Article November 16, 2015 Issue

Panning for gold

Kathy Chicoine

I’d signed up to be one of the chaperones on our grandson’s fourth grade field trip to a local gold mine. As we drove past neighborhoods and farms, enjoying the views on the way to the mine, I listened to this precious boy talk excitedly about the anticipated trip and his expectation of finding gold.

I suppose it would have been fun to find some that day, but it turned out that what interested me most were the methods used in panning for gold.

When we arrived, making our way down a hill to a shack where some folks were placing small shovelfuls of gravel into individual pans, we were asked to take one and proceed to the trough of water that wound along the side of a creek. Once the water and rocks were placed in the pan, we were taught how to move it in a circular motion, allowing the swirling water to lift off worthless gravel so that any gold might be revealed in the sandy remnants.

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