Original subtitles

Previously on Deadman's Curse...

[Kru] Let's get out of here.

[Narrator] ...an alarming vision.

[Kru] That night, something happened.

All of a sudden, I feel a...

on my lip.

It was cold, it was sandy.

[Narrator] New clues...

[Narrator] ...pointing to a legendary lost gold mine...

He was able to carve out gold with a penknife.

[Narrator] ...send the team north

on Slumach's trail.

[Kru] Some of the most treacherous terrain

in British Columbia.

Whoa!

Pure white going across.

This is what he was after.

Shut the front door!

This knife could be Slumach's knife.

[Taylor] To be walking where Slumach walked,

and then to find a penknife?

This proves that we're going the right way.

[Narrator] Now...

the quest continues.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

[Narrator] For over a hundred years,

the legend of Slumach

has lured prospectors to Pitt Lake,

deep into the rivers,

and high up into the mountains

in search of his gold.

[Adam] It's day two,

going to a couple of locations on the Terrarosa Glacier.

[Narrator] Mountaineer Adam Palmer

has spent the last 20 years

on Slumach's trail.

Yeah, it's part of my life.

It's an obsession,

but it's, you know, it's a good obsession. [laughs]

"Obsession" is so aggressive.

[Narrator] Now

with a new team,

and new technology,

Adam is edging closer to the gold

than ever before.

[Taylor] Oh! What is this?

[Kru] This is a miner's satchel.

There's the pick!

[Narrator] Recent clues

found along an ancient trade route...

[Narrator] ...all point in the same direction--

up.

[Adam] If we're finding these clues

lower down from the Upper Pitt,

we need to keep following that.

[Narrator] But the upper valley is vast.

Adam needs help

to figure out exactly where they should target.

The best way to find Slumach's gold

is to follow those who followed him.

Someone that we know

that was spending a lot of time up there

is Volcanic Brown.

[Narrator] Robert Allan "Volcanic" Brown

was a legendary prospector

who disappeared searching for Slumach's gold.

[Adam] I've always been obsessed

with the story of Volcanic Brown.

I've been trying to solve the mystery of his disappearance

for 20 years.

He was one of the last real treasure hunters

to enter the Pitt.

[Narrator] An icon in Canadian folklore,

Brown is considered one of the most legitimate

and successful prospectors

in British Columbia's history.

After the sale of one of his mining claims,

it is said Brown bought himself

a set of solid gold dentures.

[Adam] He was badass.

A 70-year-old fitter than 20-year-olds of his time.

He's walking around prospecting

in the Upper Stave in Pitt Lake country

with gold teeth.

[Narrator] Reports say

somewhere in the terrain high above Pitt Lake,

Brown found gold.

[Adam] In one of the articles,

it says he found a great source of gold

that will dismiss any of his previous claims.

[Narrator] The rumours say...

...it was Slumach's gold.

So Adam's travelling to an island

off the coast of Vancouver

to meet an expert

who's travelled in Brown's footsteps.

Michael.

Hey, Adam, good to see you!

I made it.

-You made 'er. -I did.

Hey. Here, I'll take you up.

[Adam] Michael Collier's a documentary filmmaker

with a deep interest in the lost gold legend.

I remember as a child

sitting at my parents' table,

and they were talking to an old farmer.

He told us the story of Slumach.

Well, it was said that Slumach,

before he was hanged,

put a curse on the mine.

The stories about Slumach

were the sparks that lit the flame

for these future prospectors and adventurers.

[Narrator] Collier led and filmed an expedition

for his documentary,

following Brown's trail north of Pitt Lake

to the Stave Glacier.

[Collier] What adds to the legend of course

is that Volcanic Brown

never came out of those mountains.

Now here's a map

which shows that area of the Stave Glacier.

If I was giving advice,

I would say to think about the route

that the rescue party looking for Brown came,

which would probably parallel Brown's route.

So the rescue party in '31?

Yes.

[Narrator] The reports claim,

after learning of Slumach,

Brown mounted a solo expedition to the glacier,

and every year after,

through the 1920s,

but in 1931, he didn't return.

A rescue party tracked him to his final campsite...

where they found an empty tent,

a rifle,

and a jar of gold.

They never found him,

but the fact that a large quantity of gold

was found in his tent

was a very significant driver for me.

