Original subtitles

Previously on Deadman's Curse...

[Adam] You like that?

[Kru] That's a frickin' glacier, man!

[Narrator] The legend of Slumach--

a tale of gold fever and murder...

[Kru] This is a miner's satchel.

Something happened to this guy!

Yeah.

[Narrator] ...led the team to a family connection.

[Taylor] She was Katzie, just like Slumach.

[Narrator] And on the trail of a long-lost prospector...

Damn!

[Adam] We gotta get down in that.

Volcanic Brown would have checked this out.

[Narrator] ...one mystery may have been solved...

-A massive amount of arsenic. -Holy...

Don't drink the water.

It makes sense

how so many miners came out here and died.

[Narrator] ...but more lie ahead.

We might have found gold, you guys.

Seriously.

Look at it!

[♪♪♪♪♪♪]

[♪♪♪♪♪♪]

Boom, this is going to be in your ferrous range,

so that means it's iron.

"Eh!" That's not gold. "Eh!"

[Narrator] At their Seabird Island base...

When you come down to the gold section...

[beeping]

Boom, you get that high-pitched frequency.

That's the sound you're looking for.

[Taylor] I know my ring is gold, at least.

[laughs]

[Narrator] ... Kru leads the team

on a crash course in prospecting.

[Kru] There you go.

So this would be the area

and then I would use the pinpointer

to pinpoint in on it--

but you're not going to get a hit

until you're within almost an inch to two inches.

Okay.

So that means you're right on it.

Underwater metal detection.

This is brand-new tech.

Hit that copper.

And then go back to the gold.

-[high-pitched whirring] -Oh.

[Kru] That's that hit you're looking for.

Sounds like rock and roll, huh?

[Adam] I can't hear a thing you guys are saying.

[Kru] That's even better. -[laughing]

[Narrator] New tech and modern methods

have a prospector,

adventurer

and a truth seeker

scouring British Columbia's Pitt Lake region

in search of a legendary gold mine

said to be worth billions.

Taylor Starr is unpacking the legend

in her own way.

It's hard to tell

what is fact and what is fiction in the Slumach story.

[Narrator] Slumach,

a 19th-century Indigenous man,

was said to have been the first to have found the gold.

Slumach is also Taylor's ancestor.

"At the Pitt River on Monday,

an old Indian named Slumach

picked up a gun and shot Louis Bee,

a half-breed,

through the chest."

[Taylor] We know Slumach was a real person.

We know in 1891 he was hanged for shooting another man.

[Narrator] The legend states

Slumach was a brash young man,

showing up

in the City of New Westminster every year,

loaded with gold and flaunting his wealth.

When he killed to protect his mine,

he was hanged,

and, from the gallows,

cursed anyone seeking his gold.

Now the team continues

on Slumach's 100-year-old trail,

following those that followed him.

Today, Adam presents a new and intriguing lead

to the team.

[Adam] ...any elevation right away.

Two railway workers, in 1968,

they were prospecting all along the creek,

going, making their way up,

and they saw a fire.

This little campsite,

they found some old guy,

and his legs were all swollen,

he couldn't move, he had no food--

and that was Bernard Rover.

[Narrator] In 1962,

Rover laid his claim near Thomas Lake,

high in the mountains northeast of Pitt Lake.

He was alone at his cabin when he had a massive stroke.

Disoriented and dazed,

Rover spent five days crawling through the bush,

seeking help...

before he collapsed.

So those two prospectors stayed with him,

the search and rescue plane came and rescued him,

took him to the hospital.

What's crazy

is he spent months at a time prospecting at Thomas Lake.

[Narrator] Not only had Rover spent months in the wild,

it's clear he dug in for the long haul.

There's a very good clue in there.

This guy built a cabin. This is serious.

Bernard Rover never mentioned gold to his rescuers,

but he did mention that he found copper.

But would he even mention it if he found gold?

-Exactly. -That's right.

And the last thing

he's gonna tell two people that rescued him

that are prospectors

that he found gold.

-That's right! -Obviously.

It's nothing but pyrite up there.

Exactly, so Bernard Rover was smart.

I think he had plans on going back,

but he never did.

He died three years later,

so if he did find something,

it's still there.

[Narrator] It's a lead so tantalizing

that just last year,

Adam made a solo trip looking for Rover's cabin--

in the dead of winter.

Yeah, and what I found

are actually remnants of his cabin,

but with everything buried under three feet of snow...

