VANCUVER'S NEW GOLDFIELD.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 8 October 1901, Page 4

VANCUVER'S NEW GOLDFIELD.

A Romantic Story.

An extremely romantic story Is told of the discovery of a new goldfield near Vancouver, British Columbia. It appears that the locality of the new goldfield is a secret shared only by a favoured few—a syndicate at the head of which is a woman, one Mrs Mary E. Hitchcock. She has a somewhat remarkable personality, and is a lady who knows her business as well as, or perhaps better than, many financiers of the sterner sex. Mrs Hitchcock is hand and glove with a certain Russian prospector named Ivan Mankowski, who has had to do with goldfields in Eussia and Siberia. They were at work arranging for a trip to Siberia, in connection with certain mining concessions, when the discovery in North-West Canada was made. The story that is being circulated in Vancouver as to the manner in which the gold was found is distinctly fiction-'.ike, though hardly more so than many other true stories of such discoveries. It is a case of Indians for once redeeming their promises and taking a white man to a stream that had never been prospected and in which no one had ever thought of looking for gold, Mankowski, according to a rumor, was busy with his Siberian prospects when ke fell in with an Indian, with whom he became exceedingly friendly. The Indian said he could show him gold in considerable quantities, and the Kussian, trusting him, agreed on certain emoluments. The Indian kept his word—a somewhat surprising occurrence—and very much surprised the prospector by locating not one,. but three creeks, each of which it was soon seen were rich in gold. As much as a dollar’s worth of gold was the result of single pans of surface dirt washed, and deeper down better results wore obtained. Whilst refusing absolutely to give any clue to the geography of the field, Mrs Hitchcock has gone so far as to describe the place. Being shallow diggings she avers, it is likely to prove the best “poor man’s’’ mine in the whole of the novthland. The chief drawback seems to be the ruggedness of the country. It is reachable from a good seaport by mountain tramping and canoe, but it is a stiff journey, while the country is so unusually well supplied with bears that the prospectors have already abandoned the Indian name of the place, and called the first discovered stream “Bear Creek.” Vancouver and the surrounding country is agog with excitement at the latest discovery, and as spring nears it will be interesting to hear of the expeditions that set out for this new El Dorado.