There's a pass at the top of the ridge,

and it was in that pass that we found a crucible.

A crucible is basically like a mortar and pestle.

It's used to crush rock

to extract minerals like gold

[Collier] To find this in such a remote area,

in the exact area

where Volcanic Brown went missing,

I think that's, without a doubt,

Volcanic Brown's.

[Narrator] Collier found a relic,

but not Brown's last camp.

Would there be anywhere else

that you would have spent more time?

There's an interesting area to the north,

a canyon with a creek that disappears.

[Narrator] It's not the first time

Adam's heard about a disappearing creek.

"He looked down into a little canyon..."

[Narrator] Prospector Walter Jackson noted it

in the famous letter

that sent Kru and Adam on their first search...

"It appeared to have no outlet

for the little creek that flowed at the bottom..."

[Narrator] ...a letter that has inspired

generations of prospectors

looking for Slumach's gold.

Also found in Volcanic Brown's camp

was a copy of Jackson's letter.

This could be a connection between Slumach, Jackson,

and Volcanic Brown.

[Narrator] Jackson would fall victim

to the curse himself,

dying of a mysterious illness

soon after his return.

It's a lot harder than one would think.

This is incredibly difficult terrain.

Not an easy route...

[Adam chuckling] I'll take it.

...and there's no known trail, or route, or...

it's-it's...

I don't need a trail,

I just need to know where to go.

[Taylor] All right, guys.

Volcanic Brown.

[Narrator] Back at their Seabird Island base,

the team plans for the tough expedition ahead.

So if we start up Corbold Creek,

we can access the Stave Glacier,

and cross the Stave Glacier.

Bell Pass is our spot on the map

that we need to get to.

[Narrator] Bell Pass

is where Collier found the crucible,

but Adam's betting that the gold lies beyond,

close to where Brown made his last camp.

[Adam] We have to go further.

This is new terrain to search in looking for Slumach's gold.

[Narrator] The path of Brown's search party

cuts across the Stave Glacier.

After Bell Pass,

it's a rocky ridge to a second icefield,

and then a descent

to the area where the searchers found his tent...

and his gold.

You make it sound so easy.

This is a lot of terrain right here.

[Kru] It's just hard,

because Volcanic Brown didn't make it,

and we're going to go the same way he went?

It's a matter of getting out of the bowl

and accessing the top of the glacier from there.

Adam's experienced, but that's a double-edged sword.

He sometimes takes unnecessary risks.

Sometimes, he's just way too comfortable out there.

Throughout the years, this glacier's receded so much--

over a kilometre and a half.

[Taylor] Wow.

[Don] Incredible.

[Adam] Yeah, this is a by-product of global warming,

is it's revealing things

that have been hidden for so long.

We're talking like 300, 400 feet of ice

that has actually melted away.

Now is the time to do it.

Once you guys get up here,

there's so much terrain you guys have to cover.

How are you going to do that?

I've got something that can cut the time in half.

I'm gonna bring up a secret weapon.

[Don] Wow.

That looks fun.

What is it?

[Narrator] LiDAR technology,

deployed by drone,

uses laser pulses

to measure and map terrain from the sky,

transmitting a digital model

that includes mineralization data

back to the operator.

Well, it saves us a lot of time in the woods,

I'll tell you that much.

That's the idea.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

[laughing]

[Narrator] Volcanic Brown's trail

starts at Corbold Creek...

a 12-kilometre excursion

up the nearest logging road.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

We go up.

[Narrator] To find the gold,

they need to track Brown's path--

a four-day trek

over the terrain that claimed his life.

[laughs]

Oh, God.

-There's no trail here. -What's so funny?

Easy!

[Kru] It's gonna be a hell of a hike, though.

It's just the first round.

So let's go get it.

Nice.

[Kru] It was just phenomenal

that this old man had been up here before

doing what he does,

and here we are about to do the same.

[Kru] You sure this is the right way?

[Adam] Yeah.

[Narrator] Heading up the mountain,

Kru keeps an eye out

for signs that would have propelled Brown onward.

I want to check out that rock right there, Adam.

-Got it. -Look at that.

That quartz looks nice.

Yeah, we got some mineralization here, eh?

Copper.

And quartz.

It's a good sign, though.

Breadcrumbs.