Well, then there you go.

...I didn't have the tools or the people necessary

to actually investigate it.

[Narrator] A return to Bernard Rover's cabin

has proven elusive--

until now.

As crazy as it sounds,

if, you know,

an old prospector was up there,

and he did find gold,

maybe he hid it up there, you know,

maybe he buried it up there.

So what we see on the map labelled Thomas Lake,

that upper part is where we gotta check.

[Narrator] For Taylor,

the map has sparked a connection.

So, this is the Katzie ethnographic notes.

This book basically came out in the 1950s.

I found this map here.

That's an old map.

[Narrator] The book is a window

into the stories

and traditional lands of the Katzie First Nation.

So we can use this

to cross-reference modern names with the traditional names.

[Taylor] So, as I was looking through these

and just going through all the numbers,

one stuck out to me...

-...Slumach. -Oh, wow.

And that is number 32, Gurney Creek.

[Adam] "A nickname given

because of the Katzie man of the same name--

Slumach."

So Gurney Creek is the same creek,

and Bernard Rover,

his route of travel was actually Gurney Creek.

There's no better area in all of the legend

that has two direct clues leading to a lost gold mine.

We have a prospector

that was spending 30 days at a time at Thomas Lake.

Now we have the creek

leading from Thomas Lake to Pitt Lake

called Slumach Creek.

I mean, what more evidence do you need?

[Narrator] The team's expedition

will take them through

the traditional territory of Katzie First Nation--

the home of Slumach--

and Taylor hopes

traditional knowledge will help guide their path once again.

[Taylor] So I reached out

to a couple distant relatives of mine,

who I recently found out

have a strong connection to the Slumach story.

I'm hoping they know a few things

that the newspapers and books don't.

-Hello, hello. -Hi.

Good to see you, cousin.

Cousin.

I'm Adam.

-Adam, nice to meet you. Cyril. -Nice to meet you.

-I'm Rain. -Nice to finally meet you.

Nice to meet you, too.

Rain, you're the reason for all this!

Yeah, I did my best.

-I'm Kru. -Kru, nice to meet you.

Well my grandma is from the Adams family.

It's a long cousin far off with the Pierre family.

Yeah.

Peter Pierre is my grandfather.

[Narrator] Peter Pierre's stories about Slumach,

as told to his daughter, Amanda...

[Narrator] ...have already sent the team

into the heart of the Upper Pitt.

So how long has this been Katzie territory?

For generations and generations,

thousands of years,

and then when contact came,

they literally shoved our people out--

"You guys go down there and live in the swamp."

[Kru] I couldn't imagine going from this beautiful land

and being forced into a bog.

Yeah.

I've done a lot of research

and I want to know who Slumach actually was.

If my grandfather

stuck so close to him to the final last moment,

he had to be quite the person

to be recognized by Grandfather as a good human being.

They didn't even give him the chance to defend himself.

If there was a lawyer today,

they would state,

"You did wrong to this human being."

Sadly, this kind of injustice is very common in our history.

You and I both know

the media portray us as people in a negative way,

like, you know,

the name was dragged through the mud.

Right.

[Narrator] Reclaiming Slumach's truth

is close to Rain and Cyril's hearts.

I've heard that you've taken on Slumach's name.

Yeah, I was gifted with the name

when I turned 28 years old.

I am honoured with the ability to carry it.

Yeah, I just got it tattooed on my arm.

Slumach.

[Narrator] "Slumach" is the traditional word for "rain".

He was done wrong

and it's time to see that name in the right light.

[Kru] What I appreciated most

was a different viewpoint of Slumach,

so to hear that from Cyril's mouth,

and then to meet Rain,

and to see Rain going on his journey--

oh, it was huge.

[Kru] Well, after hearing everything

that you guys have said abut Slumach,

what about the curse?

I do not like to talk about the curse.

I'll never say it's not real.

Don't ever say it's not here.

This is Katzie territory,

and if you misbehave in here,

you're going to have consequences.

It's very real.

We ask the Creator,

the Creator of the universe,

for strength and power and safety

for all of my new friends that I have here today.

[Cyril singing "Amazing Grace"]

[Taylor] We're going!

[Narrator] A new day and a new mission--

to find evidence of hidden gold--

takes the team across Pitt Lake,

and 3,400 feet up

to the wild sub-alpine.

It's a tough trek.

