Panning all the way to gold

Competitors practised their panning with a fervour, swirling the water again and again. You couldn’t blame them; they had a lot at stake. After all, each one of the four finalists in the gold panning competition Sunday wanted to win that half ounce gold nugget, valued in today’s market at upwards of $1,500.

World-famous gold panner Yukon Dan (Dan Moore) was on hand Sunday at Adventure Park at Tugboat Junction to teach the contestants the fine art of gold panning. He demonstrated and instructed the four contestants on how to speed pan. The four competitors won their spots in the day’s event after successfully answering a trivia question in a newspaper contest about gold panning. Out of the several hundred correct entries, the names of Brenda Bailey of Agassiz, Mary Baxter and Cynthia Bouman of Harrison, and Wayne Christie of Hope were drawn to compete for the gold nugget, donated by Yukon Dan out of his extensive collection.

Before the competition got underway, Yukon Dan encouraged both the contestants and others gathered to get out and try gold panning. Not only is it an easy thing to do after a few short instructions, Dan said it is well worth your time too.

“Gold is money,” he stated simply but truthfully. “It is going up and up in price now.”

Yukon Dan himself has been gold panning for more than 15 years now and loves sharing with kids and adults his passion for panning.

In Sunday’s competition, Bailey, Baxter, Bouman and Christie had to take part in three separate challenges. Each of the four contestants had to uncover a total of 15 flakes of gold out of a pan-full of dirt. They were timed, and for each flake either lost or that Yukon Dan could not see completely uncovered by dirt, there was a two minute penalty.

The second round saw competitors again being timed as they panned for five flakes of gold.

The final and most exciting round was when Yukon Dan hid the gold nugget to be won inside a large pan – “This is the pan I’ve won 80 per cent of my trophies with,” he piped up with pride – and each contestant had to find the nugget as quickly as possible. When each person found it, they shouted out, “Gold!” and the timer was stopped.

When the dirt had settled and the times were added, there was one clear winner: Wayne Christie took home the gold. With a total time of four minutes, five seconds, Christie was the clear winner, far surpassing the next time by Mary Baxter with a 12 minute, 19 second time (total time included penalties for missing or covered flakes of gold). Behind her was Cynthia Bouman with 12 minutes, 42 seconds, followed up lastsly by Brenda Bouman with 14 minutes, 41 seconds. Christie was the only contestant who found all of his flakes and had them clearly visible for Yukon Dan to inspect.

Christie was nonplussed about the win, giving a quick smile to the camera as he clasped his new nugget.

When asked what he plans to do with it, Christie replied, “I’m keeping it as a keepsake.”

He figures he’ll probably put it in a safety deposit box and leave it there.

A wise decision, according to Yukon Dan who said the price of gold just keeps going up, with no end in sight anytime soon.

Christie confesses he has in fact tried gold panning before, albeit 10 or 15 years ago. But he hasn’t picked up a pan since, except for a practice session Saturday at Tugboat Junction. Needless to say, Christie’s wife Karen was in good spirits after the competition.

“He better take us all out for dinner,” she stated, grinning from ear to ear.

Despite the win, Christie did not plan to try and stretch his lucky day by picking up a lottery ticket or anything. He was just pleased to be going home with his pocket a little heavier, and his financial future a little brighter.

news@ahobserver.com