Breadcrumbs to the motherlode.

[Narrator] Minerals like quartz and red iron ore

are signposts,

indicating they're on the right path.

You know, I really like what I'm seeing over there.

-Look at that. -Yeah, that vein?

That looks good, too.

You see that quartz vein right in through there?

Oh, yeah, I'm looking right at it.

You check that out,

I'll take the high one.

All right.

Man, we could actually hit something here.

I'm serious.

Ooh, look at this.

What do we have here?

There's a little bit of colour here already.

Look, you can see it in the actual stream.

A little flake right there.

Colour starting to form on the bedrock here.

We got a lot of good colour in here.

Oh, that's exciting.

[Kru] Finding quartz,

that's almost what we're looking for.

That's where gold grows.

Oh, yeah.

This is really good signs for the area,

that's for sure.

[Kru] Water and quartz

is the process that creates the nuggets,

so when you see those two things together,

you're seeing nature at work.

Oh, wow, look at that!

That water's been doing the mining for us,

that's where all this is coming down.

So whatever's down here

is definitely going to be up there.

Yeah, buddy,

it's time to find it.

Whoo-hoo-hoo!

There's some colour right there!

Oh, it's everywhere, look at this!

We got gold.

There's gold! There's gold, right there.

[Narrator] Kru and Adam are following the trail

of a renowned prospector

to the source of the legendary lost gold mine...

It's so beautiful, it's everywhere!

[Narrator] ...and Kru has already found

promising signs.

[Kru] I mean, come on, now, that's gold.

Like, even with your naked eye, you can see it.

Now I see why Volcanic Brown brought his pestle out here.

Like, this is beautiful.

You get any gold?

Yeah, we've got a couple of samples,

It's just a little tricky to get to.

Did you check that up?

I thought I'd wait for you on that one.

[Narrator] The trail of gold points up the rock face.

Oh, I'm gonna get a shower.

So slippery.

Here it comes.

Beautiful.

Here's a big one!

Over that way.

Damn!

Awesome. Let's see what you got.

Maybe a little bit of colour

alongside some of it,

but throughout the main host rock,

it's pure quartz, right?

[Narrator] But no more gold.

If he saw this vein, would he be mining here?

I know he'd see this,

but I know he'd probably do what we're doing right now,

and then come to the conclusion

that it's mainly pure quartz, right?

And then he would probably move on.

100%.

[Narrator] With the first leg of their trek in the books...

[Kru groans wearily]

[Narrator] ...a new morning begins

with a steep, rocky climb upward

to the Stave Glacier.

From here,

the journey only gets more challenging.

[Kru] The terrain is so unforgiving, it's crazy.

It's like you never have a solid step.

Everywhere you are, you're falling.

Everything is falling.

[Narrator] Despite Kru's decades of experience

in the martial arts...

[grunts]

[Narrator] ...the harsh landscape

is proving to be a new kind of fight...

[bleep] It's my bad [bleep] hip.

[Narrator] ...and it's aggravating old injuries.

Look, all right,

I've been in the fight game for over 20 years.

You get accidents.

This is tougher land than any fight I've been in.

There was no rounds,

there was no time-outs.

You've just got to keep going.

Man, my back is just feeling it.

[exhaling]

I do not see a 70-year-old man out here

doing this shit.

[Narrator] The hardest part is still ahead.

If Kru can't cross the glacier to get to Bell Pass,

the search is over.

[Adam] It's not much further.

[Kru] About time.

[Adam] Five more minutes.

[Kru sighing]

Yeah, there we go.

Check this out.

[Don] This is better than gold.

[Taylor] Oh, absolutely.

[Narrator] on Seabird Island,

Taylor and Don are working to unravel the origins

of tools found on the last expedition.

[Don] As soon as it was placed in my hand,

-I thought of my grandfather. -Mm-hmm.

His knife is about the same age.

It's well over a hundred years old.

That could be Slumach's knife.

[Narrator] The penknife,

found stashed underground,

is too rusted to offer any obvious clues,

but the prospecting equipment from the river

just might.

[Don] When you look at the tips of it here...

Yeah.

...hardly used, Taylor.

The journey of this prospector had just begun.

Mm-hmm.

So, was it the curse that ended it?

[Narrator] According to the legend,

it was Taylor's own great uncle

that uttered the curse that struck them down.