It's full of bush.

It's massive amounts of debris

that have come down that valley over the years.

[Narrator] But one team member is missing.

My health comes first and foremost.

If I can't carry the gold out, what's the point of finding it?

[groans]

[groaning loudly]

[Narrator] After a tough glacier crossing

saw an old injury flare up...

[groans]

[Kru] I'm starting to feel that fall now.

[Narrator] ...Kru is on mandated rest.

With a busted-ass back, there ain't much you can do,

so I gotta get better first.

Hopefully, things pan out for them.

[Adam] This was the jumping-off point

for a lot of prospectors back in the day.

We're going to go up Gurney Creek,

get as far as we can.

[Taylor] All right. Let's do this, shall we?

[Narrator] With skilled teammates

by his side,

Adam is confident

they can handle what lies ahead...

...but out here in the wild,

it appears the team aren't the only ones on the hunt.

[Taylor] Oh.

[Adam] Cougar.

That has to be a wolf.

If it was a cougar,

all the claws would be retract in,

and it would just be, like, a pretty little kitty print,

but since these claws are out,

it's definitely like a dog.

This ain't no little puppy.

We got wolf tracks,

we could have cougar out here, we could have bear out here.

There's more tracks right down here.

It's as big as my hand.

[Adam] That's massive.

That's the biggest wolf track I've ever seen.

[♪♪♪♪♪♪]

[Don] Bit of a game trail here.

[Taylor] Yeah, I noticed that, too.

Maybe it's Mr. Wolf.

[Narrator] After a night in the wild,

a new day begins,

in search of evidence

left behind by prospector Bernard Rover.

[Adam] We'll stay low and then follow that ridge.

The cabin should be right on the top.

[Don] It's amazing there's no bugs in the bush.

[Adam] It's hot, though.

Don and Taylor are perfect for this.

They have the knowledge,

whether it's plants, the forest, the animals, the land.

[Taylor] Ow!

Oh, nothing like a tree in the face

right in the morning.

This is extreme camping with my extended family.

[laughs]

I first met Adam about 16 years ago.

-[Adam] Hey, Don? -Yeah?

Just come up over towards my voice.

Don and his wife, Gayle, are like second parents to me.

[Don] When you speak in such a high frequency,

it's hard to hear you.

Should I whistle like a marmot?

-[whistles] -[Don] Oh, that's good.

Yeah, he pretty much is like an adopted brother.

[Adam farts]

[Taylor laughs]

[Adam] You guys smell that?

[Don] Jeez, you stink.

[Adam] Smells like a Sasquatch.

[Taylor gags]

All three of us have a great relationship.

[Adam] I found you a friend.

[Taylor] We're always joking with each other.

[Adam] Don just ate an inchworm.

[Don] That was a caterpillar, it was juicy.

[Adam] Did it actually taste good?

-[Don] Yeah. -Really?

Yeah.

It's all about walking this path together.

If our eyes are open to our surroundings

and to each other...

we'll be fine.

[Adam] It's about what you learn along the way,

and this is kind of one of those pursuits.

The more you look, the more you learn.

[Narrator] With the rest of the team

in Thomas Lake,

Kru has arrived in Victoria, B. C.

with Taylor's relative, new friend Rain Pierre.

[Kru] Taylor's a blessing.

We would not be able

to meet the people we're meeting,

go the places we're going,

and be accepted like family,

if it wasn't for Taylor.

She gave me all her research.

What I was hoping to do

is pretty much get to the bottom of Slumach's real story.

Yeah.

What I'm looking for as well,

to really expose the truth of what happened,

rather than what they portrayed in the media.

Mm-hmm.

We really need to dig down to the truth.

Well, if the truth's out here, we'll find it here.

Yeah, absolutely.

[Narrator] The Royal British Columbia Archive

is home to millions of historical documents

and legal records,

some dating as far back as the early 1800s.

All right. So this is what we're looking for.

We've got colonial correspondence.

That's hella old school.

[Rain] Yeah.

Anything we can find about the Pitt,

about Slumach...

There's so much info here.

[Narrator] With a mountain of material to search,

Kru and Rain start with location.

Looking for New West here.

-There we go. -New Westminster.

I'm going to write that one down.

Okay.

We can actually find the records.

Bam, that's it. Pull 'er out.

30 years since I've used one of these.

They're still the top of the line.

[laughs] I guess so.

