Known Gold Panning Locations in New Brunswick - Part 1
Well, Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone who reads this, for the rest of ya well..I guess you're none the wiser. Pretty much any prospector who is starting out will try to pan a stream, find nothing and move onto the next stream until they give up. I've seen a lot of friends try prospecting once or twice and never try again. They complain oh I didn't even see a flake of gold, or is that all I get is a little flake of gold in my pan?
Yes it is, and until you learn new skills and techniques, it's going to be the case more often than not. It's discouraging really, I mean shovel dirt into a sieve, pan through the material and get left with a bit of black sand at the end of it? One of the things I've learned to do over the years is embrace more than the quest for gold or whatever mineral it may be, embrace the nature behind it and the peaceful environment you are surrounded by. Actually I retract a small portion of the statment "peaceful environment", there is absolutely nothing peaceful about getting no gold and repeatedly panning for hours while being swarmed with mosquitoes. Really though, it's miserable sometimes, but thats Prospecting. Not to mention that when your laying in bed reflecting on where the gold could have been, you're shredding your skin scratching all those mosquito bites.
If you can manage to enjoy all of the above mentioned though, you will find prospecting and panning to be a hell of a hobby. So to help you somewhat in getting over those miserable days I've put together a quick list of places in which placer gold has been panned from the streams. Now I'm going to outright admit to you that no, I'm not going to tell you places where I personally get my best gold, but these spots are great to learn on and enjoy the day. Once you can learn to do that, you'll find your own honey holes for gold.
1. Black Beach - Located out past the coleson cover generating station on black beach road. Gold has been panned from the beach there on multiple occassions (Myself included). Try different locations closer to the little streams there, I've had 3 flakes in a pan before.
2. Salt springs brook - Multiple locations along the brook have been panned and also from a few tributaries, there is also a mineral occurrence file on the GNB website where gold was reported in the rock there.
3. Harry Brook - Harry brook has multiple areas showing placer gold in the streams. Now in saying this you need to pay attention to the next piece - Harry Brook is for the most part entirely claimed however there is several streams and brooks south of this which may be worth prospecting. Refer to nbeclaims.gnb.ca before you head out this way, you will likely lose your prospecting permit or be chased off by an angry claim owner if found. Plus if you are caught on someone elses land, chances are you will get a bad name in the community. Thats certainly not what I would like to see, this whole development for me has been to bring prospectors closer.
4. Mispec Area - There are several brooks in mispec which have placer gold in small quantities, it would be a luck of the draw pan if you find some. Once again these areas are mostly claimed so be respectful if you do head out this way, check the maps again.
5. Musquash - The whole area of musquash is a potential placer gold area once again, lots of claims, so be careful where you go.
6. Hammond River - I wont say where, but there are tributarys and sections of the hammond river where gold has been known to occur in placer form. Be respectful there, it's a Salmon waterway. I will however give you a couple of hints - Downstream from the Smithtown bridge and Upstream from the bridge close to the highway there are small streams that run down the mountain opposite of the road. If you can hike in safely you might find some gold!
I'm going to stop here, do a second article with some more spots as we go along this winter. For not I'm actually preparing to go prospecting in the middle of december, might sound crazy but it's warm enough! wohoo!
Cheers.