Could the fate of this lost miner

lead to truth behind the legend?

The leather satchel

has already offered up some information.

[Don] The satchel here

really narrows down the time frame.

You can see that,

by the machine stitching and the rivets,

that it was around 1950.

[Narrator] A ballpark to work with,

but it's a detail on one of the tools

that might narrow the search.

This iron pick has got some markings on it

that we need to take a closer look at.

I'm seeing what looks like the shape of a tree,

or an arrow.

What do you-- what do you see there?

It looks like a "B" and an "O"?

Yeah, I see the "O" part.

Yeah, there's a "B" and "O".

Maybe can you--

Yeah, this almost looks like...

[Don] Either a tree shape, or an arrow shape.

[Taylor] It almost looks like the tip of an arrowhead.

It's super intriguing.

I need to do some digging and find some more about it.

[Kru laughing] Damn!

That's a frickin' glacier, man.

[Adam] Welcome to the Stave.

[Narrator] Back at Stave Glacier...

How do we get across that?

[Narrator] ...Bell Pass

and Volcanic Brown's last camp

are on the other side.

To find the source of his gold,

they need to get across.

[Adam] So the lip of the glacier is right there,

right below us.

Volcanic Brown definitely went across the ice

right here.

[boy] Can you, like, do this?

[Narrator] It's a trail Adam's been driven to follow

for so long,

that his own family has grown impatient.

[boy] Keep going and going...

[Adam] The pressure's on at home

for me to find it,

because I think they want me just to end this quest.

[boy] The mine's gonna be somewhere around here?

Here.

Check here.

[Adam] "If you find Volcanic Brown,

you'll find the gold, Dad."

I'm like, "I know, I told you that,

I'm trying to."

He's like, "You've got to find it this summer."

I'm like, "I'm doing my best."

And then he went right here, right here,

and then that's where the gold mine would be.

[Narrator] But on this terrain,

Adam can't let his eagerness

overtake his vigilance.

Walking across the glacier,

I mean, that's what I look forward to.

[Kru] I mean, look at that, man,

it's a frickin' maze.

This is dangerous.

When it's opened up like this,

this time of year,

that's the best time to travel

because we can see where we can get across.

You can see where you can fall.

[Adam] If he came earlier in the year

when the snow was on top,

he wouldn't have seen where those crevasses are.

You really think he went out there?

Like, seriously?

[Adam] I know he did.

Do you like that?

[Kru] I'll like it when we're done.

[Adam chuckles]

All seven miles of it.

[Kru groans]

[Kru] The things a man will do for gold, huh?

Everything that you do out there, you can die,

and not be found ever again.

These crevasses, they just go down and down.

You fall in a crevasse, break both your legs,

you can't get out of that thing.

It's an ice coffin.

You're gonna be sitting in there until you die.

[Narrator] So far,

Kru's been able to navigate around the widest gaps,

but as they push ahead...

[Kru] How do we get across?

[Narrator] ...there's no way forward,

but over.

[Adam] So I line myself up,

and I stop, and I think,

and I go, "Okay, I wanna get this foot over there."

Okay?

Safe.

[Kru] I, personally, have never been in as much pain

as I was on that trip.

It went from neck, back, hip.

Reposition this foot

to where you're comfortable.

Get this foot over.

Safe.

Second part is...

get your foot over here.

Safe.

Safe.

Reposition.

Oh, boy...

here we go.

[Narrator] High on the Stave Glacier...

Oh, boy...

[Narrator] ...Kru must fight through pain

to cross a deep crevasse.

So it's like a series of steps,

it's just...

it's never rushing, just being patient.

Here we go.

[exhaling]

There you go.

You see why people don't come back.

This is nuts!

Like, there's...

Every step you take, you can die.

Imagine getting sucked down there, man.

That's a horrible way to go.

[Narrator] It's the only way to Bell Pass--

and the gold beyond.

So now what?

So now you reposition that left foot.

Yeah, correct.

Just like that.

-Piece of cake, all day. -Yeah.

That was great.

Thank you, sir.

I'm starting to feel that fall now.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

[Narrator] Six and a half kilometres north...

Welcome to Bell Pass.

Whew! Wow!