[Rain] I've never used one of these in my life.

[Kru] Oh, it's a unique technology.

[Narrator] They scroll through

court records and registries from the past

and land on...

Oh! Whoa! What was that?

...a familiar name.

I swear I just saw Slumach.

Right there!

Slumach Mining Company.

Here, check that out.

[Narrator] It's a simple registration certificate

for a new company.

[Rain] Slumach Mining Company.

Does it say, like, when?

[Kru] 1897, holy.

So it was created seven years after he was hung.

It obviously isn't his company.

[Narrator] Of the three listed owners,

one of them, Frederick Glover,

was editor of the local newspaper

during Slumach's trial.

His brother-in-law was Slumach's defense attorney.

So these guys were going right after the gold,

as soon as he was dead.

Right after his name.

Using him to make money.

Like, that's pretty messed up.

[Narrator] The company

immediately began using Slumach's name

to sell shares.

This is info that I've never even heard of.

Absolutely.

Here's evidence

that people were just monetizing off of his name and who he was,

and this is, like, the beginning

of them twisting the story of him

and creating a legend that wasn't even the truth.

[Narrator] Could this one company

be responsible for a century-old myth?

Or did Slumach really find gold

and kill to protect it?

[Adam] Maybe go up here.

[Narrator] Back in the mountains,

Adam is struggling to find Bernard Rover's cabin.

[exhales]

Okay... I can do it.

I can do it, I can do it.

Last time I was here,

the terrain was covered under three feet of snow,

so it's different.

I would go this-- towards this way.

[Don] All right.

[Taylor] Leads us all the way over here.

His cabin should be

somewhere on this plateau up here,

but everything looks so different.

I remember, like,

this tall cedar tree being super close.

Here's a huge cedar tree, so...

Hey, guys! There's something over here!

[Adam] You found it?

[Don] Holy smokes. There we go.

[Adam] Yeah, that's it.

[Taylor] Is it safe to walk in here?

[Adam] Taylor's ability

to spot clues in the surroundings

is actually incredible.

She pays attention to the little fine details

that I would totally just run over, or walk over.

[Narrator] While little remains of the cabin,

it proves Rover had a reason for staying put.

Hey, get a load of this.

[Don] Huh, an old shovel.

[Adam] We need to find evidence

that Bernard Rover was mining gold--

not copper, not anything else--

but Bernard Rover was here looking for gold.

What do you think this...

these were used for?

Is this a part of a cart?

[Taylor] You know what? A wheelbarrow.

-[Don] It's a wheelbarrow. -[Adam] A wheelbarrow, yeah.

So he was digging somewhere...

wheelbarrowing the ore out.

[Adam] There's not much there left of his cabin,

but when I saw this piece of a wheelbarrow,

something clicked for me.

I mean, this guy is moving material around.

[Narrator] But where might Rover's gold be hidden?

Adam has an idea--

and it's a little...

unconventional.

[Adam] That's where we're going.

[Don] That island out there?

What's the thinking behind that?

I mean...

If he was finding something here--

Yeah?

He wasn't hauling it all out at once.

[Don] Yeah.

He would have had a stash,

he would have been

putting it somewhere where people wouldn't get it.

You know, as cliché as it sounds,

you have to go with your instincts.

This island is calling my name,

and I need to get there.

You really think something's going to be on that island?

Well, yeah, if he found something.

It's just the whole thing of getting to this island.

I don't see people dragging canoes up here at all

because it's a harsh hike through here.

You know, maybe Bernard Rover was a romantic.

You know, maybe he buried his treasure on an island?

How we gonna get there?

I'll show ya.

Unless you wanna swim.

[Don] I ain't swimming.

That's why we're gonna use this.

[Taylor] I swear he has, like, a Mary Poppins bag.

I'm just blowing up our pack raft here.

I've used these things on the glaciers,

on coral reefs,

but what we're going to use them for right now

is paddling out to that island.

Where's the paddle?

He brings this big pack raft,

but he forgot the paddle.

Really? [laughs]

Can you make one?

We have Don,

so, you know,

luckily, we can make a paddle.

There's some good wood around here.

This might work for a handle.

We're gonna have to do

what we used to do a long time ago--

construct our own means of getting over to this island.

[Taylor] We've done lots of kind of stuff like that.

Like, it's just another day in the life of me and Don,

and our adventures.

Get the final notches in there.

There we go.

[Adam] I like it.

