Deep Gold Mining
Wellington
Arsenic and Gold
Dynamite
War of Words
King of the Klondike
Oliver Millett
Kempt Gold Mining Company
Carleton
The Memramcook Fiasco
Love and Gold in Oldham
Montague 1893 Disaster
Central Rawdon Consolidated Mines
Cochrane Hill
Amateurish Early Gold Mining
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Alexander Heatherington
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George W. Stuart
Wellington
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Cooper Jim Mine
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Walter Prest
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The Ovens Anticline
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Avon Mine Explosion
Montague
Waverley Claims Dispute
Avon River
Moose River Disaster
Mooseland Scam
New York and Nova Scotia Gold Mining Company
Rosario Siroy and the South Uniacke Gold District
Blockhouse
Killag Gold District
Miller Lake
Baron Franz von Ellershausen
Mooseland: Nova Scotia’s first Gold Discovery
United Goldfields of Nova Scotia
Pleasant River Barrens Gold District
Lochaber Gold Mining Company
Rawdon Gold Mines
MacLean Brook
Gold in Clayton Park?!
Forest Hill
Meguma vs. Placer Gold
Uniacke
Voglers Cove
Gold River
Moosehead
Goldenville
Westfield
Indian Path
Harrigan Cove
Centre Rawdon
Nova Scotia’s Gold Mining History
WWII Gold
Middle River Gold District
Early Gold Discoveries
Halifax 1867
Paris Exhibition 1867
Mining and Tourism
An Act relating to the Gold Fields
Molega Gold District
Brookfield Gold District
Gays River
Halifax Gold
Caribou Gold District
Renfrew Gold District
Oldham Gold District
Whiteburn Gold District
Country Harbour Mines
Waverley Gold District
Robert Henderson and Klondike Gold
George Mercer Dawson
Cow Bay Gold District
Lake Catcha Gold District
Wine Harbour Gold District
Blockhouse
Gold was discovered in Blockhouse, Lunenburg County, in 1879 but it was almost two decades before the mystery of the gold’s source was solved.
A man named Ernst found rich drift (gravel with gold in it) in 1879 but the discovery attracted little attention.
In 1885, a gold-bearing boulder was discovered in the area and a number of claims were staked. However, while prospectors found more gold-bearing drift, no one could find the quartz veins from which the gold had eroded.
On January 15, 1896, Nova Scotia prospecting legend, Walter Henry Prest (1856-1920), took over the search.
Like many scientists of his day, Prest, who was born in Spry Harbour, wore several hats: he was a prospector, geologist and botanist, all stemming from his love of the outdoors. He authored several books and pamphlets, but it is his innovative work prospecting for gold in glaciated terrains for which he deserves most acclaim. Blockhouse is an example.
Most Nova Scotia gold is found in quartz veins that lie east-west, parallel to the bedding (the layers of rock). However, some gold deposits in the southern end of the province have most of their gold in cross veins, meaning they cut across the bedding.
That may not sound like a big deal but picture a grid. Most Nova Scotian gold is found along the horizonal lines (east-west) but at some sites the gold is found along the vertical lines (north-south). This is a simplification to illustrate the point, but that is a huge difference geologically… and a huge difference if you are trying to find the gold!
A common prospecting approach was to start from where gold-bearing drift was found and dig trenches in a northerly direction. If the veins lie east-west, the odds are good that a north-south trench will intercept them eventually.
This did not work at Blockhouse.
When Walter Prest took over, he studied the gold-bearing quartz boulders and the direction glaciers had carried them during the last ice age. The glaciers had carried the boulders southeast, meaning they originated to the northwest.
Since the boulders had eroded from the source veins, this meant the veins of gold must be to the northwest, so he systematically dug a series of pits and then panned the glacial till (dirt/sediment) in them for gold. This process is called drift prospecting and it is somewhat similar to a dog zeroing in on a favorite treat. He catches a whiff of it then zig zags back and forth following the strengthening, but narrowing, scent plume to its ultimate source. Drift prospecting is similar except instead of sniffing, Prest systematically dug pits and panned the till for gold to define and follow the gold plume to its source.
On January 28, 1896, after less than two weeks, Prest found a rich gold-bearing quartz vein in bedrock 200 metres northwest of where he had started prospecting.
Not only did he find in a couple weeks what others had failed to find over many years, it turns out that one of the other prospectors’ north-south trenches was dug just over one metre from the Prest vein, but it failed to reveal the gold because it was orientated the wrong way. So close!
Prest described his approach in the Journal of the Nova Scotia Institute of Science in 1896. This was likely the first documented description of a drift prospecting program anywhere in the world. This method of prospecting is common today but was innovative in Prest’s time.
After Prest’s find, the Blockhouse Mining Company, managed by Prest, sank two shafts but, unfortunately, the mine closed down not long after.
In 1897, Godfrey Smith prospected north of the Blockhouse Mining Company’s property and, even further north, A. A. Hiseler sank a shaft on the continuation of the Prest vein. (Finding gold became a lot easier after Prest figured out that the vein ran north-south!)
In 1898 a new owner, Miner T. Foster, took over the Blockhouse Mining Company’s property. Foster built a 10-stamp mill to process the ore and mining continued successfully until 1901.
Blockhouse was mined again briefly from 1935-38 by the Nugold Mining Corporation. It built a 10-stamp mill, deepened the main shaft and did considerable tunnelling, but had little success recovering gold with its milling process so the mine shut down.
A total of 3588 ounces of gold were produced at Blockhouse.
Today the Blockhouse gold mine is a forest.