[Narrator] ...fighting their way

to Volcanic Brown's last camp,

Adam and Kru have reached the milestone

of Bell Pass.

[Adam] I mean, he would have come up through here.

This is the historic pass

to get from one side

to the other side of the glacier.

[Kru] Being in the same place

as Volcanic Brown had been before,

that was something in itself.

[Narrator] The rocky pass

is believed to have been a rest stop for Brown

in the middle of the glacier.

[Kru] Let's look around this place.

Look for something stashed!

[Adam] If he was up there from June to September

for multiple years,

there's going to be evidence of whatever he left behind.

If he did leave stuff up here,

it's gonna be probably going to be under,

give or take,

two or three centimetres of soil or overburden.

Yeah.

I'm gonna check out over here.

[Narrator] There is a precedent

for finding treasure in the pass.

This is where Michael Collier found the mortar and pestle.

Where do you think they found it at?

This is the only flat spot right here.

Maybe over there a little bit.

Oh, shit!

See? This flat area,

look right here, dude.

Look at this right here.

No, somebody was here.

Look at this.

Somebody built this stone wall up.

They had their camp here.

[Adam] As I'm getting closer

to where Volcanic Brown was,

I mean, I'm getting a good feeling about this

because everything is adding up now.

What's this?

Camp fuel.

Yeah, this is too modern, though, eh?

Yeah.

[Narrator] Today,

there are no traces of Volcanic Brown...

...but his footsteps will guide Adam and Kru forward.

[Kru] Where do we go from here?

[Adam] To his last camp--

where he never made it out of.

[Narrator] The trek will take them

along the ridgeline,

towards another icefield,

and, hopefully,

the lost mine.

[Kru groans]

Man, I'm so cold from that glacier.

[Adam] It's a lot of ground to search,

but I think we can do it with the drone.

It'll save us tons of time.

[Narrator] If Volcanic Brown prospected the area

between Bell Pass and his last camp,

then the source of his gold could be close.

We could launch right here.

It's flat enough.

[Narrator] The LiDAR will give them eyes from above

that they can't get from the ground.

[whirring]

[Kru] Beautiful!

-Oh, that's dope. -There she goes.

Man, this saves so much bushwhacking.

[Adam] This is Volcanic Brown's area.

I know for sure.

We have to zero in on it.

You need to grid search this area.

[Kru] This is intense, man.

I can't believe you can see all this

from way up there.

The LiDAR was phenomenal.

You can search acreage with that in minutes.

So this is that ridge line that we're seeing up there.

Yep.

What's this up here?

[Adam] Yeah, that is a weird spot.

Hold on, I'll get to it.

I'll get closer.

I'll go a little bit lower and get in there.

Looks like a mine in the side of a mountain.

-Right there. -Right there.

[Kru] Damn, it's definitely worth taking a look at, man.

[Adam] We follow that creek,

avoid all that bush,

that'll take us right there.

[Narrator] With the sun starting to set,

Adam and Kru will have to wait for daylight

to push ahead.

[Adam] I don't even know if I can sleep

thinking about that.

Whatever that is, I mean, it looked like a mine.

Something is there. Definitely something is there.

[Kru] Man, you got me stoked for tomorrow,

I'll tell you that much. [laughs]

Man!

Ooh, it's gonna be fun tomorrow.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

[Kru] Man, I had a horrible night's sleep.

I couldn't quit thinking about getting up there.

[Narrator] A new morning on Bell Pass.

Adam and Kru are back on the trail

in search of Volcanic Brown's last camp--

and his gold.

[Adam] If we didn't have that LiDAR, man,

this would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack

-through this stuff. -Seriously, though!

[Narrator] Yesterday's drone imagery

revealed a possible mine,

dug into the side of the mountain.

We saw all this on the LiDAR,

now we actually get a chance to go up there and explore.

-You all good? -Yup.

It's not much further.

There we go.

That right there.

That was that feature.

-That looks good. -Looks really good.

[Narrator] With the glacier melted away,

the mine entrance now hangs 200 feet up the rockface.

[Adam] If Volcanic Brown had a mine,

it could easily be out here.

I mean, he's been known

to drive 900-foot tunnels by hand.

[Narrator] But the mine...

[Adam] This is what was giving us that image

of that void, that darkness,

that doorway.

[Narrator] ...is only an illusion.