All right, you take us over.

You're the skipper.

I'll hold the boat for you, sir.

No problem at all.

Well, you didn't tell me you'd roll in.

-Bon voyage. -We did it.

♪♪ Michael, row the boat ashore... ♪♪

Oh, yeah, it's a good bonding moment for them.

Can you put your knees closer together

so I can rest my head?

This is a memorable moment.

You know, being together, close.

Oh, I just dripped down my head.

A little too close.

-Oh! -Oh, sorry.

[Don] The paddle's amazing!

Well, I've had lots of dreams, but nothing like this.

All aboard!

That's exploration at its finest.

Let's just spread out.

Let's just search the whole thing.

[Narrator] Acting on a hunch...

[Adam] We're not leaving this island

until we've checked under every rock,

every tree.

[Narrator] ...the team is looking

for signs of stashed gold.

Yeah, there actually is a little opening here.

Someone could have stashed something

underneath these rocks...

No, just...

moss, twigs and ants.

I was looking for anything

that could indicate that Bernard Rover was here,

and I see these small tree stumps.

There's been a couple of trees that have been cut right here,

and then there's another one over here.

It's been hacked,

like, with an axe or something.

-Hey, Taylor. -Yeah?

It looks like there's been some trees

that have been cut down a long time ago.

So someone was here.

[Adam] It's been hacked.

-Hey, Taylor. -Yeah?

[Narrator] On a remote island

in an alpine lake...

It looks like there's been some trees

that have been cut down a long time ago.

[Narrator] ...new evidence points to human activity.

Did Bernard Rover

find Slumach's gold at Thomas Lake?

And did he hide it on the island?

[Adam] This island is quite rocky,

and there's not a lot of soil,

so it's not going to be necessarily buried deep.

I mean, it could be anywhere.

There's a hole in that tree.

Put your hand in there.

[Taylor] I won't put my hand in there.

Screw that!

Nothing.

Checked this all out and we're not getting any hits.

Lots of blueberry bushes, though.

Tired of beating around the bush.

[laughs]

I don't think anything's here.

I mean, you searched on top, under the rocks, under the moss.

We've done our due diligence.

[Adam] We didn't find anything on the island,

but we had to search it.

It doesn't matter how far-fetched the idea may be,

you search.

That's all part of the puzzle.

Government records...

British Columbia Attorney General

Coroner Inquiries,

1865 to 1937.

That lines up with 1891.

Well, let's put this one down, definitely.

[Narrator] At the B. C. Archives,

Rain and Kru

are piecing together their own puzzle

of Slumach's final days

over a century ago.

Court records guide, text in collections.

[Narrator] The tale told in the papers

calls Slumach a "cold-blooded killer"

and a "brash young man".

At his trial, a similar narrative emerges.

While out fishing,

Slumach, without provocation,

shot and killed Louis Bee.

The victim's friend fled the scene,

and is the only witness to the murder.

Within weeks, Slumach is apprehended,

tried,

and sentenced to hang.

But this version of events

differs from the one Rain grew up with.

It's crazy how many different stories

and versions there are,

but all I know

is what was passed down from my People.

Well, what do you know about Slumach?

He was holding out in the forest

when they had,

like, people looking for him,

and the police and everything went to Katzie,

saying that something would happen to them

if he didn't come out.

-What? -Yeah.

I never heard that part before.

So my great-grandfather, Peter Pierre,

went in there and got him,

and told him

that something was going to happen,

so he came out and surrendered himself.

-In order to save his People. -Yeah.

-Absolutely. -Wow.

How old do you think Slumach was at this time?

[Rain] My dad always told me he was over 70,

and, you know,

he was, like, respected, and...

like an elder.

See, that's something I've never heard in 20 years.

Yeah.

You always grew up

hearing stories of the "insane Indian,"

you know,

and it was like,

"Damn, he must've been a bad ass,

going around getting gold and killing people."

Come to find out he was nothing but an old man.

Ugh.

I don't know, it just is a whole new perspective

than what I thought growing up.

There's a lot of missing pieces to this puzzle, man.

[detector beeping]

I'll put the headphones on.

You be the detector, I'll be the digger.

And I'll pinpoint location.

[Narrator] After coming up empty-handed on the island...

Hold on.

[Narrator] ...Adam, Don and Taylor

turn their attention back to Rover's cabin

for a deeper dive with the metal detectors.

