Explorers on the hunt for a gold mine worth billions have set foot once again in the Harrison Lake area.
Locations on the latest season of History Channel's "Deadman's Curse" may look familiar to Agassiz-Harrison residents as the team searching for Slumach's lost gold and the truth behind the man have passed through Harrison Lake and Echo Island on their quest.
"Even through we're cast members, it's like a dream," said Seabird Island elder Don Froese. Froese stars on the show with his daughter, researcher Taylor Starr, Chilliwack mountaineer Adam Palmer and Port Coquitlam prospector Kru Williams. "Season three really reveals pieces of history and stories that have never been told and stories that are not written down."
"Deadman's Curse" follows the four B.C.-based explorers as they explore the legend of Slumach's gold. Slumach was a Katzie First Nations man who reportedly was the only person who knew about a gold mine worth billions of dollars. Slumach was convicted of murdering a man named Louis Bee in the early 1890s and was sentenced to hang. Before he died, he is said to have uttered a curse – “Nika memloose, mine memloose”, roughly translated from Chinook as “when I die, the mine dies.”
Froese said Harrison Lake's involvement in the quest for Slumach's gold is based in no small part on stories from First Nations communities in the Port Douglas and Tipella areas – home of the Xa'xtsa or Douglas First Nation – on the north side of the lake.
"None of our people valued gold as a commodity," he said. "It was valued as a heavy weight to make anchors out of it. It's no surprise that Harrison Lake is a place that needs to be explored. All the indicators are there, and the history is there."
"We go back to some of our old stories about the Spanish coming through on big ships with big, white sails. It's in our stories!" Starr said. "We only found a couple of things; there's so much more to that area."
Having taught mountain skills at Sts'ailes Community School, Palmer has intimate knowledge of the wilderness around the Harrison Lake area.
"Harrison Lake is a big part of the legend," Palmer said. "I've known for the past so many years that Harrison Lake and the Sts'ailes area are more important (to the legend) than most people thought."
In addition to evidence indicating the Spanish travelled Harrison Lake, Palmer added that prospectors during B.C.'s gold rush would often use Harrison Lake and the surrounding waterways as a route to the Interior. Though the search initially started in the Pitt Lake area, the re-discovery of a trail that is thousands of years old – complete with pictographs – between Pitt and Harrison lakes broadened the scope of the expedition and drew them into the Agassiz-Harrison area.
"We found that connection, a trail used for thousands of years, an actual, physical trail," he said. "That was huge. It's not just myth and legend. These are true facts. That, to me, was years of research, validated."
Palmer said the search dynamics change with a TV production crew joining them.
"The film crew following you is very much part of your team," Palmer said. "Now you're not just wandering around; you have family with you. They become involved in the search and there are more directions you can go. You go to a lot of place you wouldn't have thought of without a film crew, and it has a lot to do with being patient."
Palmer said all four members of the main cast of "Deadman's Curse" have important skill sets to solve the mystery of Slumach's gold.
"In order for us to solve the mystery, we have to divide and conquer," Palmer said. "We're dealing with history here, over 130 years of history, and it could be far older. We've been lucky enough to talk with people who have family ties dating back over 1,000 years with a lot of stories. Don and Taylor meet with those people, and what they bring to the table has been huge."
"Deadman's Curse" has featured a number of individual prospectors that have crossed paths with the History cast, and each one has brought something new to unravelling the legend.
"Some of them have bene looking longer than I have been alive," Palmer said. "They have a little map or a piece of the puzzle that takes us down roads we never thought possible. If someone has been looking for the mine, they have something that is important. I never turn a blind eye to research; you always have to be careful about shutting out someone else's theory. They may have that tiny little piece I have missed that opens up literally a gold mine."
Palmer said he frequently gets contact by fans of the show from all walks of life, many offering information about the legend and the lost mine.
"The great thing about 'Deadman's Curse' is we have the ability to investigate all these leads through different eyes, communities and opinions," he said. "This is not dumb TV. You have to be an investigative person. It's so different than any other show and has so many layers, you have to pay attention."
Starr said life has been business as usual despite the show but she does get recognized on occasion.
"I'm working at Homestead Craft Cider and people stare at me as I'm telling them our cider list," she said. "I look at them and I'm like 'yeah, you've seen me on TV.'"
For as much as the "Deadman's Curse" crew has uncovered, Palmer said there is still much to understand about Slumach and his lost gold, and tapping in to the legend to find the truth is not a task for the faint of heart. His office is covered with maps and materials related to the investigation and he said is "not a pretty sight."
"You really have to prioritize what piece of the puzzle you check next," he said. "I've spent 15-16 hour days up in the mountains above Harrison Lake, wandering around in circles, taking pictures of everything."
"We're just scratching the surface of this whole thing," Starr said. "Near the end of season three, we make some big breakthroughs and that just open up a whole new door for something more. The goal for me is finishing Slumach's story, and right now, his story is not finished at all. There's a lot more that's going on and I want to make sure I get every single detail of what actually happened to him."
As he said during the filming of the first season, Froese said it is healing and important for people to see the beauty of B.C. through the "Deadman's Curse" series.
"We still believe it's very important that families and young people and old people alike get to see with their eyes the richness of what's in our backyard and tie it together with the Indigenous stories and make it goal that someday they, too, can go and explore these places," Froese said.
"Deadman's Curse" airs on The History Channel on Thursdays at 10 p.m. EST/PST.
