Yukon Dan clops down to the riverbank and straight into 1858. One hand grasping a rusty shovel, the other holding a bag heavy with $15,000 in gold nuggets, he scans the shore for a prosperous patch of gravel, occasionally dropping the bag (it never leaves his side, not even in bed) to stroke his Santa Claus beard and rap his fingers on his generous belly.
"Lotta people think the gold around here was all gobbled up a century ago," he says, the khaki-coloured Fraser River gurgling past his gumboots.
"They don't understand. I'll find you gold in five minutes."
Exactly 150 years ago, more than 10,000 Yukon Dan look-alikes were crawling over gravel bars along this burbling stretch of the Fraser near Yale, B.C., searching for a big, yellow score.
"This is where it all started," says Yukon Dan, looking downriver to a deserted shore once occupied by hundreds of 19th-century panners, "the whole darn province."
Yukon Dan and hundreds of modern-day prospectors like him revel in those historical footsteps, though not all look the part. City folk, suburbanites and middle-class professionals can all be found among the gold hounds sloshing about the province's creek beds and river valleys. Ask them why they tote a pan everywhere they go and most will say it's just a hobby, a way to pass time, a way to link with the province's past. But their eyes hint at another reason: There are still bonanzas of gold in these here hills, and, with prices topping $1,000 an ounce earlier this year, untold riches as well.
"Oh yeah, people still get the fever so bad, man, they can taste it," says Yukon Dan, otherwise known as Dan Moore, whose nickname came from a kid to whom he taught "the art of gold panning" years ago.
Once a professional Yukon gold miner, Mr. Moore now spends most of his time attending worldwide panning competitions and teaching everyone from school children to lawyers and doctors to pan. In 1998, he won a silver medal in the team panning event with four other Canadians at the World Gold Panning Championships in California.
Since then he's travelled to Poland, Slovakia, South Africa and Germany to compete in speed competitions in which the fastest person to pan a set number of nuggets wins.
Here on the Fraser, he is giving another demonstration in preparation for the Fraser River Gold Panning Championships, which he'll host on Aug. 23 and 24. He expects about 150 gold seekers to attend.
"First you want to shake it around with lots of water," he says, tossing the gravel like a chef sautéing onions. "The gold is 19 times heavier than water and it all sinks to the bottom. You mostly find really fine flour gold around here," but, he says, arching his eyebrows, "you never know."
It's backbreaking work, the main reason why Mr. Moore, 45, focuses less on striking it rich and more on teaching others. Last year, he taught panning techniques to Abbotsford homemaker Cheryl Dallaire, her basketball referee husband and three teens. It's been a source of family bonding ever since. "It's something to do without fighting," says Ms. Dallaire. "We haven't gone as far as getting a claim yet. Maybe when the kids leave home."
Staking a claim separates the mild from the severe cases of gold fever. The province permits gold panning at a few locations. On most Crown land, prospectors need to map out and register a claim online. To maintain a placer claim year after year, they have to pay $5 a hectare and demonstrate that they're actively prospecting the land. The process has changed little in a century and a half.
Recently claims have been coming in at a rapid pace.