My first instinct is, like,

what else is here?

-Oh, yeah. -Something in there.

The metal detector is going crazy.

[beeping]

Some roofing material.

It's gonna be hard to get through this.

[Narrator] What looks like the cabin floor

is actually the collapsed roof.

[Taylor] It's, like, right in there.

[Narrator] The cabin remains buried

under three feet of dirt.

[beeping]

There's something good right here.

[beeping] Part of a nail?

Found something there?

All sorts of nails here.

Piles of nails.

The door's there.

The trail comes here.

This is probably the outhouse.

So you're digging through 50 years of shit.

Literally.

[Taylor] Getting through the roof.

Lots of nails.

It shows how much work one man had to go to.

To bring up a bunch of nails like this,

that's a lot of weight.

I mean, he wasn't coming up here for nothing.

[Taylor] What the heck is this?

Come up and look at what I found here.

[Adam] I look over,

and Taylor's holding a rock,

and I'm like,

[Narrator] The ore sample indicates

Rover found key signs of mineralization--

an indication that could point to gold.

[beeps]

[Adam] Good piece of ore.

[Taylor] When we were looking at this rock,

we noticed that it didn't fit where we found it.

There is mineralization in that vein.

Definitely.

That rock came from somewhere else.

Hmm.

[Adam] This is a huge discovery.

That's one of the most tangible clues

we have at this point.

It smells like sulfur.

[Taylor] And reveal.

[Adam] It's a quartz vein.

[beeping loudly, Adam laughs]

It's, like, right on the gold.

No, I'm serious.

[Taylor] And reveal.

[Adam] It's a quartz vein.

[Narrator] At the site

of prospector Bernard Rover's cabin...

[beeping loudly]

[Adam laughs]

It's, like, right on the gold.

No, I'm serious.

[Narrator] ...a mysterious rock has piqued the team's curiosity.

Seven, yeah. See? See? Right there.

You can see flour gold in that rock.

Under the magnifying glass, you can see gold.

[Narrator] "Flour gold"

means there's actual gold inside the rock--

only trace amounts.

[Adam] You know, normally,

when we find rocks and ore samples,

we call them AFRs--

another [bleep] rock.

But these,

scanning them with a detector

and actually registering as gold-bearing ore,

you know, that's huge.

Yeah, he knew what he was doing.

So, we start out with a rusty shovel, tin cans...

A wheelbarrow.

Wheelbarrow handles,

and we come up with...

Sample one.

[Don] Obviously, this is where he was sleeping.

We need to find out where he was mining.

[Adam] If Bernard Rover

is bringing this rock back to his cabin,

he thinks that there's probably gold in this rock.

So, let's find out where that rock came from.

Maybe we can find where he was digging.

[Narrator] The team plunges further into the wilderness--

but to find Rover's mine,

they'll have to think like Rover himself.

If he was following

where he thought Slumach's gold was,

he would be somewhere

where he can get down to the rock easily.

He's gonna find an area

that the bedrock's already exposed.

Yeah.

That's where this came from.

People like Bernard,

people like Slumach...

[Adam] They would be looking for waterfalls.

[Don] They're looking for water.

They didn't need pumps and machinery,

they would use the water.

Yeah.

That's the hydrology

that the prospectors were using back in the day.

[Narrator] Prospectors know

to look for places

where water has done the work for them--

eroding rock and revealing gold.

So, what you're saying is we have to find a river,

like, a fast-moving river, fast-flowing creek.

Yeah, we have to listen to nature.

Follow the water.

[Taylor] Use our brains, keep our eyes open.

[Narrator] It's a challenging trek

through thick undergrowth

in search of water.

Hey. There's a river over here.

[Narrator] It's no raging river,

but it's a start.

[Adam] You see this oxbow?

[Don] Yeah.

[Adam] Natural oxbows like that

is where you would find gold.

[Narrator] An oxbow is a U-shaped pool,

formed by the twisting and turning of a stream.

[Don] We'll have to check it out.

Little dicey.

[beeping]

[Adam] Go down again.

[beeping loudly]

[Don] Holy [bleep].

Come here. Why's it going so crazy?

80, 70, 86.

-Really? -Yeah!

-Do you got your shovel? -Yeah, yeah.

-Do you have the pinpointer? -Here, uh...

[beeping]

Right there.

[Taylor] It's this.

[Don] Yeah, we might have found gold, you guys.