[Adam] It was casting this shadow on LiDAR,

which turns out to be

what I think is just a big frost pocket,

which is natural erosion from the melt/freeze cycle.

That would've been great, I mean,

to find it right off the bat like that,

but this isn't it.

You have to move on.

[Kru] All right, man, let's get out of here.

[Narrator] Back at Seabird Island...

Hello, Paul.

-Hello. -Hello!

[Narrator] ...Don and Taylor

have connected with an anthropologist

who specialises in weapon and tool etchings,

also known as the "maker's mark".

This symbol is from the British Board of Ordnance.

So you are saying then this is British government?

[Demers] Yes,

and that "B. O."

would have stopped being used

right around 1855.

Hmm.

Well, I'm thinking it belongs to a prospector

that's been missing.

Yeah, there's no doubt in my mind.

No doubt.

[Narrator] The new narrowed time frame

gives Taylor a starting point

to begin her search.

[Taylor] We need to know

who actually disappeared up there.

23rd person missing.

30 people missing,

all the way up to 50.

[Narrator] Her search is for people

that went missing in the right time period.

[Narrator] The miner's bag places the owner in the 1950s,

at the latest.

"George Blake and his son...

lost lives when tree fell."

You can get lost out there really easy,

you can die out there really easy.

This is definitely three confirmed,

three of 50.

I got a long ways to go for this.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

So this is all the processed stuff, eh?

[Narrator] A long day of searching

is over

on Bell Pass.

[Kru] Man, this is amazing.

[Narrator] Adam and Kru haven't found the motherlode.

Tomorrow,

they'll cross the second ice field,

toward Brown's last camp...

Can you spin it around, so we get that perspective?

[Narrator] ...with new drone imagery

to guide them.

[Kru] Volcanic Brown couldn't even dream

of the technology we have,

so to be able to go out there and utilize this--

oh, man, we are a lucky bunch.

[Kru] Look at the cliff, man!

[Adam] And then let's go in there.

[Kru] What do you think that is right there?

It's raised up.

Yeah, well, lookit...

That's exactly where that quartz...

and there's that anomaly right there.

[Narrator] The anomaly,

a vertical trench in a highly mineralized area.

Could this be a canyon?

Home to a disappearing creek?

Oh, man,

I wish it wasn't so late.

What do you think, man?

[Adam] We can do it tomorrow.

[Kru] First thing.

Let's crash.

-Easy. -Call it, wrap it,

and get out there as soon as we can.

Let's do it.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

Yeah, we got a river running through here.

[Narrator] Just after first light,

Adam and Kru have left Bell Pass

to cross Stave Glacier's second ice field.

They're chasing the rich mineral deposits

they saw last night.

We saw anomalies.

We saw quartz veins.

I mean, you saw things

that you would never see with the naked eye,

and that put us solely on track

to what we're looking for.

Watch your step there.

[Narrator] But Adam has spotted a diversion

too tempting to pass by.

See that?

We got a cave here.

Check this out.

This is a window into the glacier.

We gotta get down in that.

Let's go.

[Narrator] Warming temperatures

have shrunk the ice

to reveal a passage underneath.

[Kru] Sketchy.

[Adam] Let me go.

[Adam groans]

[Kru] You sure this is safe? -[Adam] Yeah...

-Okay. -For a little while.

[Adam] A life with no risks is no life at all.

That's kind of boring,

but then again,

I see other people doing things like eating sugar,

and that's a risk that I don't want to take.

Wow!

[Narrator] It could allow a glimpse

at rock and minerals

buried for millennia.

[Adam] We're talking virgin dirt.

This is the last frontier basically on Earth,

is this dirt under the glacier.

Even if this isn't the gold,

Volcanic Brown would've checked this out.

[Narrator] But the same warming

that opened up the ice

also makes it highly unstable.

Oh, it goes deep.

How far back does it go?

I can't even see the end.

[Kru] Whoa.

Well, I'm cool here,

[laughs]

You go on ahead.

He's honestly the craziest man I know.

Wow.

I'm not going further than I need to go.

If I'm not seeing signs of gold, there's no go.

Dude, I think that's far enough, bro.

If you ain't seeing any gold, it's time to get out.

[Adam] It keeps going!

Adam?

Adam?

