In early 2015 I’d had it with a conventional lifestyle. I was in my late twenties, working at a normal job and making progress towards a career, but I felt as if my life was lacking something essential. The sense of accomplishment I felt by completing difficult projects started to fade and I wondered about what lay outside of the confines of a 40+ hours a week job. I began thinking about what I would be doing in ten years if I was to stay on my current path; would I still be slowly climbing the corporate ladder, working hard, being dependable, sacrificing myself and my time so that I could one day retire? The mediocrity of the future made me feel sick. So I left. With some saved money and my camera by my side, I spent the spring and summer of 2015 exploring British Columbia, Canada. I bought an old Dodge camper van for cheap, fixed up the engine, slapped a solar panel on the top and started my journey.

One of the things that I took part in was exploratory gold panning. I knew people had panned for gold in the past. Much of the post-colonial British Columbian history has been focused on the gold rush in Barkerville in the 1800s, and mining operations move mountains to find the riches within still today. What I wasn’t aware of was that people were still panning for gold in small operations. By pure happenstance, I’d made a friend who lived in the interior and was an enthusiast. He opened up a new world of experiences when he invited me along on his expeditions.

My friend Todd has a lust for finding gold. He spends his down time exploring rivers and streams in southern B.C. for the shiny valuable metal. I was fortunate that Todd was just as enthusiastic about sharing his love for gold panning as he was for finding the stuff; as I travelled elsewhere and attempted to chat up other prospectors, I learned that secrets, opaqueness and tall tales of enormous finds are more common than the openness Todd offered.

To find gold, we started on the computer. Google Earth was used to pin point good areas where the mineral rich deposits may have been eroded into streams. Todd was able to find hopeful bends in rivers and other land features from the satellite that could possibly have caught the gold. We would then drive as close as we could get to the target area down old logging roads. When the roads could take us no further we’d load our packs with shovels, sifters, and gold pans and hike to our destination.

Most of the hiking was gruelling. It was all off trail, in the bushes and it was always on large canyon slopes. Loose dirt and shale added to the challenge. It was exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. I’ve described the ascent of various canyons as similar to the world’s dirtiest stairmaster in a gym that keeps its temperature well over thirty degrees Celsius. When the brush and the canyon squeezed our path so there was only water to pass through, we changed into water shoes and continued our prospecting by wading and inspecting sediment in areas that were likely to catch gold.

I learned that there’s a real science to panning for gold. Gold panners are typically looking for gold that has eroded out of the surrounding minerals. Because gold is very dense compared to other materials, it will settle in specific areas in a stream where lighter materials would be whisked away in a streams current. The panning process exploits the density of gold also. By shaking the pan with a generous amount of water, the material in the pan is redistributed by density, so that the denser a material is the lower it goes. With the gold on the bottom of the pan, it is safe to let the river slowly wash out the less dense material closer to the top. After several rinses there will be nothing but what is called “black sand” and (if you are lucky) little shiny gold flakes in the bottom.

I loved every minute of being out there. We saw waterfalls few people have experienced in person and were completely alone in areas few had ventured. While Todd was focused on the gold, I casually took photographs and swam between pans. The excitement of possibly finding something valuable was peripheral to the experience of being out there, far away from the crowds of the city and surrounded by nature.

My entire life changed that summer and I’m happy to say that I’m still adventuring as winter approaches. If you would like to read more about my experiences, please visit my website and blog seanhitrec.ca.

Words and images by Sean Hitrec.