Right where gold would deposit. Right in this...

Oh, there. Look, look, look.

[groans]

It's big, I don't know.

Look at the colour of that, Adam.

Is that gold?

It's got quite a texture to it, eh?

[Taylor] It looks like a giant bucket.

Yeah, it does, it does. It feels like a bucket.

[Don] It's something that's cast

by the looks of it.

Hey!

Do you think it could be a wheel to a cart?

Well, I was just going to say--

-See how it's round? -Yeah, I know.

-Look at it! Look at it! -That's definitely a wheel.

That's a wheel.

That's a wheel from an old mining cart.

[Narrator] Made of pure iron,

an element close on the spectrum to gold,

a cart wheel this large and dense

could easily have deceived the team's metal detectors.

Wow!

[Adam] There's a mine here.

We are headed in the right direction.

Oh, my god.

[Taylor] Yeah, we ain't moving this sucker.

[Adam] This whole area has been untouched.

[Don] Yeah.

Whatever was here a hundred years ago

will still be here.

I wonder what's farther upstream now.

If this is here, what's up there?

Goes all the way back

from pretty much

when Louis Bee got shot by Slumach,

all the way up to the court case.

[Narrator] Back at the archives,

the old image of Slumach as a brash, young killer

is fading.

In their push for the truth,

Kru and Rain request

the original court records from Slumach's 1891 trial.

So what we have here, these are judges' bench books,

so they're documenting sort of

everything that's going on in the case.

Wow.

At the beginning here...

[Kru] This is Seymour's statement right here.

[Narrator] Charles Seymour was in the canoe with Louis Bee

when the fatal shot was fired,

and the only witness called to stand.

Seymour alleged

that while checking their fishing lines,

Slumach emerged from the tall grass,

aimed his gun at Louis Bee,

and wordlessly fired.

"The body was in deeper water owing to the rise in the tide.

I recognized Louis Bee's axe..."

[Kru] Wait a second--

he had a axe on him?

Yeah, it says here

he had an axe with him in the canoe.

That's not an unarmed man.

I don't care who you are, an axe is a weapon.

Yeah.

I mean, you just don't shoot somebody

for no reason, right?

I have never heard the self-defence story before.

It was almost like watching a court drama

and being there at that time period.

I mean, it's crazy

that we're, like, finding these documents

and actually looking into what happened.

I'm glad we're doing this.

-I am, too -It means a lot.

[Narrator] Amidst the 100-year-old documents,

Rain makes an astonishing find.

Whoa! This is Slumach's actual words!

[Rain] That's crazy.

Whoa!

[Narrator] Back at the B. C. Archives,

Rain and Kru have uncovered

a clear and haunting voice from the past...

This is Slumach's actual words!

That's crazy.

It was like finding paydirt of a whole 'nother kind.

"I the above named Slumach

made oath

and say that Louis Bee, the deceased,

was habitually quarrelling with me,

and that he frequently harassed me

with improper language

and threatened me more than once with violence,

and I was in constant fear of him."

This just paints a whole new picture,

like, a whole new picture.

What I heard

was an old man being bullied

and then thrown under the bus.

Technically hung from the tree.

I mean, let's keep it real.

This is really, like...

It's a lot of emotions reading this, to be honest.

Um...

It really is parallel to what my dad's been saying,

and the stories are true from my end,

like, my family's been telling the truth,

and...

and it's crazy

because this all happened in 1890--

I was born a hundred years later--

and, like, we're now just uncovering the real story.

The injustice that happens to our people

isn't new, you know.

It's just that these facts make it real.

We all have the right to due process.

He did not get that.

This just shows that nobody cared.

-You do. -Yeah.

We do.

And this is a new era now.

Yeah.

To actually be standing next to a man

who's related to him,

it's like you see inside of him.

I feel pain for him and, like, my People,

because this is how we were treated.

But we're getting to the bottom of it

and we need to bring this to light.

To see the way it was done,

to see the way it was rushed through...

[sighs]

...it's a tarnish on our history.

He deserves justice

and he needs to have his picture painted

with the right brush,

and that's with our People,

and our stories,

and our truth.

[Adam] It'll be slippery.

Okay, I got the root.

[Narrator] North of Thomas Lake,

the team is hot on the trail of Bernard Rover's mine--

possibly Slumach's legendary lost gold.