[Narrator] Following the trail

of legendary prospector Volcanic Brown...

[Kru sighs] Man...

[Narrator] ...Adam risks being claimed

by the same glacier that took his hero.

[Adam] I mean, what happened to Volcanic Brown?

Did he fall down a crevasse?

Did he get crushed by rock?

Did he die in a mine?

Like, what happened to him?

I'm gonna go deep, Kru!

I'm gonna try to find the end!

Just see if I can get down to the bedrock!

[Kru] Seriously?

So [bleep] nuts.

I think that's far enough, bro.

It's time to get out.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

[Adam's son's voice] Can you, like, Dad, do this?

And keep going, and going...

[Adam's voice] I think he's gonna be...

I think he's somewhere around here.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

[Adam's son's voice] Dad...

[Kru] Conscience says it's time to go.

When every fibre in your body tells you, "no",

you need to listen.

Ha! Dude!

-You're a maniac! -You see how deep that goes?

I can't even believe you even went in there

in the first place, man.

That was crazy.

You can't leave that unchecked.

That was massive under there.

[Narrator] But now they can get back

to following the LiDAR imagery,

hopefully to the gold.

[Narrator] Back at Seabird...

[Don] The satchel is the pinpointer,

dated around 1950.

That's the gold right there.

[Narrator] ...Taylor's been sifting through names

in old newspaper reports,

trying to link the lost tools to a missing prospector.

[Taylor] So, with the dates that we had,

I was able to do a little bit of digging

-and find some prospectors. -Cool.

What did you come up with?

So, looking at all these prospectors,

there's one that jumps out.

Alfred Gaspard.

What's the story on Alfred?

[Narrator] In 1950,

after a failed attempt at frog farming,

Alfred set his sights on prospecting.

The serial entrepreneur was flown into the Upper Pitt,

in search of Slumach's gold,

and never returned.

Gaspard was last seen here.

-Oh, my gosh. -Do you know where that is?

Wow.

That's really close to where...

Mm-hmm.

...this was found, and that was found.

This is crazy.

He's the only one that was up there,

and in the time period.

Good job, Taylor.

[Narrator] It's a sign

that their own trail has followed a reported victim

of the legendary curse.

Somebody lost their life up there,

it could've been Alfred Gaspard.

Absolutely.

Alfred Gaspard was a frog farmer

who went out looking for the gold.

He was likely very inexperienced.

[Narrator] Gaspard's exact fate

will remain unknown,

but gold fever drove many prospectors

into the mountains--

prepared, or not.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

Back up in the mountains,

Adam and Kru have crossed the ice...

[Adam] We cross up over here.

[Narrator] ...closing in

on Volcanic Brown's last known location,

and they've found a key marker.

"The raging river of doom."

There's an interesting area to the north.

There's a canyon with a creek that disappears.

[Adam] Michael Collier told us

about a disappearing creek, a canyon.

We found them.

Whoo!

[Kru] When you start finding these indicators like this,

this is the route.

This is the path.

[Adam] This is the last known position

of him having a camp,

off the glacier.

Somewhere in here.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

[Narrator] The terrain all lines up

with details in the report

from the search party that found Brown's camp.

[Kru] Oh, we've got some nice little samples up here.

You just gonna leave me, buddy?

I'll wait right here.

Whew!

Hey, goat boy,

I thought you were waiting for me.

[Narrator] They're betting

that the motherlode is close to the camp.

They need to be on the lookout for mineral deposits,

or any signs that stand out on the landscape.

[Adam] You good?

[Kru] I ain't 80, come on, now!

[Adam] Could have fooled me.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

-[Adam] Look at that. -[Kru laughs]

What the heck is that doing there?

[Kru] What the heck is that doing there?

[Adam] It's massive.

[Narrator] On the edge of the Stave Glacier...

Looks like an alien egg.

[Narrator] ...Adam and Kru

have followed Volcanic Brown's footsteps

to his final camp,

and, possibly, his gold.

Whoa, check this out, look.

Look at that.

Oh, wow, this is beautiful.

[Adam] This would have been his spot, right?

Because in the 1926 report,

it said that they were in an area,

and they had the glacier falling down around them.

They were on the lip of the glacier.

There's the lip right there.

I've never seen this, like, conglomerate

of all these different types of stone.