After Bernard Rover's cabin,

we started following the waterways,

and we're just trying to follow in his footsteps

to try and find the mine

where he got all that ore from that we found at his cabin.

Oh!

That sucks.

[Don] Just go where I went, Tay.

Grab that root.

Right there.

Hold that.

Just come-- just jump right there.

-You okay? -Yeah.

You okay?

That's cold.

Like--

-Whoa! -It's cold.

[Narrator] Just upstream,

the team stumbles across an unmistakable landmark.

[Don] That's huge.

That's where we wanna go.

That water--

that's enough water to get down to bedrock.

-Wow. -That's massive.

If he had a mine in this area,

it's gonna be in the side of this cliff somewhere.

[Don] Well, there's a cliff there

and a cliff here,

so you take that one, we'll take this other one,

so that way, we've got it covered off, okay?

[Narrator] The team splits up to cover more ground.

They're looking for an adit--

the opening of a mine.

[Adam] We can, uh...

rappel down that.

If there's gonna be a mine, it's gotta be on this cliff.

Shoot it through the hole.

[Narrator] Rappelling will save some time,

but it's not without risk.

This is it.

[chuckles] Bernard had a mine.

This is it.

[chuckles] Bernard had a mine.

[Narrator] After a tough trek from Thomas Lake,

Adam has found what appears to be Bernard Rover's mine--

and possibly the source of Slumach's lost gold.

Don! Taylor!

[Don] Coming!

[Adam] This is it.

[Taylor] We're coming!

Oh...

-Jeez... -This is it.

This is why he was up here.

Look at that sucker.

-Holy... -It goes.

I can't even see the end of it.

I want to check it out.

Ladies first.

[Don] Go ahead.

-That's deep. -Jeez.

Oh, yeah, it's going past my boots.

[Narrator] Rover spent long periods of time

in the Thomas Lake area.

A mine this deep could explain why.

[Adam] This mine

is hand-chiselled into the side of the mountain.

This is a massive undertaking,

especially for someone...

that was supposedly by himself.

He was going deep.

I don't see any signs of...

I don't know what he was going after, though,

there's no--

I don't see any veins or what.

[groans]

[Taylor] Oh, my gosh, it's a cave cricket.

Aw.

Look to see if you can find any signs of quartz.

See if you can find the vein.

He was looking for something in here.

[Taylor] Oh, there's a whole cluster of them

right there.

[Adam] There's something here.

Here's a vein. Try scanning this.

Bring your detector up here.

[beeping]

[Don] Not getting any hits at all.

It matches up with the rock that we found at his cabin.

[Adam] The ore was definitely coming from here.

That matches.

Yeah. It totally matches up, right?

[Adam] But if he was bringing all this back,

he must've found something.

Just probing, trying to find where the vein is.

Looking for the motherlode.

He probably got to this point and was, like, shoot.

[Taylor] Yeah, you see...

[Adam] That's a lot of work.

[Taylor] ...a drill hole there, there...

[Adam] Hand-- hand chiselled. That's all hand-chiselled.

This is old.

[Taylor] Oh, and above me here, actually.

Yeah, he was probing.

He was probing.

He was trying to find the vein, trying to find the motherlode.

Gold fever.

You get the fever and you just keep digging,

tunnelling...

until you're too old.

It might've been

that Bernard Rover lost many years of his life

obsessing over something that didn't exist.

There's nothing.

[Narrator] The lost gold may not be Bernard Rover's--

but that means it's still out there.

[Adam] This is a huge puzzle,

and to actually research the legend

and then go out in the field and put those pieces together,

you need patience on a different scale.

Oh, it's cold.

I can't feel my feet.

You need to come in with the emotional armour

to navigate this landscape.

You follow each clue,

and each clue is a piece of the past.

One piece at a time,

you gradually get to the end of the story.

[Don] This is just not a simple story

about Slumach and gold the size of walnuts.

This is a lot of stories,

and that's part of what our team is doing.

We want to explore each one of those stories,

and keep our ears open,

because there's more to follow.

Next time on Deadman's Curse...

Wait till you get a load of this.

You've done the research, but I've been there.

None of it adds up.

That's the lake.

That's where I want to go look.

So you know the exact location of where this nugget creek is?

Yes, I do,

and I won't go back.

What are you doing here?

You lost?

I don't think Daryl knows what he's doing out here.

It always has to be better than me.

-What? -What is it?

You're [bleep] kidding me, right?

[Taylor] No way.