It looks like it spewed out of a volcano,

or fell from space.

The indications are all there.

The host rocks are there.

Obviously, Volcanic Brown saw the same things.

[grunting]

Nice, ninja!

The mineralization is crazy.

[Adam] When you first look at this rock,

it looks like there should be gold in this area,

'cause it has all the signs.

This area is probably the most mineralized

in the whole Stave Glacier area.

[♪♪♪♪♪]

[Kru] Oh, yeah, we got a lot of mineralization here.

Lot of mica,

lot of copperish-looking...

Let's just look for a big solid vein of gold

in this thing now.

[Narrator] Brown hunkered down here for a reason,

and there's no better indicator of gold

than this rock.

[Adam] This is exactly what is described

in his articles.

He says he found deposits

rich in copper, aluminum.

That's exactly what this is.

This is his deposit.

[Narrator] A surface inspection reveals huge chunks of copper.

Can you see that from there?

Oh, yeah.

[Kru] Look at that smile.

You're ear to frickin' ear, buddy.

[Adam] It's a good one.

Check out this baby.

-Oh, wow... -[laughing] I know, man.

-Wow... -I know, eh?

-That's beautiful. -That's beautiful.

[Kru] That's a huge indicator.

Finding copper is a huge thing,

because these elements all come together.

Copper, silver, gold, platinum.

It's literally what we're looking for.

-Oh, this has got weight on it. -I know, eh?

Like, if this was a nugget, oh, my God,

there's almost an ounce right here.

Beautiful specimen piece.

[Narrator] There's plenty of copper,

but is there any gold?

[Adam] Yeah, we should actually XRF this.

[Narrator] The XRF spectrometer

can help I. D. other minerals,

and reveal

whether Brown found more than copper

in this spot.

How much gold are we finding?

No gold.

[Kru groans]

Lots of copper.

[Narrator] And one more critical element.

A massive amount of arsenic.

3.25%.

How much?

-Three? -3.2...

It's the third highest mineral.

Holy [bleep].

[Narrator] Arsenic is highly toxic.

In water,

the World Health Organisation

deems any level above ten parts per billion

unsafe to drink.

It's arsenic accumulation.

You don't know you're dying until you're almost dead.

There's more arsenic in here than anything!

Oh, my God, that's all the water down here.

Don't drink the water.

This is high level concentrations.

This isn't little parts per million.

This is the third highest element

inside of these structures.

This is a poisonous mountain.

It makes sense

how so many miners came out here and died.

[Narrator] And it may explain

the mysterious illness of one prospector in particular.

[Kru] We wouldn't even have the Walter Jackson letter

if it wasn't for him getting sick.

He got so sick

that when he left,

he was never able to come back again.

That's why he wrote the letter.

[Kru] Poisoning.

Thinking he's drinking glacier water,

and the whole time

it's the highest concentration of arsenic.

That's serious, man.

[Narrator] At the end of Volcanic Brown's last trail,

new evidence shines light on the Jackson mystery,

and for Adam,

answers about his hero, Volcanic Brown.

That rock is the best evidence we have.

You have everything--

everything.

Everything except the gold.

Oh, I'm 100% sure

that 11 ounces of gold came from here.

Volcanic Brown could have picked this thing clean of gold.

[Narrator] This may be Volcanic Brown's gold source,

but it's not Slumach's legendary motherlode.

[Adam] We didn't find his gold,

but this has been an incredible trip.

We're gonna find the lost gold,

100%.

[Kru] At the end of the day,

all the puzzle pieces are coming together.

We're on the right paths.

We're tracking the right people and the right places.

We know it's not here, right?

So now it's gotta be someplace else.

Let's go get it!

[Narrator] Next time on Deadman's Curse...

Bernard Rover was smart.

If he did find something, it's still there.

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

-Oh, Slumach's actual words. -That's crazy.

-[Taylor] Guys, over here! -[Adam] Found it? Holy!

[Taylor] Here's the cabin.

I do not like to talk about the curse.

[Don] Holy [bleep]

Why is it going so crazy?

[detector beeps, Adam laughs]

Don't ever say it's not here.

If you misbehave here, you're gonna have consequences.

[Adam] This is it.

-[Taylor] Holy! -[Don] Wow! -[Adam] It goes.

[♪♪♪♪♪]